Treviso Food & Wine
Food (Cibo)
Boiled meat is a dish that is common in Treviso cooking. The classic dish consists of cuts of beef, chicken, tongue, cotechino or bondiola (types of port sausage), and sometimes corned tongue. Beef and chicken are flavored with an onion studded with six cloves arranged in a star-shape, with celery, carrots, and bay leaves. The cotechino and bondiola port sausages are cooked separately. The boiled meats are served together and are accompanied with a wooden bowl filled with coarse salt and a glass jar containing acetini (pickled vegetables), another with pickled onions, and another with pickled peppers.
In the cold winter months, the people of Treviso enjoy a fortifying soup which is nearly always made from tripe. Tripe is frequently offered on wedding mornings to the friends who come to fetch the groom or bride. A morning dish found in the inns of the towns, you will see Oggi Trippa ("Tripe Today") advertised by special boards.
Besides the thick soup, tripe is cooked as a sauce, sliced into thin strips, flavored with a mixture of finely chopped onion, garlic, plenty of carrots, celery, parsley, basil, rosemary, sage, and lard and oil. Covered with the tomato sauce, the sauce is thinned with water or stock, sprinkled with grated nutmeg, and left to simmer slowly until the tripe is tender and the sauce reduced. It is then served with plenty of grated Parmesan cheese.
A classic dish of Treviso is pasta and beans, a soup that needs slow cooking with plenty of flavoring. Its base is a mixture of gently sauteed, finely chopped onion, carrots, celery, rosemary, and bay leaves, and then slices of potato can be added to thicken it. Pork ears, trotters, and tail are added to enrich it.
Typical of the cold season, young poultry and small turkeys cooked with various sauces can be found everywhere in the city. Try the "roasted goose with celery salad".
Typical cheese are Montasio, Asiago, Grana Padano, Provolone Val Padana, and Taleggio. Casatella, a type of stracchino soft cheese, is used as a topping for toast or fresh bread.
Traditional desserts belonging to the festivals are dry cakes such as the bianchette, the ossi da morto (bones of the dead due to their shape), the zaletti, the lingue di gatto (cat tongues). More elaborate types are torat fregolotta, focacce, zuppa inglese al caffe (a kind of coffee trifle), and different types of sorbet.
Wine (Vino)
Prosecco are mostly fizzy, bubbly versions of wines.
