The Cuisine of Veneto - A Mixed Culinary Palette
Feb 29 '04 (Updated Jan 03 '07)
The Bottom Line Veneto's cuisine has less pizazz than those of some other regions of Italy. But there are still riches worth exploring.
Those of you who have followed my travel reviews for a while will know that I adore Italy and I most especially adore eating there. Each region of this country is a veritable treasure trove of specialties and traditions when it comes to cooking and eating. So it goes without saying that I was very much looking forward to my week and a half visit to the region of Veneto at the beginning of this year. This was my first glimpse of the region and I was keen to discover another culinary paradise, like to rival the one I found in Umbria.
We divided our nine days evenly between Venice, the major tourist draw of the region, and the more rural town of Bassano del Grappa, which served as a base of exploration of the northern central part of Veneto. We found that the remarkably diverse geography of Veneto has produced quite a large variation in the dishes from one part of this region to the next. In this regard, Veneto differs from some of the other regions of Italy, where the regional cucina is more homogenous from town to town.
Sadly, I have to report that as a whole the cuisine of Veneto doesn't hold a candle to Umbrian food. Though to be completely fair about this, very little does. It is entirely possible that Veneto's table is particularly impoverished during the winter and utterly ravishing in spring or summer. I don't mean to cast aspersions unfairly, and my opinions are formed on the basis of a single wintertime visit, so keep that caveat in mind as you read on. Should I ever have the opportunity to update this review based on a return visit in another season, rest assured that I will.
While Veneto borders the Adriatic to the east, its northern limits extend through the Dolomite Mountains to the border of Austria. To the southwest is a small region suitable for olive cultivation known as the "Olive Riviera," along Lake Garda. And southern Veneto is one large alluvial plain where corn and rice for the region's two staples - polenta and risotto - are grown along the Adige river.
Polenta is the cheaper and more widely consumed staple of Veneto's cuisine. You will encounter this form of cornmeal on menus everywhere, served either warm, soft and sloppy, or cooled, sliced and grilled or fried. Polenta is a remarkably cheap but hearty starch that can accommodate main dishes and help fill you up. All the polenta we had was made with yellow cornmeal, though I understand that white cornmeal is sometimes also used. It is commonly served as a side dish or appetizer and often paired with hearty meat stews.
Risotto is a hearty, bone-warming dish prepared from special rice cultivars. There are several varieties grown for this dish, the most widely known being Arborio rice. Carnaroli and Vialone Nano varieties are also grown in Veneto and are considered superior to Arborio. (This is why Arborio rice is the variety most commonly exported to the States and other countries. The Italians, regardless of the region they hail from, keep all the best ingredients for themselves at home and jettison the rest. And who can blame them? No fools, those Italians.) All the different kinds of rice used for risotto have a high starch content, and the method of cooking releases these starches to create a thick sauce around the grains. In Venice sepia, or squid ink, is a popular addition to the dish, as are mixed shellfish. Elsewhere, cooks add any number of vegetables to the dish. We found that risotto did not appear frequently on the menus of restaurants in the northern part of the region, but we saw it frequently in Venice.
Radicchio, being a winter crop, is the vegetable we encountered most often in Veneto, whether in Venice itself or elsewhere around the region. I'd never been particularly fond of the radicchio I'd known in the States, so I was surprised to find that there were several varieties of radicchio here, and also to find that I developed an appreciation for some of them. The radicchio I've seen in the States looks like a tiny rounded head of crinkly cabbage, except that the leaves are deep red mixed with white. In my experience, the vegetable had always had a pronounced bitter flavor with nothing to counter or balance the bitterness.
In Veneto, this winter staple is carefully grown under strict conditions to produce open leafy heads of pale yellow-green leaves flecked with spots of crimson, of a size and shape that resembles a head of butter lettuce. This variety is called Chioggia radicchio. Alternatively, the radicchio trevisano is forced to take on a compact, spidery, nearly tentacled head with long narrow white leaves edged in a deep purple-red hue. The very labor-intensive process that goes into growing the different varieties means that this vegetable commands high prices, especially outside of the region.
