To a habitual patron of Venice’s bacari – that uniquely Venetian interpretation of a wine bar – my friend Gudrun is likely to be a familiar sight. On any evening of the week you will find her and her other friends, tippling, nibbling, exchanging social intelligence at one or, if like her you graze, at several of these neighborhood haunts.

When I told Gudrun I wanted to do a story about the bacaro phenomenon, “Oh, nooooo …” she cried “There will be nothing left in Venice we can keep to ourselves!”. To live in Venice is to be one of the most privileged persons alive, but you share that privilege with the visitors – approximately ten of them for every one of you – who come to gaze at the miraculous city. You share the calli, Venice’s maze of streets, the campi, its squares, the vaporetti, its water buses, the exquisite opera house, the glorious churches, even the outdoor food market at Rialto, to whose stalls, resplendent with daily renewed displays of produce and fish, you must elbow your way past the ogling crowds. Up to now, the only thing residents haven’t had to share with outsiders was a place at the counter of a bacaro, where one can spend minutes or hours, alternating cheering draughts of refreshing young wine with morsels of the savory tidbits that abound with copious variety on this singular branch of Venetian cooking.

The word bacaro comes from the name of the pagan god of wine, Bacchus. Churches in Venice are more numerous and certainly far more monumental than bacari, but the worshipful constancy of the latter’s congregations and the sincerity of their devotions are such that the ancient deity need not feel slighted. True to the teachings of Bacchus, what all bacari have in common is an extraordinarily convivial spirit, probably unequaled in any other public house in Italy. In part this is a result of the small quarters that most of them, although not all, occupy. There are tables available, only two or three of them in the cozier establishments, but regular patrons prefer to stand not minding, during crowded moments, the press of their neighbors. It is rare not to find some acquaintance to greet and even though one has no trouble keeping to oneself, it is an unusually dour soul who can spend time in a bacaro without eliciting a friendly nod or word.

The wines bacari dispense by the glass are of the kind Italy excels in making: very young, light-bodied, exuberantly grapey, inexpensive and deliciously gulpable. Many are produced in the Veneto itself, including the most popular white, the fresh, soft, and gently sparkling Prosecco, and the most popular red, Merlot, produced in a simple, tenderly fruity style. Out of the highly regarded vineyards of the Friuli region northeast of Venice, come wines from both local and international varieties. Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco, Sauvignon, Tocai, Ribolla satisfy a thirst for whites and for lovers of red there is Refosco, Schiopettino, Tazzelenghe, and Cabernet. Expect the latter, unless Cabernet Sauvignon is specified, to be the effusively fragrant Cabernet Franc. The more sophisticated bacari also pour some of the fuller reds from Tuscany and Piedmont. For their last round, Venetians often take a glass of Fragolino, an irresistibly scented white or red sweet wine – never exported – made from the locally grown Concord grape known as uva fragola, the strawberry grape. The white costs more but it is infinitely more delectable.

Bacari are not just about wine. Each good bacaro is a depository of genuine gems mined from the great mother lode of Venetian home cooking. Brilliant examples are based on the city’s most precious resource, Adriatic seafood. Among them you may find folpeti, tiny octopus whose sac can measure as little as an inch and no more than two. They are boiled, served warm out of their cooking bath and dressed with 3 drops of olive oil and one of vinegar, surpassing in succulence and sweetness whatever is done with octopus anywhere. There are fresh sardines or small soles in saor, fried and marinated in vinegar, onions, pine nuts, and raisins. There may be canoce, a pearl-gray, flat, broad, shrimp-like creature native to the Adriatic, whose flesh, tasting of almonds, is the most delicate of any crustacean’s. There are meat dishes as well: soppressa – the indigenous soft Venetian salami; musetto – the local version of cotechino, a mildly spiced, unbelievably creamy cooked salami; exquisite little meatballs, made with three kinds of meat mixed with potatoes. And in season there are the native vegetable specialties, baked radicchio, sautéed artichoke bottoms, steamed white asparagus. Not every bacaro has everything. Each has its specialty and each does some thing better than any one else. In a few you find a rich assortment of tramezzini, a sandwich created in Venice that encloses between small triangles of soft bread an infinite variety of meat and vegetable stuffings laced with mayonnaise.

