Cultural Experiences in Italian Oenogastronomic Tourism: Treviso, The City of Tiramisù

It is undeniable that Tiramisù has become the most widespread Italian dessert in the world, as well as the most prepared and demanded by the international catering sector. In other words, Tiramisù is proof of the rapid effects of globalisation on the circulation of information – in fact, less than 30 years have been enough for this dessert to reach every corner of the world, from El Cairo to Hong Kong, from New York to Taipei. This phenomenon is so remarkable that Italian research centres have carried out surveys on it, which have yielded impressive results.
One of the latest studies was undertaken by the Società La Dante and published on its official website on 2nd February 2009. The society also conducted an online survey that lasted three months (from 5th November 2008 up to the day of publication) and was addressed to the population of 27EU; from a list of 100 Italian words extracted from the Dizionario degli italianismi nel mondo, users were asked to select the ten most important terms from a historical and cultural point view, that they had used. In the ranking published by the institution, after “pizza” (8%), “spaghetti” (7%) and “espresso” (6%), surprisingly 5% of respondents included Tiramisù. Another study was carried out by the Assolatte (Associazione Italiana Lattiero-Casearia – “The Italian Dairy Association”) and published on April 19th, 2012 on the association’s official website. The investigation was based on the frequency of use of certain words on the global Web and produced some interesting conclusions. For example, there were more than 14 million occurrences of the word “Tiramisù” in the search engine on the Chinese web, the name of the dessert appeared 7.8 million times on Japanese language websites, 3.4 million on German, 3.1 million on French and 2.2 on Spanish websites. In addition, English language websites told the story of and how to prepare “the original Tiramisù” 18.6 million times. Fernando and Tina Raris (1998) also pointed out that in Japan Tiramisù had become a “status symbol” among young and adult people and customers rushed shops and pubs that displayed the Italian flag and “Tiramisù for sale” signs in their show windows. What is more, if we look into foreign language vocabulary, we discover that the word “Tiramisù” is translated into a wide range of languages, for instance in Chinese (提拉米蘇) – and almost all dictionaries include an approximate definition of the dessert. Finally, it is of no surprise using the few means they had available. Such harsh conditions were reflected also in the way people ate: cheap, simple ingredients were the most often used. Yet, it does not mean that people were not able to create nutritious flavoursome dishes. For instance, Venetian families had the tradition of making the “sbatudìn”, an energy-giving product of “poor pâtisseries” made with one fresh egg yolk beaten with three or four spoons of sugar. It was eaten in the middle of the morning or in the afternoon and made for children, pregnant women and elderly people who may have been in a period of convalescence, since it was easy to prepare, cheap, easily-digestible and of rapid assimilation.
Zabaglione was another example of a traditional energy giving dessert, the recipe for which was described by Maffioli in his book Il Ghiottone Veneto. The preparation was similar to that of sbatudìn, with the exception of the addition of a spot of sweet wine, such as Malvasia, and a pinch of cinnamon. This foamy dessert originates from 18th century Venice: it was common to eat zabaglione with whipped cream and the small Baicoli biscuits typical of Serenissima. There is evidence of the popular consumption of zabaglione among families of Treviso in Giuseppe Mazzotti’s work “Sesto Festival della Cucina Trevigiana”, in which he listed traditional foodstuffs for The March “prima che essi scompaiano, nonchè dalle frettolose tavole moderne, anche dal ricordo delle persone anziane” (Mazzotti, 1964. “Before they disappear, not just from the modern tables but also from elderly people’s memories”): “Zabajon co la pana” appears in the list of “Dolsi e Dolseti.” The arrival of mascarpone cheese from the Lombardy region brought about a change in the local method of sweet food production. This dairy product made from cream was previously produced only in the cold season, but after the Second World War, when the economic boom spread and the fridge reached almost all Italian houses, it was possible to prepare and conserve mascarpone cheese 365 days a year. Soon, in the kitchens in The March, mascarpone was substituted for ricotta cheese in the preparation of egg-based cream (Raris, 1998) because it gave a denser and less wet consistency. This change coincides with the creation of the popular dessert, which took place in the early 1970s in the Alle Beccherie restaurant, behind Piazza dei Signori, in the heart of the historical centre of Treviso. Here restaurateur Ms Alba Campeol was bedridden and feeling very weak as she had just given birth to her son Carlo. In order to aid her speedy recovery and so that she could resume her work in the restaurant’s kitchen as soon as possible, her mother-in-law brought her a “pick-me-up” in the form of zabaglione spiked with coffee. As soon as she got better, she returned to the kitchen and pooled her idea with that of her chef Paolo “Loly” Linguanotto to create an innovative, tasty dessert, by assembling those nutritious and simple ingredients that had aided her recovery. Besides, they were none other than the foodstuffs readily available in the kitchen of the restaurant as well as in all every house in Treviso. The resulting dessert was called “Tiramesù”, then Italianised as “Tiramisù”, which derives from the Venetian dialectal expression “tirarse su”, a sort of invitation and incentive towards “standing up” to getting by.
The merit of Ms Campeol and Mr Linguanotto was not so much that of “inventing” the dessert but rather that of having the creative idea of “marrying” together those single ingredients, which formed an intrinsic part of the community’s culture during those years, (Paolini, 2002), into one product and naming it. In actual fact, the latter affirmation is the cause of much common disagreement since as the ingredients had traditionally been used and creatively combined in every house in The March for many years, many people currently claim to have invented the dessert. For example, in the same period, in the Treviso restaurant Al Fogher it was used to prepare coppa imperiale, which many people, including the restaurant owner, claim to be the most direct ancestor of Tiramisù since both are made with almost the same ingredients (the former is made with sponge cake) – but the ways in which they were served are different. In effect, Maffioli himself points out that the concept of Tiramisù originates from the pastry tradition typical of Hapsburg gastronomy and Central European cuisine, which reached and influenced The March area thanks to the royal authorities who visited the city of Venice in the first half of the 18th century. Indeed, Fernando and Tina Raris (1988) duly noted that it is not by chance that Tiramisù is related to Bavarian cream, which is also made with boudoir biscuits, but the egg yolks are hardened and then diluted with butter, and Rosolio is used instead of coffee. [...]