I found that I enjoyed the taste of this vegetable when it was cooked and served to accompany rich meat dishes. So cherished is this versatile vegetable that the city of Treviso holds a festival in honor of it each winter. I also recently enjoyed some radicchio trevisano in Umbria just a couple weeks ago. There it was served very simply: raw, garnished with the incomparable Umbrian extra-virgin olive oil and lightly salted. It was magnificent.
Veneto is also known for its mushrooms, both fresh and dried. Even during our wintertime visit, the local cuisine was heavily infused with porcini and other local mushrooms. Plenty of shops in Bassano del Grappa sold dried mushrooms in large packages. If you're a mushroom freak, this is one part of Italy you should make a point to see.
Due to the timing of our trip, we missed the other big specialties of the region: asparagus and cherries. Asparagus is grown in both green and white varieties and celebrated in the spring with an asparagus festival. I understand that the vegetable is served with oil and chopped hardboiled eggs. The town of Marostica, which we visited only briefly, holds a cherry festival in the late spring as well.
Most remarkable for me was the relative scarcity of olive oil in the food I ate while in Veneto. Only a small part of this region can support the cultivation of olives, so the cucina has traditionally relied heavily on butter as the primary fat. From what we could tell, the cooks of this region weren't shy about slathering their food with butter.
In fact, butter often seemed to be the major ingredient in the pasta sauces of Veneto. Even fish-based pasta sauces turned out rather heavy with the addition of butter. While dishes of pasta always looked as though they were sauced rather sparingly, the rich ingredients in the sauces went a long way. Filled pastas seemed to be uncommon in Veneto - I can't recall ever seeing any form of ravioli or tortellini on a menu there. The local noodle is called bigoli and it's pretty much what you would expect from its name: a big ol' noodle. Bigoli is a large, cylindrical, extruded noodle, about as long as a strand of spaghetti, but more than a quarter of an inch in diameter. Bigoli d'anatra is the prototypical pasta dish of the region, a hearty dish of chewy-tender noodles with a fine duck ragu sauce. We sampled it more than once and found it very good.
Other noodles such as pappardelle and tagliolini were somewhat popular as well. In Venice squid ink is used also for saucing fish pastas, while in the northern part of Veneto rich sauces of game predominate. Gnocchi also made regular appearances on the menus we saw, and were dressed with a wide variety of both meat and vegetable based sauces.
I never had a dish of pasta in Veneto that lacked flavor, though we found in general that many dishes were under-salted to our taste. Otherwise, these rich flavors tended to be meaty and deep rather than spicy or very peppy. The cuisine of Veneto does not rely heavily on garlic or the pungent flavors of olives, capers or the sun dried tomatoes that Americans and other foreigners frequently associate with "Italian" food.
Venice, being the watery, reclaimed land that it is, doesn't produce much in the way of food. Obviously, there's no way to raise crops or animals in the city, and it's not even a suitable environment for aging cheeses or wines. In earlier years of course, it could at least supply itself with fish. But these days the Adriatic is a basically a polluted backwater of the entirely over-fished Mediterranean. No matter how much the city's traditional cuisine relied on the bounty of the lagoon, little of the fish served today in Venice is local.
The lack of cheese in Venice seemed rather odd to us, though it made sense logically of course. We did remark its absence however and found we enjoyed exploring the cheeses of northern part of the region once we got there. Asiago cheese will be familiar to many readers, I'm sure. This town is in northwestern Veneto and produces its eponymous cheese in several varieties that will most likely be unfamiliar to Americans. Asiago is a sharp cow's milk cheese that can be found in a wide range of ages. Creamy Scamorza is also popular here, including a lovely smoked variety.
