Caprese Skewers with Balsamic

Use room temperature tomatoes for best flavor. Quality matters: get fresh mozzarella packed in water, not pre-shredded. Aged balsamic is worth it - no need to reduce.

Insalata caprese — the salad whose components these skewers carry — is named after the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples. Its origins are traced to the Hotel Quisisana on Capri in the 1920s, where it was reportedly assembled for dinners hosted by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of the Italian Futurist movement and vocal critic of the heavy pasta-based cooking he believed was slowing the Italian temperament. The dish's three ingredients — red tomato, white mozzarella, and green basil — mirror the three colours of the Italian tricolore flag, a correspondence that was noted early and helped fix the salad as a patriotic emblem. The dish remained largely a Capri specialty until the early 1950s, when the deposed Egyptian King Farouk, living in exile on the island and reportedly ordering a version of it daily, brought it to wider international attention via the glamorous postwar crowd that made Capri fashionable. Traditional Italian caprese contains no vinegar of any kind — Italian cooks have consistently held that the acidity of vinegar overwhelms the delicate flavour of fresh mozzarella. The balsamic drizzle is a restaurant invention, added for drama and a subtle sweetness that plays well against the salt of the cheese. Skewering the components is a modern canapé adaptation, converting a plated salad into a shareable party bite without altering a single ingredient.