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Eating in Italy - Dolci

You saved room…right?! I always do.

Desert (the hot and dry place) is spelled with one ‘S’. Dessert (that sweet stuff) is spelled with two ‘S’s. My sister helped me with that, saying that Mom used to say, “…dessert has two s’s, because it’s super sweet”. I have to admit that I had problems with that until about 3 years ago. Enough etymology, let’s eat!!!

“Ellen did not eat that soufflé all by herself”

Today’s article is the last of the ‘Eating in Italy’ series, as far as solid food goes. There will be one more surprise article in the next couple of weeks…yes, there is one more oft used course in the Italian meal.

The Dolci (Dessert)

In the gastronomical dessert battle, those Frenchies seem to come out on top time after time. However, their close neighbor has a few tricks up their sleeve, too. Over the last decade, Italian dolci (sweets or desserts) have come a long way…and often right down to my tummy.

Typical of the dolci menu is tiramisu, panna cotta, zabaglione and grandma’s cake (torta di nonna). I’m pleased to say that I have had each of these offerings in during 2022…though sadly, not in Italy, itself.

As this isn’t a cooking class, I will jump right into the typical offerings of the Italian menu itself, rather than handing out recipes. What follows are actual offerings from Italian menus…real Italian menus…from Italy. Sorry, but I wanted you to get the point.

And, those photos you see to the right (or who knows where on a mobile device) are photos of our actual dolci experiences within Italy. Enjoy!

Dolci Menu Offerings

Crostata

A crostata is a baked tart filled with…you’ll see just below…

Cioccolato e Caffe’ (chocolae, crema, and a chocolate streusel)
Mele e Albicocca (apples, apricots)
Mandorla e Amarena (almond, pastry cream, and Fabbri amarena cherries…one of our favorites)

Classics

Tiramisu (espresso soaked biscuits, tiramisu cream and cocoa powder)
Limoncello Profiteroles
Afogato (espresso poured over gelato)
Zabaglione (egg custard and sweet spumoni wine)
Torta di Nonna (sweet crusted tart with custard and a fruit filling)

Other Desserts

Chocolate variation (a variation of exactly what, I know not)

Crunchy puff pastry, pumpkin and chestnut cream, almond milk, pomegranate, sour cream gelato, salted caramel, and kitchen sink…just kidding.
Mountain panna cotta
Caprese cake
A patisserie mignon
Millefeuille with chantilly cream, orange sauce
Warm Zabaglione with De Bartoli reserve marsala and panettone
Babà with rhum and whipped cream
Kiss of cream meringue and dark chocolate flakes
Warm Chocolate cake made with rhum with coconut gramble and blackberries sorbet
Variation of coconut, banana and lime
Rhubarb gel with hazelnut creams and sponges
Ricotta cream with marzipan, soft pistachio and sorbet of candied oranges
Consistencies of dark chocolate, cocoa grué snow and hemp [I have no idea, don’t ask]
Slice of homemade cake
Crêpes à la crème
Fete Biscottate Homemade
Cremoso al Rosmarino
Marmellata di Fragole e Rabarbaro
Honey mousse
chamomile pannacotta
Florus-flavored tiramisu (Florus? Obviously a Banfi menu item…and tasty)
Paffpastry cannolo, custard and plum jam ice cream
Tuscan biscotti parfait with vanilla ice cream
Mascarpone cheese mousse, hazelnuts praline cream, crunchy chocolate, coffee gelato
Rhubarb sphere, vermouth cream, beetroot macaron, raspberry sorbet
The Fregolona (a crumbly dessert made from butter, flour, sugar, almonds and yellow flour)

Fruit as Dessert

Boring? A Little, but then again, it is healthy

Fruit tarts
Sliced fresh fruit
Fruit Plate
Fresh fruit salad with vanilla ice cream

Gelato, Sorbet & Ice Cream

Cassis sorbet, coconut milk-flavored winter salad
Lemon sorbet, apple and celery, first pressed oil, timur berries

Millefouille with vanilla cream
Tofu soft cream, tangerine sorbet, citrus fruits, ginger, kale chips
Lemon sorbet with grated licorice
Vanilla ice cream with gelè of smoked whiskey
Selection of housemade sorbets and ice creams
Gelato al Pane
Pollen ice cream [you didn’t know that bees can make ice cream, did you?]
Homemade crema gelato, raisins and Moscato Romano Levi grappa
An ice cream made with the collaboration of Marco (Ricotta Ice Cream w/ Amarone Grappa)

Cheese As Dessert

Yes, I’ve had cheese for dessert…and then I order an actual, real, traditional, sweet, and pleasing dessert! Listed here are just a few Italian cheeses you might order from the dolci menu:

Caprino
Morlacco
Gorgonzola naturale
And many other Italian cheeses

Other Ways to Get Dolci

Wow, so many tasty sounding variations of dolci. And, I can’t leave off just plain, old gelato…scooped up at that “best gelato in all of Italy” place around the corner from wherever you happen to be in Italy. And, if your friend hears you are going to Italy and says, “You’ve just got to go to this gelato place…it’s the best ever…it’s just a 45 minute walk from the places you will be!”, don’t fall for it…find the one that’s handy and go for it!

