KNOWLEDGE AND FLAVOURS

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As well as Prosecco, Treviso’s cuisine is not just famous for its renowned Spiedo. There is another ingredient that is all the rage on family dining tables and on TV screens: red radicchio. In fact, there are many varieties of radicchio, each with its own distinctive shape and colour, but the undisputed king among them is the Radicchio Rosso di Treviso PGI.

 

The cultivation takes place in the area bordered by the River Sile, where the spring water allows the spears to be blanched during the winter. Another famous variety of radicchio is the Variegato di Castelfranco IGP. Along the banks of the River Piave, on the sands deposited over the millennia, asparagus cultivation has expanded, particularly that of white asparagus. It is a spring delicacy that keeps many farming families busy in the countryside around Ormelle, San Polo, Maserada and Cimadolmo. Asparagus is also grown in Badoere, which is well worth a visit for its spectacular porticoed rotunda. Among the typical dishes are ‘asparagus with eggs’ and ‘asparagus velouté’.

 

All this is best enjoyed with a good glass of wine: fine DOC and DOCG wines, including the world-famous Prosecco, the full-bodied red wines of the Piave such as Raboso, and those from the Colli Asolani and Montello regions. Among the products that pair well are cheeses, from the creamy Casatella PDO to Formajo Imbriago and the cheeses of the Grappa area (Morlacco and Bastardo), cured meats such as Treviso soppressa, cherries from the Colli Asolani, chestnuts from Combai, mushrooms and potatoes from Montello, and peppers from Zero Branco.

 

The abundance of water attracts ducks and geese, whilst in the town it was customary to hunt young pigeons. Birds, rabbits and game are served with peverada sauce, made from the animal’s minced offal seasoned with plenty of pepper.

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Pork was the ‘staple meat’ in rural areas, as were beef tripe, of which there is a ‘Trevigiana-style’ variant cooked for a long time in beef broth. A province rich in water cannot overlook fish, starting with trout, although the queen of the table was the eel (bisàta): it can be cooked in técia (“in a pot”, i.e. stewed) or all’ara (grilled). And we end on a sweet note with Tiramisu: tasty and delicate, it is made up of layers of mascarpone and ladyfingers soaked in coffee, with a final dusting of cocoa. Its origins are disputed between Veneto, Friuli and Tuscany, but it seems to have been created in the Treviso restaurant ‘Alle Beccherie’ in the late 1960s, as the food and wine expert Giuseppe Maffioli wrote. The name of the dessert in the Venetian dialect, tiramisu, is said to have been adopted for its nutritional properties, although some mischievously claim that the name is due to its supposed aphrodisiac effects.