Tapas… mezze… snacks.
Whatever you want to call them, any small food, eaten with a quick glass of wine or a little glass of strong liquor, is always fun and is definitely the best “fast food” around.
It’s my kind of fast food, anyway. 🙂 This is my first post about snacking around the world… I hope to continue and make it an occasional series as there are too many foods to talk about.
Many countries of the world have turned the simple need of a snack between lunch and dinner into a beautifully civilized and tasty art form!
Who in the world doesn’t love informal socializing, sipping and eating all at the same time?
In Venice there is a great snacking tradition of cicchetti (pronounced chick-etti). The most basic description I can make of cicchetti is that they are basically a round of bread (as though cut from a baguette), and topped with absolutely anything tasty and savory. But it doesn’t end there…
It can be without the bread, simply a large shrimp in a savory olive oil, or tiny meatballs, or balls of cheese in herbs, or whole mushrooms marinated in spices, or deep fried patties – anything like that.
There are little cicchetti and wine bars all over Venice where you can roll up to the counter and order a glass  (or a plastic cup if you plan to eat outside) of wine and a small plate of these treats.
Plus you drink all this deliciousness down with wine that is from the Veneto region such as the rich Valpolicella or the bubbly Prosecco, or many other wines of the area that I had never heard of before my visit. There is usually a HUGE selection at these places. I preferred to let the nice guy behind the counter pour out whatever was going at the time and not worry about it myself, so that I could sooner join the throng of happy eaters and drinkers.
I was never disappointed.
I made whole meals out of cicchetti a few times, simply because the variety of flavors I could get on one plate was truly amazing value – like exploring Italy on one plate. Generally there is no place to sit, as these places are very popular and also meant for standing and eating. So you can either stand at the counters or go outside (my favorite!) and take your food and wine and stand along the walls along the canal and eat and drink and flirt and watch the pretty Venetian world go by.
Here are a couple of cicchetti ideas for you to make at home, and that I have made successfully, based on what I ate in the cicchetti bars.
The single instruction is to get the best flavored ingredients you can get for your cicchetti. Don’t try to top your cicchetti with out of season tomatoes or even use bread you don’t 100%love  to eat on its own.
It doesn’t require expensive ingredients – just a few perfect ones that are in season. If all your fresh ingredients are out of season or you can’t find any that meet your high standards, then try some of the marinated or cooked cicchetti ideas. But do try to serve it with Italian Veneto wines.
In a pinch, prosecco goes with everything 🙂 (This is along the same lines of my philosophy where I think that Champagne goes with everything, but I will save that for another post when I am richer than I am right now).
Cicchetti ideas
Rounds of fresh bread (you can slice a baguette) topped with:
- ricotta mixed with pistachio paste
- salumi (type of dry sausage) and pesto
- octopus or squid, decorated with caviar
- quail egg and mashed artichoke
- creamed zucchini and sundried tomato
- back bacon and chili sauce
- ricotta topped with a fig
- eggplant and hard cheese
ETC!! Make things up – whatever you think will taste good.
Serve with wine or prosecco, from the Veneto region.
A Tangle of Thyme 