And then there is what you find along the way as you stroll the calle of Italy, like cookies, candies, and such. It’s hard not to run across these hand-held treats…except when you are actively looking for them, of course.

Below are photos of tasty treats you might find whilst in Italy.

A Short Anecdote

When we were in Amalfi, we had a nice meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant called Ristorante La Caravella. It was a lovely dining experience.

On the menu for dolci, we eyed an item called Soufflè al limone d'Amalfi, or lemon soufflé, made with those huge Amalfi lemons.

I’ll forgo telling you more about the dessert…I’ll let you see what happened to it. Ellen will demonstrate. Nough said, right?

If you need to catch up on the earlier installments of Eating in Italy, here are the links:

Eating in Italy — The Courses and Apertivo [the types of dining establishments, the menu, and a sip of an apertivo — a good place to start your dining journey]
Eating in Italy — Antipasto
Eating in Italy — Primi
Eating in Italy — Secondi

Thank you for joining me today as we discover that sweetest of Italian meal courses, the dolci course. If your sweet tooth has been activated, get yourself to Italy. If we are there with you, we will help you get your just desserts! Until that happens, I say…

Ciao for now,

Steve

p.s. Before you ask, I’ll answer your question: No, Ellen did not eat that soufflé all by herself. I had a hand in that task, also.

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Eating in Italy - Secondi

Index of Articles

Elizabete presents our branzino tableside at La Terrazza on the rooftop of the Hotel Danieli in Venice

Thus far in our Italian dining journey, we’ve sipped an apertivo (my, oh my, that Campari and soda took my breath away!), had some tasty bites of antipasti, and we’ve gorged ourselves on a nice primi.

By the way, how was your “Lasagnette with Pierina's traditional ragu sauce”? Pierina is famous for her ragu at her Trattoria Caprini. I had the “Ravioli filled with goat cheese, and with “datterino” tomatoes and basil”, and I’m glad I did! Those little datterino tomatoes (the size and shape of a ‘date’…’il dattero’ in Italian) were bursting with flavor.

But, as we knew that we would be dining Italian-style, we’ve left room for a secondi, or second main course. Will we have room for the dolci? We’ll see.

So, let’s see what that second main course is all about…

WHAT TO EXPECT OF A SECONDI

When we think of the secondi course, we should be thinking about flesh…whether it be the flesh of the fish (il pesce), or flesh of a mammal like beef of a mature cow (manzo), veal (vitello), lamb (agnello), pig (maiale), or the wild boar (cinghiale). Are you wondering where chicken (pollo) fits in, it is occasionally on the menu, though not as often as even wild boar, it seems.

I want to expand a bit on the fishy part of secondi. In Italy, it is done superbly. Typically, the fish is prepared whole. It is brought out for you to see and admire (yes, be sure to ooh and ahh over it as we did when Elizabete made her presentation to us as seen in the photo, above). It is de-boned on a small cart near your table. It is then placed on your plate and set before you. And then, you’d better eat it before I eat it for you! The flesh of the fish is moist and oh, so tasty. And buttery? Yes! Expect at least one contorno (side dish), like roasted potato, and maybe a green vegetable, like broccolini. Want to see the whole process from presentation to dining? Relive our experience at Da Gemma in Amalfi, here.

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

Click the image to see a real-life Italian secondi menu…this one from Ristorante Verbano on Lake Maggiore

Just as I did with the primi, I will share with you below actual excerpts from menus of places where we’ve dined…from ristorante, to trattoria, to osteria. If you want to know more about those three categories of dining establishments, as well as four more, then click here.

Please note that the number of menu items in each of the three categories below of seafood, meat and poultry, indicates that actual prevalence of those types of items on the Italian menu; i.e. lots of seafood, a good bit of meat, and not much poultry.

So, here are menu items taken word-for-word from actual, real-life, we’ve-actually-been-there, dining places in Italy. Along with photos, of course.

