Venice’s Simposio: a unique Venetian cookbook

Discover the uniqueness of Venetian cuisine. Enjoy making traditional Venetian recipes, including the famous Venice Cicchetti, and getting to know authentic Venetian food. Bring the magic of the markets in Venice to your kitchen. Delight your sight with outstanding Venice photography. Make a Cicchetti dinner for your friends and family. End it with a luscious Venetian dessert.

Get your Venice Simposio!

OPULENCE

DREAM

CROWDS

CHAOS

PRIDE

THESE ARE THE WORDS OF SIMPOSIO's VENETIAN COOKBOOK

RICE

RAISINS

ONIONS

POLENTA

THESE ARE THE INGREDIENTS OF VENETIAN CUISINE

GOLD

BURGUNDY

PASTELS

OCHRE

INTENSE GREENS

THESE ARE THE COLORS OF VENICE'S SIMPOSIO

A VENETIAN COOKBOOK TO FULLY EXPERIENCE VENETIAN CUISINE

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DISCOVER SIMPOSIO’S VENETIAN CUISINE, HISTORY, AND CULTURE:

Venetian cuisine is delicious, beautiful, and doable! Venice food has ancient origins bonded to the land and the sea; the traditional Venetian recipes in this cookbook will make you experience it all. Imagine yourself strolling through the markets in Venice, picking up fresh ingredients, and returning to your kitchen to make a sumptuous dinner – or just a couple of Venice Cicchetti!
The amazing Venice photography in this Venetian cookbook will help your imagination and catapult you to the Laguna.

“The word for Venice is opulence. There’s no doubt. But the word dream suits equally well.
Crowd is another word. And chaos, another one.”

“The lady’s silver hair was perfectly styled. Her coat was of sublime quality. Her purse was an elegant case hanging from a silver chain. I caught a glimpse of her black cashmere sweater and her burgundy flower-embroidered long skirt.”

“Winter in Venice is for introverts. Those who accept dying a bit, going through a journey in their underworld, discovering new components of their being, and rising again, like the phoenix.”

“Here are the little artichoke boats my fedora friend was savoring before running home to his wife. You can serve them as aperitivo, antipasto, or side dish. They are juicy, creamy, and delicious!”

“In Venice, San Martino is celebrated by kids strolling around the city wearing paper crowns, chanting a doggerel, and making noise with pots, ladles, and jars. The people – probably to make them stop – give them candy or a coin. Back home, they are pampered with the Dolce Di San Martino…”

“Since the Doge didn’t touch anything that wasn’t golden – or so it was said -, when cornflour Zaleti cookies (“zaeti”, in Venetian dialect) had raisins, he didn’t eat them. If they didn’t have raisins, they could, instead, be appropriately called “Zaeti del Doge”.”

“The “Casanova” used to be worn both by men and women. The mask covered the face’s upper part, leaving the mouth free to eat and drink. The spicy detail was the cloak so large it allowed lovers to…”

“To foreigners, it appeared that Venice had a six-month-long Carnival. Others described it as a city populated by spirits. Anonymity and personal freedom were the actual reasons for this custom.”

“Tradition prescribes that, at the end of the cooking, you should reach a density that lets a ladle stand up straight. Challenge accepted?”

“Bigoli in Salsa is one of the Venetian recipes prepared one day before, chilled, and devoured during the Redentor summery festivity. But it is also traditionally made and savored, hot this time, for Christmas Eve dinner and for the Friday before Easter.”

SIMPOSIO’S VENETIAN COOKBOOK: AN ADVENTURE THROUGH THE PAGES OF VENETIAN CUISINE’S HISTORY

Venetian cuisine is unforgettable, and it is so because of the history, people, and culture behind it. Venice food is the result of many contaminations and a celebration of many civilizations that have merged and resulted in the Venetian recipes we can all savor, sitting next to a local in a traditional restaurant or in our home, guided by Simposio’s Venice cookbook. From creamy desserts to Venetian cookies, from the famous Venice Cicchetti to Sarde in Saor… every Venetian recipe in this cookbook will conquer your palate and make you discover new gastronomical pleasures. Frame them with the stories, the insights, and the evocative Venice photography, and you’ll feel like you are in Laguna for the most enjoyable of your days!

