When the first lockdown began in March 2020, one of the few things to disappear from supermarket shelves in Naples was yeast. Everyone was forced to stay home, where many got the idea to make pizza – baked, fried and stuffed. The result was that by mid-March, yeast was almost impossible to find. Fights broke out in grocery stores over packets of yeast. But I had my own secret reserves: Antonio ‘o fresellaro’s mother yeast. You see, on March 20 (at which point going out for food shopping was allowed), I escaped from home for a brief trip to buy Antonio Di Paolo’s freselle (twice-baked bread). While I was there, Antonio gifted me a piece of his family’s most precious treasure: their mother yeast.