The lovely Maso di Villa Relais, located in Veneto, in Prosecco Hills, in Susegana (District of Treviso), will let you discover the first place of the Venetian flavours, offered by an exceptional cookery tradition.
Radicchio rosso di Treviso con polenta e soppressa
The typical red radicchio of Treviso it is nationally known and internationally renowned, and it is one of the best Venetian flavours. Anciently, the cooking of headcheese and the browning of radicchio used to happen in the same saucepan not to lose the tasty oil coming from the cured pork.
Obviously, in this case the vegetable was not greased with oil. The resulting sauce peculiarity lied on the contrast between vinegar and lard. Just the unique aroma would make anybody drool. It is supposed to be tasted with some polenta and on warm dishes. Definitely a winter specialty.
Fregolotta
The history of this incredible Venetian sweet, known as Fregolotta, comes from the first years of the Twentieth Century. Staying at the pleasant, lovely Maso di Villa Relais, located in Veneto, in Susegana (District of Treviso), will give you the occasion to find the roots of this special sweet.
The Venetian word “fregola”, which means morsel in Italian, recalls the main feature of this renowned sweet. The fregolotta was created by a baker from Padova, who moved to a small town in the area of Treviso where, together with his sister opened a small trattoria with a wood-burning oven.
One of his sister’s dear friends told her the secret recipe that was used at the mansion of some rich people where she used to work. To accomplish this sweet, his brother used butter, flour, eggs, and natural flavors. Once baked in the wood oven, in the beginning they served it just in their inn.
Its fame grew soon, and they had to open a small laboratory just for it. Quite soon, the fregolotta became famous all over the Veneto. Today, there are several recipes indicating the preparation of this traditional Venetian cake, and each of them owns a small different variation.
Fregolotta
Pinza
One of the main places of the Venetian cookery traditionally belongs to the sweet corn flour, which was not only used just to prepare the polenta, food that fed farmers’ families throughout the winter, but also to make sweets, such as the Pinza.
Its name clearly comes from the latin pinzus, meaning stuffed, pressed; and the Pinza is actually a delicious cake that is filled with the most savoury ingredients winter could provide: fennel seeds, pumpkin, orange peel, raisins, nuts, dried figs, and obviously a good glass of grappa.
Each family brings its own variant when, the 5th of January, they gather around the Panevin. On the left bank of the Piave River it will be possible to taste the raised pinza, while on the right bank it is common the non-raised variant.
Tiramisù
Tiramisù – born in Treviso
Having the opportunity to spend a pleasant sojourn at the Maso di Villa Relais, located in Veneto, in Susegana (District of Treviso), you cannot miss to visit the place where one of the most famous sweets was born: the Tiramisu.
In fact, as the Italian Academy of Cookery legally stated, the Tiramisu – one of the most famous Italian sweets in the whole world – finds its roots at the restaurant Alle Beccherie, in Treviso, in 1962. The ingredients used for its preparation claim its originality.
Its recipe requires sponge fingers, mascarpone cheese, coffee, and zabaglione. Therefore, despite of the several variants risen from time to time, the origins of this sweet definitely lie in Treviso. In the book “Il ghiottone Veneto” (the Venetian glutton), the gourmet Giuseppe Maffioli describes what it is considered as the ancestor of the Tiramisu. Reading the book, in fact, it is depicted the habit of tasting the zabaglione with the baicoli, a kind of dried biscuit, and with the whipped cream.