“To make chicken more nourishing and filling, the ladies cooked the more affordable rice in the liquids and fat it released. So each soldier was served a large plate of rice and a piece of chicken.
The soldiers left, but the tradition remained.”

“For the celebrations of April 25th, this incredibly rich in traditions city honors the past Doges! For them, a dish made with “primizie” the first produce of the season, that in this case was “bisi”, peas, was prepared.”

“…Corto Maltese, a 1967 graphic novel by Hugo Pratt… Like most of the Italian iconic “fumetti”, Corto Maltese is adventurous, expressively drawn, and supplemented with fierce curvy women. It became a cult in Europe because it is filled with travel-generated culture and iconic quotes…”

“It was time for our first Cicchetti and our first Spritz. While savoring all the classics – Baccalà Alla Veneziana and Alla Vicentina, liver, and Sarde in Saor – served on the flavorful crust of grilled yellow polenta bites, my brain engines were in full hustle…”

“Although a Monday morning, the city was incredibly busy. Where did all these people go at night? We were about to witness the nonsense of modern tourism…”

“My goal was to find a pair of Friulane (or Furlane). I had already purchased the iconic slippers online, but getting a pair in Venice was something I will call mindful shopping. A three-sixty experience: tradition, culture, and quality blended in a product you’ll cherish forever.”

“Indeed, I found this area much more residential, folk as Trastevere (Rome) was and still partially is. Linens hung to dry out of the windows. People walking their dogs. Sounds of real life coming from inside the walls. A great place to get lost while searching for the places of Casanova, of the courtesans, of a lost past.”

“And what about the gondole traffic? It was hilarious.
But this last thought catapulted me towards a swirl of melancholy. Maybe because I hadn’t slept very well. Perhaps because I had planned too meticulously…”

“He laid his eyes on us and simply invited us to look around. Only when I approached him with a few questions did he leave his task and dedicate his full attention to me. Or better, to the mask.”

“He smiled and said it was where he and his family went for Sunday lunches. There was nothing more to be added.”

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“As if magnificence had purified social disequalities and glitz. Opulence so opulent to get justified, almost democratized. Paganization, in the most positive sense.”

“”Questo xe un vin de bacaro!”. This is a wine for partying. Well, “fare baccano” is more accurately something between partying and revelry. So having fun while bustling.”

“I also learned that Spritz is rarely the accompaniment of Venice Cicchetti. Certainly not the historical one. It is actually an “ombra de vin,” a shade of wine. The dialectal name of the shot was given when”

“Saor, again. As mentioned, Venetians cook “in saor” anything that happens at hand. You can try the method with practically any vegetable or fish, and I’ve also heard and read of meat, like chicken – or hen. But raisins and pine nuts…”

“A carefully sun-sheltered complexion treated with poultices of white snails, goat milk, pork fat, and camphor. Sun-bleached hair that, while exposed, gained golden hues thanks to lupine flowers, saltpeter, and saffron wraps”

“Not to mention that both the young unmarried Venetian girls and their sisters, forced into monastic life, would occasionally rent courtesan costumes or camouflage as men and wander around the city in search of adventures.”

“It seemed to me that Venice had found a way to restore liberty to women, at least partially, but immensely if compared to the Middle Ages.”

“There’s an expression in Italy: “ci vuole fegato”, it translates into it takes guts, but using the liver for reference. It must have taken lots and lots of liver for Venetian courtesans to survive their times.”

“To my astonishment, the more I read his memories, the more other impressions arose. And they were surprisingly destabilizing. Giacomo respected women. And women…”

“Beware of these fake Casanovas. A true Casanova is acculturated. He has millions of interests. He always tells the truth. “I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying…”

“Italians strongly believe in the aphrodisiac and tonic properties of this creamy delight. So let’s imagine Casanova dipping cookies into it, in bed, with one (or two, or three…) of his lovers.”