Neapolitan Pizza Wins Protected Status

EU moves to protect 'mother of all pizzas' from imitations
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 10, 2009 1:25 AM CST
Neapolitan Pizza Wins Protected Status
The protected status will be "a milestone and, above all, a way to stop stuff that isn't really pizza being touted as such," said the head of an industry group.   (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Is the base more than an eighth-of-an-inch thick? Mozzarella from cows, not buffalo? Tomatoes not San Marzano? If not, that's not a Neapolitan pizza and you'll now be breaking EU law if you call it one. Neapolitan pizza—according to many, the mother of all pizzas—was granted the EU's "Traditional Specialty Guaranteed" label yesterday to protect producers from cheap imitations, the Telegraph reports.

Pizza makers from Naples to New York must now strictly conform to approved methods and ingredients to be able to call their pizzas Neapolitan. "Europe has crowned the work and tenacity of Neapolitan producers," said Italy's agriculture minister, hailing a product which "for too long has been the subject of imitations which have nothing to do with real Neapolitan pizza." (More neapolitan pizza stories.)

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