Essenze di Venezia

From artichokes to freshly harvested local radicchio and local pumpkin “zucca barucca”, to freshly delivered citrus fruit, zucchini and tomatoes .. plus lots of green vegetables which you will get to know in this post.

Le premizie d’autunno alla veneziana: Mistaking winter for spring in Venice: The beginning of December is when the widest selection of fruit and vegetables is available in Venice!! There are good reasons for tha, described in this post .. and lots of pictures for you to see the extraordinary bounty that is on sale these days at the Rialto Market. And if you look at these pictures, one might think that spring is really approaching: the light is uncommonly intense in December, filtering through the calli even stronger and more horizontally than in other seasons.

Everything local: Pumpkins, leeks and verze (cabbages) from Sant Erasmo, next to radicchio from Chioggia

rst, there is still the full spectrum of autumn harvest, from pumpkins to maroni, potatoes, cabbage varieties, and much more. All this bounty now comes in from the vegetable islands Sant’Erasmo and Le Vignole, and from the vegetable yards bordering upon the lagoon.

Second, in autumn the greeneries like spinach and herbs could grow again after the arid summer months when nothing grows, so you find all these freshly harvested greeneries here too.

Local greenery: coste di bietola, spinach, next to lettuce varieits, and the ever present foglie di Treviso (delicious !!)

Third, starting at the end of November, we get in all the freshly riped citrus fruit from southern Italy, delicious baskets from Campania, Calabria, and Sicily in particular.

 Forth, our local fruit trees regale us with melograni (pomegranates) and cotogne (quinces), which are used to make thick jams like cotognata (quinces jam). You can buy these delicacies in Venetian pastry stores like Rizzo’s and Rosa Salva’s, but also here at the Rialto Market of course.

 Fifth, the selection of recently dried fruit (from the autumn harvests) has arrived, figs, apples, pears, kiwi, .. so here, the table is so richly set .. and

Sixth, freshly harvested nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts ..) round up the picture. So there is enough around to retrieve ingredients for festive Christmas meals.

 On some mild and sunny days in late autumn and in winter, you could think that spring is just round the corner or has already arrived. Farther south in Italy, in Positano, they had been celebrating exactly that “impression” – with fine new green vegetables arriving just now in the midst of autumn (this was called “Le primizie d’autunno”). Still, just a few hours afterwards, the weather may change, bringing storm and rain, and sometimes a few snow flakes and hail .. and the nights can be freezing as well.

Cime di rapa, broccoleti .. Christmas delights (Recipes will follow!!)

Some vegetables like the radicchio variants need frosty times, so they acquire the right color and consistence and can be harvested. Radicchio di Treviso, for example, would then be ripened in a closed building in basins willed with pure water acqua di sorgente (di risorgiva, actually), so the radicchio leaves acquire their characteristic white color striped with a crimson red. And this is what these foglie di radicchio (radicchio leaves) look like when they arrive at the Rialto market:

Foglie di radicchio – radicchio leaves (an important ingredient for a delicious advent or Christmas dinner -:))

Now we also get the typical winter vegetables called cardi, endive lettuce, but also spinach and even a kind of pea are now on sale, and lots of fennel. Amongst the herbs, I saw rosoline and of course the ominpresent Italian parsley with its huge leaves. BTW – rosoline are a typcial spring herb, will come back to this herb in spring.

Cardi from the vegetable island, Sant’Erasmo, next to radicchio, maroni, carrots ..

Then come in the citrus fruits from southern Italy, including my favorites, the bergamot oranges. I bought some bergamots and use some drops of their juice to make “fresh” earl grey tea, because earl grey tea is flavored with essential oil from Calabrian bergamots anyway.