What one consumes at bacari is not just delicious food and wine, but a generous portion of authentic Venetian life. It helps, but it is not necessary, to be Venetian yourself. As long as you are equipped with an unbiased palate and a sociable disposition, you can savor the experience as expertly as Gudrun does. After all, she too was a tourist once.

This article was originally printed in Food and Wine Magazine in 1995

Piadina with sautéed greens is a favorite meal of ours when we visit Cesenatico, the city where Marcella was born and Giuliano spent every summer of his childhood.  Three and four story buildings line the beach of the small seaside vacation town, in the center is one “skyscraper” which elicits excitement from the children every time we see it from the autostrada miles away.  “We are almost there”! They scream in delight.

Cesenatico’s beach is miles of sand covered by acres of lounge chairs and beach umbrellas.  Vacationers rent them for the season or for the day.  Many come back to the very same spot on the beach for generations.   The rhythm of the city is slow and predictable: a day at the beach is sometimes broken up by a lunch of exceptionally fresh fried seafood.  The afternoons are spent back at the beach until the sun begins to dip.  Then, when one strolls the main thoroughfare lined with shops full of items one didn’t realize one needed.

A fishing village with more bicycles than cars, Cesenatico’s historic port was designed by none other than Leonardo Da Vinci.   Replicas of old fishing vessels are displayed at the end of the canal.  The beachfront buildings are mostly art deco but one reminder of the past remains.  The Grand Hotel, fronting the beach, is a reminder of an elegant bi-gone age.  Almost exactly like the one in Rimini, where part of Fellini’s movie, Amarcord, was filmed, it still retains a worn elegance with its magnificent staircase carpeted in red in the foyer that greets its modern day guests.

The city has neither roller coasters nor first run movies, however our children beg to visit every time we are in Italy.  Is it pedaling the bicycles built for four?  The pedal boats that one can rent at the beach? Or the fabulous food?  It’s a combination.  It is about slowing down and enjoying being together.

When we are there we tend to eat our big meal at lunch.  For dinner, we look for something fairly light.  One of the great traditional foods of the area is piadina.

Usually prepared and served out of a small shack that may have a few plastic tables, piadina is a flat bread that is chewy but tender. Until not very long ago it used to be the everyday bread of Romagna.  It is baked to order on a griddle (traditionally made of terracotta) and served with a variety of salumi, cured meats, and cheeses. One of our favorite toppings is sautéed mixed greens using a combination of mild and slightly bitter greens.  It is both savory and soothing.  Even without piadina, it is a side dish Giuliano often enjoys making.   Made with Savoy cabbage, Swiss chard, and broccoli rabe,  it appeared most recently on our Thanksgiving table.

Sautéed Mixed Greens

Preparation time:  40 minutes

Serves 6 as a side dish

1 pound Swiss chard

8 ounces mustard greens or rappini (broccoli rabe)

1 pound Savoy cabbage

Salt

1 large garlic clove

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

1.  Fill a large pot with 4 quarts water, place over high heat, and bring to a boil.

2.  Separate the Swiss chard leaves from the stalks and wash separately in cold water.  Wash the mustard greens.  Cut the Savoy cabbage in quarters.

3.  Add 1 tablespoon salt to the boiling water and put in the Swiss chard stalks.  Cook for 1 minute, then add the leaves.  Cook until the Swiss chard is tender, 4-5 minutes.  Drain in a colander and squeeze out as much water as possible by pressing on the leaves with a spoon.

4.  Refill the pot with water, bring to a boil, add salt, and cook the mustard greens until tender, 5-6 minutes.  Drain well and repeat the process to cook the cabbage.

5.  Coarsely chop all of the vegetables together.

6.  Peel and finely chop the garlic and put it with the olive oil in a 12” skillet over medium heat.  Let the garlic sizzle for a few seconds but do not brown.  Add the vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and sauté, stirring often, for about 15 minutes.  Serve at once.

