Crossroads of the world

Crossroads of the world
Venezia (VE)
Magazine: August 2007

The wave caused by the Biennale of contemporary art, that for over a century has been invading the famous water city with a wealth of international novelties, has returned to the Venetian summer. Rapida (29 August – 8 September) is just as impetuous. The film festival lays out the red carpet to the art week on the Lido Island where it is ready to celebrate 75 years with 20 fi lms in attendance. Both events wake up Venice with a wave of modernity and futurism that seems to clash with the tranquil image of the city, perfect and suspended in time, a holographic setting of a painting. The mixtures of culture and style in Venice are evident, starting from the place that everyone knows and loves without ever having visited it: St. Mark’s cathedral.

Simple, but at the same time complex. The Venetian cuisine essential in it’s choice of locally sourced ingredients fi sh and lagoon fowl plus an ample selection of vegetables that thanks to the mild, salty sea air are excellent and abundant) but also tinged with infl uences that over the centuries have entered the port from east and west, in a never ending blend of tastes and fl avours. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt, pepper and saffron. The spices arrived from the Orient in the Middle Ages and lingered in the Venetian cuisine. According to history, warehouses in the 1400’s hoarded 5000 tons of supplies, some for export, the rest assigned to the local dishes. The fi rst coffee shop Chatting at the bar was opened here in 1683; twenty-two were thriving a century later. 1720 saw the birth of one of the most elegant of these, originally named “Alla Venezia trionfante” and later Caffè Florian after its fi rst owner Floriano Francesconi. Frequented by the best of Venetian society, it offered coffee and oriental wines and its patrons from Carlo Goldoni to Casanova, from Lord Byron to Stravinsky made it famous over the centuries. Nowadays, a coffee or cocktail at Florian is the rule for rubbing shoulders with a piece of history. Close by, another famous bar the Lavena, experiments with and recreates traditional coffee shop recipes dating back to 1750.

A taste of cicheti and friti
Another typical Venetian meeting place to be experienced is the bacaro. It is unclear if the word derives from Bacco, the God of wine, or from an expression used by connoisseurs that defi ne the quality - “proprio un vino di bacche” – of the drink made from the berry of the grape. What is certain is that in the traditional osterie cleverly redecorated to look fashionably shabby you can nibble at cicheti (Latin for ciccus, tiny portions) of typical dishes such as sardines in saor, tripe, fried salt cod, folpetti (steamed octopus with lemon vinaigrette or a touch of salt). Rice takes the place of honour on the list of ingredients exchanged over the centuries between Venice and the Orient: in the medieval ages it was costly and sold by the grain in spice shops for medicinal use, while in the kitchen it was ground and added to thicken soups. In 1500 it became the basic ingredient on the Venetian menu, thanks to measures taken by the Ducal government that freed the production from taxes and duties. The Venetian rice is served in a variety of ways but most traditionally with “bisi” (local lagoon peas) or with ghiozzo, a tiny bony fi sh found increasingly more rarely in the lagoon. Fancy an excellent “risotto di go”? Try Da Romano on the isle of Burano, famous for lace making and the pretty pastel coloured fi sherman’s houses.

Subject to numerous restorations, that from the IX century to the 800’s have contributed to create the present look, San Marco is the only Venetian square to boast the name “piazza”; the others are defined as “campi”