Eat like a Venetian
Not many visitors to Venice come home raving about the food – but they just don’t know where to look
Eat like a Venetian
Eat where the locals eat for a true taste of Venice’s rich culinary heritage
words: rory ross
VENICE’S RISE TO glory, riches and sophistication bequeathed the world an unparalleled legacy of art, music and architecture. But where Venice seems to fall down is in the kitchen. Can you think of a Venetian dish that has successfully exported itself abroad and made the same impact as, say, pizza, spaghetti Bolognese, pesto and carbonara? Quite. That’s because there isn’t one. Squid ink risotto doesn’t have the same populist ring to it. People returning from holidays in Venice go into swooning raptures about the wondrous canalled labyrinth and Piazza San Marco, but stay strangely silent when canvassed on the food. Yet Venetian food is historically among the richest, most complex and multi-faceted cuisines of the boot. Where did it go wrong? Can 67,000 Venetians all eat rubbish?
To delve into the mysterious disappearance of Venetian cuisine, I turned to Fred Plotkin, author of the just-reissued Italy for the Gourmet Traveller. A New Yorker who majored in Venetian history, he claims empathy with the Venetian predicament. “Venice and New York are island cities and seats of empire,” he explains. “As economic capitals, they had large mercantile classes and citizens who looked beyond their mainland nation. They valued genius and creativity above the ability to seize and maintain power.”
The Venetian empire, of course, imploded soon after Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, discovered America. Plotkin lets the inference that New York is Venice’s natural successor hang tantalisingly in the air.
According to the author, Venetian food hasn’t disappeared; it’s merely lying low, far from the tourist traps. “Oh, it exists; you just have to look for it. The problem is that most visitors don’t bother, and eat what they think is Venetian food, but isn’t.“
What is Venetian cuisine? You might think that, being maritime, Venice is all about fins, scales, shells, tentacles and claws. Wrong. “The Venetian empire was as much land- as sea-based,” says Plotkin. “The Venetian empire contained the entro terra, the land behind, known as the Veneto.” The chief Veneto cities – Vicenza, Padova, Treviso – all have their own specialities: Vicenza has codfish and asagio cheese; Padova has “the second-best food markets in Italy after Bologna”; Treviso is the home of radicchio, and, of course, of tiramisu, the popular dessert made of sponge fingers, coffee, bitter chocolate, mascarpone and cream.
“Some of the best vegetables and game in Italy come from the fields and hunting grounds of the Veneto,” says Plotkin. “Osei, game birds, feature prominently. Polenta is the starch of choice, often served soft. Risotto rice originated from Marco Polo, who was raised in Venice. Veneto’s wines, Bardolino, Valpolicella and Soave, are among the best in Italy. Also look out for Prosecco from Treviso; Amarone, a Veronese red; and Bianco di Custoza.”
At its height, Venice was Europe’s greatest spice port, a trading post between Europe and Byzantium. While Italian cuisines are often herb-infused, Venice prefers the magic-carpet ride of star anise, ginger and cinnamon. “Kid braised in nutmeg and Cabernet Franc; saffron risotto; ricotta with cinnamon,” drools Plotkin. “Visitors to Venice seldom encounter these dishes because most of them dine at restaurants geared to tourists, where, sadly, the level of cooking is probably the lowest quality of any major city in Italy.”
According to Plotkin, the problem arises when you ask Venetians to cook non-Venetian food. Italians are the greatest interpreters of their own home cooking, but the worst abusers of anyone else’s. “Carbonara comes from Rome,” says Plotkin, “pizza from Naples”. To ask a Venetian to cook these dishes is like asking a Roma fan to back Lazio. “Generally, dishes are better in their local habitat because of pride as much as ingredients.”
What are the classic Venetian dishes? Bigoli in salsa, whole-wheat pasta prepared with anchovy or sardine sauce, traditionally eaten on religious festivals; pasta e fagioli, a soup of pasta and beans; risi e bisi, pea risotto which the Doge (elected Chief of State when Venice was a republic city state, before Napoleon turned up in 1797) ate on the feast day of St Mark; moleche, soft shell crabs caught around carnival time (February), when they moult their shells, often served with sautéed carciofi, artichokes. Another speciality, schie, are tiny grey shrimps tossed into risotto or eaten deep-fried like popcorn. Yet another Venetian classic, fegato alla Veneziana, is calves’ liver sweetened with onion: the Romans used figs, hence ‘fegato’.
The Venetians like un’ombra, their first drink, at about 10am. Ombra ordinarily translates as shade, but in Venice it also means the first nip of the day. “We’re talking about one glass of wine, not five,” cautions Plotkin. “With it, you would eat cicchetti, a snack, typically baccalà mantecato, salt cod whisked with olive oil and eaten on toast, traditionally made with Baltic cod, which was traded for spices.”
When it comes to more substantial requirements, Plotkin advises tossing aside your guidebook while ignoring the exhortations of gondoliers and concierges. “Don’t waste a calorie opportunity on mediocre tourist food,” he says. “I don’t mean eat fancily. I mean that you should eat what, when and where the locals eat. If they eat baccalà mantecato at 10am, then so will I.
“Move away from the city centre and follow your nose,” Plotkin continues. “My nose tells me a lot. In America they have studied the Plotkin nose. I was once asked to smell a dish and name the 22 ingredients that it contained. I smelled 23. I was right. They’d forgotten one.”
I have a more fundamental theory about Venetian cuisine. Venice is a byword for sophistication. In architecture, opera, music, art, literature, food, whatever, it doesn’t do low-brow. This, after all, is the city that had 17 opera houses in the 18th century. The classic Italian staples – pizza and pasta – are peasant dishes, and Venice never really bothered with peasants. If you turn up to Venice without being aware of this, and demand pizza, the Venetians will punish you for it, even though you may not realise it until too late.
Italy for the Gourmet Traveller by Fred Plotkin, published by Kyle Cathie (£14.99)