The world has many magnificent markets, of which I have seen a good number, but it has none like Rialto. Its stalls are lined up behind an embankment along a curve of the Grand Canal, displaying their contents in the open air. The air, of course, is Venetian, saturated with watery light. If the produce and the seafood seem to sparkle with uncommon brilliance, you may confidently attribute it to their freshness, while making a small allowance for the cosmetic enhancement that comes to them air-borne. The seasonal produce that growers bring to their stalls is harvested in the outlying islands of the lagoon, sometimes just hours before it comes by the farmer’s boat to the market’s dock. It is not only farm-fresh in the literal meaning of that abused term, it benefits from another of Venice’s unique environments, the salt-bearing breezes of the lagoon. When you have had those green beans, or zucchini, or asparagus, or tiny artichokes, or fist-size cauliflowers, or blushing pink beets, or miniature salad greens you may find yourself speculating whether you have ever before known how vegetables really taste.

Rialto’s greatest glory, however, is its fish market.Venetians are canny and passionate consumers of seafood and, even though there are only a few more than 60,000 residents left at last count, they support a fish market that in quality and variety has few rivals among metropolitan areas of any size. Of the scores of varieties of seafood that the market offers the most sought after – and consequently the most expensive – are the local ones, native to the northern Adriatic or, even closer to home, to the lagoon itself: turbot, sole, bream, sea bass, and indigenous crustaceans such as – to name only a few – canoce, a flat, sweet-fleshed, grey-shelled creature vaguely resembling a very tiny lobster; a nutty grey shrimp called schie; seppie, the cuttlefish that contributes its ink to risotto and pasta, and  moleche, the silver dollar-size soft-shell crabs whose cultivation Venetians invented. You may not want to cook fish in your apartment, you may even be staying in a hotel, but you ought not to miss this dazzling spectacle, one of the liveliest that Venice can offer. Bear in mind, moreover, that seafood is the foundation of the city’s cuisine, and a visit to Rialto’s fish market in the morning is an instructive prelude to what you will find on the menus of the city’s restaurants.

Steinhatchee, Florida is a land that time forgot.  Situated on the gulf of Mexico near the pan handle, it is an area close to …..NOTHING.  Although it does have water access, it isn’t near any beach, or cities.   It is exactly what the residents want, a place where they can get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

We joined four other families in renting homes at Steinhatchee landings.  It was wonderful, we shared cooking, kid watching, canoeing and eating.  The children fed the donkey, played archery, and biked around the neighborhood without need for supervision.  I don’t think I saw a Nintendo or electronic gadget from either the kids or parents for the whole weekend.  It was a perfect, relaxing, getaway.

The purpose of the getaway was not only to enjoy each others company.  It was also to scallop.

Gabriella holds a just harvested scallop

Steinhatchee is one of the last places in Florida where scallops are plentiful and from July 1 – September 10^th boats go out everyday to harvest them.

Scalloping is a wonderful activity to do with kids.  A mask and snorkel is all that is necessary, although having fins can’t hurt.  Even little children, like our Michela, enjoyed picking up scallops from the shallow sea grass filled water.  It is good to have an experienced captain, as they are familiar with the territory and can point out where the scallops are hiding.  However, once you get the hang of it, they are easy to spot, and we filled our 10 galloon quota of scallops in a few hours. Scalloping is a sustainable food activity. Scallops are mollusks that typically have a one year life cycle.  The July 1^st hunting date is after they have spawned and they typically perish as the water gets colder.

Once caught they are kept in a bucket of ice until cleaned.  Their shells can be pried open with a special scallop knife, although a spoon or butter knife works almost as well.  Remove the innards, while trying to keep the orange coral or liver section that is the sweetest part.   It is the first part that spoils so it’s usually removed from scallops that are sold commercially.  After discarding the innards, the pearly white scallop is easy to remove from its shell.  Ten gallons of scallops yields about 4 quarts of meat.  Plenty with which to make a fabulous feast.

Our favorite method of cooking them is to lightly fry them.  They are best when eaten immediatly after frying and I can let you know, there were no leftovers.  The children surprised us by how many they ate. We needed more!  Well…. there is always next year.