And just as each region of Italy has its particular vegetables and cheeses, each one also has a range of dried sausages. In Veneto, the sopressa salami takes precedence. I was expecting a highly aged and intensely flavored sausage, but it turned out to be something quite different. Sopressa is a semi-hard salami seasoned with cloves and peppercorns. Less aged and with a higher water content than I imagined, the flavor was rather mild but pleasant. Since an entire sopressa salami is only about 4 inches in diameter and 9 inches long, we bought an entire one and brought it home with us.
Venice is known for a few culinary institutions, as opposed to actual products. And two of these practices go hand-in-hand. The umbra is a late afternoon glass of something alcoholic, enjoyed somewhere in the shade, away from the glare of the Venetian sun. Italians in general find it somewhat uncivilized to drink without eating something. That's where the cicchetti come in. These are bite-size sniblets of food to wash down with the local Prosecco or whatever you're having for your umbra. Cicchetti (say "chee-KET-tee") might consist of tiny, whole fried fish or tiny sandwiches with a single slice of salami. These "little bites" resemble Spanish tapas in their casualness if not in their culinary particulars.
And speaking of alcohol, there are a number of drinks peculiar to this region. One special variety of wine indigenous to Veneto is Prosecco, a sparkling white that we found consistently decent to excellent. Prosecco is rarely bone dry, like so many champagnes can be. But neither is it sickly sweet. Served nicely chilled, it offers a fruity and perky flavor without too much alcohol. Occasionally we came across Prosecco with a rather yeasty nose, but somehow this didn't make it unpalatable.
Harry's Bar in Venice created the quintessential Venetian mixed drink: the Belini - a mixture of fresh peach juice or peach puree and Prosecco. Once you've tried this drink, you'll see that the two flavors were destined for one another. It's a very refreshing mixture; but it goes down dangerously easy and can go straight to your head. Sadly, our visit was in the winter, so we didn't get to try this drink sitting out somewhere on a lovely square in the evening sun. If your visit is during the summer, be sure do so.
Veneto also produces some fine Merlots and Cabernets, which we especially enjoyed. Soave is also produced in this region, and some of it is even worth drinking, despite the abysmal quality of the stuff they export. If you're interested in sampling a wide range of good local wines, it never hurts to locate a good enoteca and chat up the proprietors. They know their local vintages, and you may well be surprised to find that you enjoy varieties of wine that you've only experienced the worst of by buying them at home.
And in the town of Bassano del Grappa, guess what they make? Grappa is a powerfully alcoholic (80-90 proof), colorless and clear liquor made from the dregs of winemaking. Stems, skins and other leftover bits of grapes are fermented and the resulting alcohol distilled and refined. This liquor is frequently infused with many different flavors. We encountered blackberry grappa, sage grappa and grapefruit grappa. These are prepared by simply letting the other ingredients steep in the liquor for some days and then straining out the solids. Many households in this region make their own infusions in this simple way.
Bar Nardini in Bassano del Grappa makes a special red variety of grappa according to an old and secret recipe. This grappa rossa is not widely distributed, and so it would most likely be difficult to find outside of Bassano. There's a mixed drink called the Nardini, made from red grappa, seltzer water and a wedge of lemon. We found it....not bad.
Panettone, a large, tall round loaf of sweet bread studded with dried fruits or chocolate bits, is a beloved staple of the holiday season all around Italy. We were able to find plenty of this good stuff around New Year's and had a large slice of it served to us with custard for dessert in one restaurant in Venice. If you happen to be in Italy around the holidays, panettone is one culinary treasure that should pose no problem as a souvenir to take home with you.
