By: Martina Celegato
Submitted: 2009-08-14 08:23:31 | Word Count: 613
Veneto is one of the Italian regions that can better conjugate the ancient recipes with the experimentation of new tastes. The venetian cuisine is also one of the richest of the whole peninsula, joining together both the more “poor” foods as legumes, vegetables, rice and pasta, and most popular foods such as meat, sausages and fish, which remains the most consumed food.
There are many fish typical of this cuisine, both of sea water and fresh water; we just have to think about the numerous rivers such as the Adige, the Po River, the Garda Lake and the Adriatic Sea. In fact, the flavor and taste of Venetian food rise from the islands, a long time ago; later they mix each other and confound each other with the ingredients and aromas of mainland products, with a culinary imagination supported by food experiences picked up during merchants’ travels in Middle East. The ancient “broeto” and the shellfish soups are a strong indication, as the richness and variety of fish dishes, roasted, on the grill, tasty fried, stewed (stewed cuttlefish) to the exciting “saor” (ancient Venetian recipe with onions sweet-and-sour).
But the original characteristic remains faithful to the ancient origin, where fishing, hunting and horticulture offered products and ingredients to the Venetian cuisine.
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Numerous are the typical dishes of the Venetian cuisine, the repertoire is very varied and wise, even in the apparently simplest dishes. In all the seven provinces, we can find dishes made with two basic elements, the presence of corn flour and the frequent use in the recipes of ingredients of clearly eastern origin, as spices, raisins and more.
The Padua cuisine has humble origins, with a wide use of poultry and garden products prepared without spices or exotic ingredients. It is worthwhile to point out, in addition to the classic Venetian “risi e bisi” (rice and peas), that in Padua restaurants we can enjoy specialties such as the “oca in onto” (goose with grease), the rice with “rovinassi” (chicken giblets) and the roasted or broth capon. Among desserts, there is the “smegiazza”, a cake made with mashed polenta, biscuit bread, milk, molasses, eggs and pine nuts.
The Treviso cuisine is famous all over the world especially for the delicate and refined radicchio that accompanies all dishes, meat and fish, rice and even fried. Another specialty is the “risotto al tajo” flavored with shrimp and eel. Treviso is also famous for a particular luganega (sausage), which is bagged and tied so as to be divided into four segments.
In the venetian cuisine, risottos, vegetables or beans soups, steaming polenta, gnocchi and tasty “bigoli” (type of long and thick pasta) honour the field of starters, while among the main courses the fish imposes with carps, trout, sardines, scallops, spiny spider crab, eel, cuttlefish and soups.
The meat is prepared in a very simple way and the dishes include many wild and yard animals, as well as traditional sauces as the historic “pastizada de caval Veronese”.
Traditional is also the processing of pork, just think about the delicious house salami, spicy and left a long time to mature in humid cellars.
We can also find several species of mushrooms, about four hundred and some of them are marketed, as the “sbrise”.
A rich and tasty cuisine, adapt also to the most demanding palates, that with this wide choice will not have to wait long to find on the menu at least one or more dishes able to satisfy them.