Fried Bay Scallops

© Giuliano Hazan

Time from start to finish:  25 minutes

Serves 4

1 pound bay scallops

½ cup all-purpose flour

Vegetable oil

Salt

1.  Pour enough oil into an 8” skillet to come ½-inch up the slides, and place over medium-high heat.  The oil is hot enough when a drop of flour in the oil will sizzle.

2.  While the oil is heating, put the flour into a small bowl.  Pat some (no more than will fit comfortably in the pan) of the scallops dry with a paper towel. Transfer to the bowl with the flour and roll them until they are coated on all sides.  When the oil is hot, take the scallops out of the flour bowl and shake them in your cupped hands to remove the excess flour, then carefully place them in the hot oil.  After about a minute turn them with a slotted spoon.  When they are lightly browned on all sides lift them out with slotted spoon and place them on a plate lined with paper towels.  Repeat until all the scallops are done.  Sprinkle with some sea salt and serve at once.

Part One, first printed in Town & Country Magazine 1992

We had our first taste of Sardinia some years ago at the Rialto food market in Venice, and it had the quality of revelation. Daniela, whose vegetable stall is our favorite, offered each of us a small, round, deep red tomato, about 1½ inches in diameter, its top dimpled and marked by splotches of vivid malachite green. “These are from Sardinia” she said. “Pop one into your mouth as though it were a cherry.”

To say it tasted more of tomato than any other one we had ever had would be correct, but it falls short of describing the explosive impact its flavor had in the mouth. It had more than sweetness, more than ripeness, it had force, and when, under our teeth, it burst through its skin, the sensation was overwhelming. If this was but one small, raw taste of Sardinia, what must the cooking there be like, we wondered.

Not long thereafter an opportunity came up to go to the Costa Smeralda, on the northeast coast of the island, for a brief visit. Some of the meals we had were so remarkable, the flavors were so clear and intense, that we began to ask ourselves, how could Italian food get any better? By the end of our short stay we were ready to doubt that anywhere else in the country it could taste as good.

During the daylight hours that bracketed lunch and preceded dinner, we took short drives, 20 or 30 each time, up the granite hills, down the jagged shore. The sea, a shimmering cobalt, has, for the past few thousand years, been nibbling at the grey pink granite, notching the shoreline, each notch becoming an inlet, a cove, a bay, brimming with the translucent cobalt sea. There are dozens and dozens of inlets and coves. In some of them the granite goes right down to the sea’s edge, but there are others, where the sea has allowed sand to deposit, that are rimmed with white beaches. Many are still undeveloped, but where the beaches are broadest and most accessible, they are hemmed in by tourist facilities. The most luxurious and extensive of all the developments is the Costa Smeralda, a 30-mile stretch of coast developed by the Aga Khan in a style that might be described as scenically correct, hybrid Mediterranean.

The bustling beach life may have domesticated much of the shore, but the landscape at its back yields not, it is unalterable, wild, and magnificent. Wherever you turn, you find fixed upon you the stony gaze of scores of granite peaks, their faces, incalculably ancient, molded by time and wind into expressions watchful and severe.

Join us in the fun!  This summer Giuliano and I will have the good fortune to sail for 10 nights on the BEAUTIFUL, brand new, luxurious Oceania Marina.  We will be the featured guest chefs on their Baltic Treasures cruise sailing from Copenhagen to Stockholm on June 21.  Join us as we explore the cultural heart of Russia with an overnight stay in St. Petersburg as well as visiting the amazing ports of elegant Helsinki, historic Copenhagen, and the art nouveau architecture of the Latvian capital of Riga.

During the cruise, Giuliano and I will teach you how to make fabulous fresh cuisine so that when you return home you can delight your friends, not only with your beautiful photos but also with delicious food!

This trip is being planned in conjunction with the wonderful ladies of Beyond Group Travel.  As a special incentive, free airfare from the United States and Canada is included for a limited time.  There are still select state rooms available.  Other than our group, the ship is sold out; however, we have limited availability of Veranda State Rooms starting at $4,899 per person.

