Cucina Botanica - what we can learn from historical Venetian recipes

Fusion Cuisine: How historical recipes from Venice can help us improve eating habits and health

In the beginning, Lagoon cuisine was a mix of local ingredients used in recipes inherited from the Roman and Byzantine Greek population of the Lagoon (read more about the original settlers in the Lagoon in this episode).

After the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 AD, the Romans of the mainland partly moved into the Lagoon, coming in close contact with Byzantine Greek merchants, who had built a port and trading hub around Turicellum, today known as the island “Torcello”.

These Byzantine merchants had brought with them olive trees, citrus plants and spices, enriching the plant and fish-based diet in the Lagoon.

So yes, Torcello looked very different, a bustling port city and largest trading hub in the northern Adriatic during a time when Venetia (Venice) didn’t even exist.

The Byzantine merchants introduced their own way of cooking, influenced by Persian, Indian, and Chinese traditions. This was the birth of the Venetian fusion cuisine, embracing elements from Asia and the Middle East, and in particular, from Syria, Egypt, Persia, and the Indian Ayurvedic cuisine.

A healthy and balanced cooking style, embracing the power of herbs and spices to balance out acid and alkaline food, which we summarized in the Venetian Flavors Square.

To make this a little more practical: Fast food, wheat, sugar, artificial lemonade and drinks, artificial ingredients and flavors in general, and even coffee, but also drinking too much sparkling water, shifts the alkaline balance of the body towards acidity. And today we know that keeping the balance between alkaline and acid food is also important to protect cells and reduce the effects of the free radicals.

Another example illustrates that eating alkaline food only (like salads) does not contribute to improving health in the long run: It won’t strengthen your immune system because valuable vitamins and proteins lack. And you won't be able to lose weight because of accumulated toxins.

This is where Venetian spice cuisine comes in, balancing out acid and alkaline food: In my opinion, exploring its secrets is so useful, especially in our times!

Venetian cuisine consists of two major components:

• Local ingredients, herbs, vegetables, fish, and fruit, such as quinces, pomegranates, citrus fruit, and mulberries. Salad herbs, artichokes, with both cool and soulfool wintry colors, such as endives, cards, and radicchio.

• Spices: All-time favorites in Venice have been the following: White pepper, black pepper, yellow mustard, turmeric, chili, and sea salt. These mixtures change with the seasons.

We can deduct basically two styles of Venetian fusion cuisine:

• Cucina povera, based on Lagoon herbs and ingredients sourced in the Lagoon, and

• Cucina Speziata - the elegant spice cuisine.

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