Venetian cuisine bears little
trace of the city's past as
Europe's trading crossroads, when
spices from the East were among
the most lucrative commodities
sold in Venice's markets. Nowadays
Venetian food is known for its
simplicity, with plain pepper and
salt as the principal means of
gingering up a meal.
Fish and
seafood dominate the
restaurant menus, the former being
netted in the Adriatic and the
rivers and lakes of the mainland,
the latter coming from the lagoon
and open sea. Prawns, squid and
octopus are typical Venetian
antipasti
(usually served with a plain
dressing of olive oil and lemon),
as are Murano crabs and
sarde
in saor (marinated sardines).
Dishes like eel cooked in Marsala
wine,
baccalà (salt cod)
and
seppioline nere (baby
cuttlefish cooked in its own ink)
are other Venetian staples, but
the quintessential dish is the
risotto
, made with rice grown along the
Po valley. Apart from the seafood
variety (
risotto bianco ,
risotto
di mare or
risotto dei
pescatori ), you'll come
across risottos that incorporate
some of the great range of
vegetables grown in the Veneto,
and others that draw on such
diverse ingredients as snails,
tripe, quails and sausages.
Venetian soups are as
versatile as their risottos, with brodetto
(mixed fish) and pasta e fasioi
(pasta and beans) being the most
popular kinds. Polenta is
another recurrent feature of
Venetian meals; made by slowly
stirring maize flour into boiling
salted water, it's served as an
accompaniment to a number of
dishes, in particular liver ( fegato
), a special favourite in Venice.
Pastries and sweets are
also an area of Venetian
expertise. Look out for the thin
oval biscuits called baicoli
, the ring-shaped cinnamon-flavoured
bussolai (a speciality of
Burano), and mandolato - a
cross between nougat and toffee,
made with almonds. The Austrian
occupation has left its mark in
the form of the ubiquitous strudel
and the cream- or jam-filled krapfen
(doughnuts).
Particular foods are
traditional to certain feast
days . During Carnevale you
can buy small doughnuts known as frittelle
, which come plain, con frutta
(with fruit), con crema
(confectioner's cream) or con
zabaglione (which is made out
of egg yolks and Marsala). During
Lent there's an even greater
emphasis on fish, and also on
omelettes ( frittata ),
often made with shrimps and wild
asparagus; lamb is popular at
Easter. On Ascension Day it's
customary to have pig's trotter,
either plain or stuffed, while for
the feast of the Redentore (third
Sunday in July) sarde in saor
or roast duck are in order. Tiny
biscuits called fave
("beans") fill the pasticcerie
around All Saints' Day and All
Souls' Day (November 1 & 2);
on the feast of Saint Martin
(November 11) you get biscuits or
heavy quince jelly cut into the
shape of the saint on his horse;
and on the feast of the Madonna
della Salute (November 21) it's
traditional to have castradina
(salted smoked mutton). On
Christmas Eve many Venetians eat
eel, usually grilled, though with
variations from island to island;
on Christmas Day the traditional
dishes are roast turkey, veal,
duck or capon.
Many of the wines of the
Veneto will already be familiar,
especially Valpolicella
(red), Bardolino (red) and Soave
(white) - the Veneto produces more
DOC ( Denominazione di origine
controllata ) wine than any
other region, and this trio of
Veronese wines comprises the bulk
of exported quality Italian wine.
Far more rarely exported is Prosecco
, light, champagne-like wine from
the area around Conegliano - don't
miss a chance to sample Prosecco
Rosé and the delicious Cartizze
, the finest type of Prosecco.
Wines from neighbouring Friuli are
well worth exploring too: the most
common reds are Pinot Nero,
Refosco, Raboso, Merlot and
Cabernet, with Tocai, Pinot Bianco
and Sauvignon the most common
whites. Grappa is the local
fire-water - associated
particularly with the town of
Bassano del Grappa, it's made from
grapes, juniper berries or plums,
and will take your head off if you
don't exercise a degree of
caution.
Apart from coffee in its
manifold varieties, non-alcoholic
drinks include: frullati
, a milk shake made with fruit;
freshly squeezed fruit juice ( spremuta
), which is usually d'arancia
(orange), pompelmo
(grapefruit), limone
(lemon) or mele (apple);
and granita , which is
crushed ice with syrup (often
coffee-flavoured).