For more information please contact Beyond Group Travel at (713) 954-4825 or sales@beyondgrouptravel.com

We look forward to your joining us for this adventure of a lifetime!

I would start with an introductory course on the spot. My son gives some in the wine country above Verona, see his website. I would then rent a small place in two or three cities and towns, for a few days each. Choose places with great markets such as Venice and Rome, get to know the stall-keepers, exchange ideas with them, try a few local restaurants, speak to their chefs, go back to your apartment and cook. Or, for a cheaper alternative, stay home and cook your way through Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, then travel to Italy. Good luck. Marcella

Our family has a particular fondness for intensely chocolaty chocolate ice cream.  Our favorite chocolate ice cream is the decadent chocolate gelato the Cipriani Hotel makes, as opulent as the hotel itself.

Italian gelato is a bit different than American ice cream.  It is made with less sugar and is often made with milk rather than cream.  It has a more intense flavor.  Italians like their flavors to “pop”, melon tastes like melon, not melon and cream.

Ask any Italian and they will, of course, say that their neighborhood gelateria is the best.  They will also tell you that the concept of ice cream is Italian in origin.  Some believe that it was invented during the time of Emperor Nero.  It is undisputed that Italians had it long before the French.  It was Caterina de Medici who brought it to the French court and it was there that founding American father Thomas Jefferson had ice cream for the first time.  He then brought a recipe home with him and introduced the concept to the fledgling United States.

When we are in Venice, one of our favorite excursions is to take the Cipriani launch from San Marco Square to the luxurious and beautiful hotel.  As one pulls away from Venice proper and navigates through oncoming gondolas and cruise ships and approaches the hotel, it is as if one were ushered into another realm.  Arriving at the Cipriani is always full of pomp and circumstance.  A bell person assists you out of the launch and through the pergola-covered walkway that is the entrance to one of the most exquisite hotels in the world.  We like to eat our ice cream alongside the outdoor pool, one of the only pools in Venice and a perfect location to relax and enjoy an afternoon.  Of course, one has to transcend the shock of receiving the bill.  Eating ice cream at the Cipriani hotel is expensive.  However, one is never rushed at the Cipriani and you can nurse the feeling of decadence all afternoon.  Also the launch back has one of the best views of Venice.  It is the view on all of the postcards and tapestries, The Doge’s palace grows larger as you get closer to San Marco, and one can see on a pedestal the magnificent winged Lion that is the symbol of St. Mark and the Serrinessima, Venice herself.  It  almost makes the price of the ice cream seem reasonable.

If  Venice is not in your travel plans anytime soon, and  you can’t  partake of the amazing Cipriani experience, here is the recipe for the famous ice cream so you too can enjoy it at home.  This is actually a long guarded Cipriani secret.  Fortunately, my mother-in-law, Marcella Hazan, had asked the chef for the recipe many years ago.  It is a recipe that we teach to our students at our cooking school in Italy.  The secret is that into the dark chocolate mixture one drizzles very dark caramel.  The caramel enhances the flavor of the chocolate creating an incomparable combination.

The intense velvety texture of this gelato evokes reminiscences of Venice.   You will likely have no leftovers, only a lovely magical memory, much like a visit to Venice herself.

Chocolate Ice Cream

(Adapted from Marcella’s Italian Kitchen by Marcella Hazan)

4 egg yolks

2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups milk

3 1/2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

1 1/2 ounces high quality unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Heat the milk until it just begins to boil.

2.  Use an electric mixer to whip the egg yolks and 2/3 cup of the sugar until they form creamy pale yellow ribbons.

3. Add the hot milk slowly to the whipped eggs and sugar while mixing with the electric mixer.

4.  Add the melted chocolate and mix it in well.  Add the cocoa and mix again.

5.  Put the remaining two tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of water in a small pan over high heat.

6.  Transfer the chocolate mixture to a saucepan and place it over low heat and stir constantly with a whisk .  When the sugar in the pan has turned to a dark caramel, add the caramel to the chocolate mixture and mix it in thoroughly with the whisk until it dissolves.

7.  When the mixture has cooled completely, freeze in an ice cream maker following the manufacturer’s instructions.