Frutti di Mare (Seafood)

Fillet of sea bass, grilled fennel and pistachio cream
Turbot with winter scents [yes, just the scent!]
Baked squid gratinated
Mix of fried selection of seafood from the Rialto market
Deep fried soft-shell crabs
Imperial Shrimp with seven spices, shiitake mushroom and red rice
Wild seabass fillet cooked in the oven, on a mirror [what?!] of bread, potato sauce and chicory
Crispy Octopus with cream beans from Lamon and celery sauce
Sea bass melted “Acquerello” rice risotto, lightly smoked, citrus hint, raw scallops
Seafood paccheri, late Treviso radicchio, tomatoes confit, glasswort
John Dory fillet "Antico Martini" style
Turbot fillet, braised Jerusalem artichokes, fresh horseradish, clam sauce -
Seared cuttlefish, its cream and liver, fennel seed sponge, parsley and baccalà sauces
Daily fresh fish from the Rialto market, grilled
Nordic cod confit, “acqua pazza”, kale, nori seaweed flavored potatoes
Turbot fillet, braised Jerusalem artichokes, fresh horseradish, clam sauce
Giant scampi grilled with fried zucchini
Steamed fish flavored with herbs and ginger
Scampi with curry sauce and Pilaf rice
Fried fish from the Adriatic sea
Fillet of sea bass with lime and cumin carrots
Roasted wild eel with honey, bitter orange marmalade, beer, celery cream and mashed potatoes

I can’t move on until I’ve commented on the last item in the frutti di mare category…the eel, or anguilla. Here’s my comment: “Yuck!!!” Though we’ve often seen them on menus (mostly in Venice), we’ve never gotten up the nerve, or insanity, to try them. The sign in the first photo lets us know that these eel were caught in ‘our own lagoon’. The eels in the second photo are alive and squirmy…I’m not even sure how you would hold onto them to dispatch them, nor how one would clean them. Sorry to belabor the point, but they give me the creeps.

Here are photos of more palatable eats in the frutti di mare category.

Just two more seafood photos…these of a lobster that we consumed on the Isle of Capri. Here it is as Ellen selected it right from the tank, and then as it appeared on our plates…one-half for each of us. I must say that this was One Fine Day! on the Amalfi coast, which you can read about here.

Carne (Meat)

Lamb with offal sauce [an acquired taste, yes?], scent of fennel flower heads, and wild herbs
Fillet of veal with broccoli and cabbage
Slow-cooked beef in Valpolicella wine
Venetian-style veal liver with white polenta and new onion
Jowl braised veal with Valpolicella Ripasso and mashed potato
"Antico Martini" veal petals
Sliced beef Angus with rosemary
Chateaubriand, Béarnaise sauce, grilled vegetables, ratte potatoes
Venetian-style veal liver, polenta in two consistencies
Fillet of beef with Norcia black truffle sauce
The "Florentine" of Sorana T-bone steak (45 days of maturing)
Sorana rib steak (45 days of maturing)
Juniper-flavored venison loin, cranberry jam, pine needle powder, rye and tapioca brittle
Grilled lamb chops with ginger baby carrots and mashed potatoes
Veal liver "Venetian style" with polenta

Pollame (Poultry)

Pigeon with black salsifies in cooked must [maybe a bit of discussion is required here…for ’pigeon’, think quail; for ‘salsifie's’, think a tuber from a plant in the daisy family; and, for ‘must’, think about grape juice, before it is fermented into wine…ok, please continue without further interruption on my part]
Free-range chicken terrine, plum and “pevarada” sauce, three potato pavé
Chicken supreme with "malga" butter emulsion and sage
Duck breast served with honey sauce and Recioto wine [it was soooo good…sorry, I wasn’t going to interrupt]

Not many photos in the poultry category, as it is not very prevelent on the Italian menu. The first photo is duck breast described just above. This was from the fabulous Enoteca della Valpolicella, which you can read about here.

Is your mouth watering? Mine sure is. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the typical menu items in the secondi category, as well as photos that we’ve taken over the years…just before devouring the secondi.

In the next installment of Eating in Italy, I’ll be covering the dolci, or dessert. In the meantime, if you need to catchup on the earlier installments of Eating in Italy, here are the links:

Eating in Italy — The Courses and Apertivo [the types of dining establishments, the menu, and a sip of an apertivo]
Eating in Italy — Antipasto
Eating in Italy — Primi
Eating in Italy — Secondi [you don’t need a link, just scroll to the top of the page!]

OK, here’s the deal. Tomorrow it will be St Patrick’s Day. I found a four-leaf clover, which means that I get a wish on that day. I’ll tell you what that wish is (will it still be granted if I divulge it? I certainly hope so). My wish is that I will get to have each course of a meal in Italy with you. That’s it. Let’s work toward that. Until that happens, I say…

Ciao for now,

Steve

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