The timing and other details of dining in Veneto are much the same as they are elsewhere in Italy. Sit down meals are available at specific times; generally 12:00 to 2:00 for lunch and from 8pm onwards for dinner. Do not expect formal restaurants to serve you lunch if you show up at 2:30. While they may be "open" to finish their service for their customers, they will likely turn away latecomers at that hour. Likewise, do not expect to find most restaurants open and ready to serve you at 8pm. Dinner generally begins no earlier than 8:30 and it is not unusual for patrons to show up for dinner at 10pm. If you need a quick bite to tide you over between meals, find an enoteca or a carry-out pizza place. These sorts of establishments plug the gap, but they are usually not places to have a "real" meal or to socialize in any but the most casual manner. It is always advisable to make reservations for your dinner in Italy. Reservations are a sign of respect for the business and may secure you a table when you would otherwise be turned away at the door, even when there is space available. Reservations are less necessary at lunch, though not a bad idea if you want to eat at a busy place. Calling ahead, even if only half an hour in advance, is always a good practice.
Dining out is largely an adult activity in Italy. The only times I have ever seen children in restaurants there were lunches on weekends. Even at those times I never saw very young children in restaurants, and the parents were careful about disciplining their children to not disturb the atmosphere with too much noise or activity. Those traveling with small children should be aware of this and either make arrangements for babysitting, have extremely well-behaved and quiet children, or prepare for the possibility of a negative vibe from the proprietors and other customers.
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As in my review of Umbrian cuisine, I've decided to end with a lovely recipe I picked up in Veneto. It's for a simple dessert called Fregolotta. (The accent falls on the third syllable in case anyone cares.) This word means something like "crumbly" in the Venetian dialect, and you will understand why when you see the texture of this rather healthy, mildly sweet dessert. I was given this recipe with the ingredients listed by weight. The volumetric quantities are my own conversions. Two hundred grams converts to about seven English ounces (by weight) if it's any help.
1 1/4 cup(200 grams) pastry flour
3/4 cup (200 grams) sugar
1 cup (200 grams) ground almonds or walnuts
a pinch of salt
1 egg, plus one egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon olive oil
1+ teaspoon milk (if needed)
Preheat your oven to 180C/350F. Prepare two 9" springform or regular cake pans by placing them on sheets of wax paper. Trace the outline of the bottom of the pans on the paper and cut the circles out to line the pans. You do not need to grease the pans.
In a mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients and make a well in the center of the mixture. Crack the whole egg into the well, and add the egg yolk, the vanilla extract and the olive oil. Working with your hands, mix the wet and dry ingredients together until a crumbly mixture forms. If the mixture is too dry and powdery to hold together at all, add a little bit of milk, no more than one teaspoon at a time. The mixture should cohese just enough to form small crumbly pieces, not large sticky pieces. There's no avoiding sticky hands, I'm afraid.
Divide the mixture evenly between the two baking pans and pat the mixture to form an even layer a little less than half an inch (1cm) thick. Put the pans in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. When done it should have a slightly golden color, but do not allow the mixture to darken noticeably.
Take the Fregolotta out of the oven and allow it to cool to room temperature. When cool, you should be able to lift the entire layer of Fregolotta out of each pan in one piece. The Fregolotta cannot be sliced neatly; it will crumble into pieces as you break off each portion. Just go with it. This is an informal, family dish to be eaten with the hands.
In Bassano del Grappa, where I learned this recipe, it is typical to munch on Fregolotta after dinner, over a glass of wine and conversation. I was also told that a cooled Fregolotta can be warmed slightly in the oven, doused with grappa and then flambéed to pleasant effect. I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds good.
Enjoy!
If you're looking for further information on Veneto, you might find these reviews useful:
• Hotel Ai Mori d'Oriente - a lovely new hotel in Venice's Cannareggio neighborhood
• Venice - the good, the bad and the gorgeous of La Serenissima
• Venicescapes - an excellent small-group day-tour operator
• Bassano del Grappa - an excellent choice for a daytrip or side trip from Venice
For further reading, you might also enjoy:
• Umbrian cuisine - an overview of a sister cuisine to the south of the Veneto
• Eating In Italy -still the best guide there is to dining in northern Italy
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