Famous Veneto and Venice foods - By food author Hillman

Famous Veneto
and Venice food

Food tips you can trust

Most famous dish
of Veneto and Venice

Fegato alla Veneziana

Though meat dishes are a minority in Venice, one is world famous: Fegato alla Veneziana, tissue-thin calves' liver slices sauteed with onions.

Seafood

Adriatic Sea

The principal source of animal protein comes from the seafood caught in the cool northern Adriatic Sea.

Scampo

The Adriatic waters exclusively yield one of the world's greatest culinary delights, the scampo. When seen on American menus, "scampi" (plural of scampo) almost invariably means oversized shrimp (not the true scampo). Moreover, they lack the delicate, sweet flavor of the genuine crustacean species.

More Neptune stars

Other excellent local seafood worth sampling includes shrimp, crayfish, cuttlefish, mussels, eel, sole and mullet.

Major starch staples
of Venice and Veneto

Rice reigns

Rice, not pasta, is the principal starch staple of Venice and is typically served combined with other ingredients. The most splendid application is in the vegetable dish Risi e Bisi, literally Rice and Peas.

Polenta

Outside Venice, in the Veneto region, the firm cornmeal-mush specialty, polenta, rivals and in some places supplants rice as the primary starch staple.

Pasta

Pasta, though in the third place in the starch popularity poll, has over the last century been steadily increasing its share of the market.