Casanova was uninhibited and curious enough to feel at ease in such a place. In truth, when he was young he couldn’t afford luxury, but he was very determined in “becoming famous”, in achieving reputation and fame.

In fact his mother, Giovanna Farussi known as Zanetta, didn’t have time enough to take care of him, since his parents were both comedians, so she often travelled abroad. Giacomo was raised by his grandmother Marzia, together with his three brothers. In truth he was the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Michele Grimani, whose family owned some theatres in Venice, and Zanetta worked for him……….

Did Casanova’s life have something to do with the theatre? For sure, he could boast a range of innumerable performances, primarily due to the fact that he didn’t intend to achieve higher social status through fair business, he wasn’t able to sacrifice himself at work. He would jump at once to the top of the staircase without climbing all the steps. Therefore he needed to give evidence of being a “Vip”, he would rather persuade himself and the others of being rich and snob, instead of admitting that he was always on the edge.

As a consequence, he constantly opted for illusion, a theatrical mood, and be a lavish man, who helped people to achieve goals, since his goals were already taken for granted.

He loved making plans, like complex stage machines, but if in the middle of the story something else attracted him more,he would give up and move to another adventure. Then with women, regardless the number of lovers, he tended to love those who were able to share the same feelings, ’cause the purpose was the shared pleasure. In this sense his eroticism looks instinctual and straight, without hidden meanings or perversions, so different from the philosophic implications of libertines, based on complex thoughts or metaphors.

Well, Casanova’s sexual appetite was spectacular, he was definitely gifted, but it was the expression of a generic vitality, of a broader lust for life, so that even knowledge could be acquired through emotions and the senses. This is the reason why his passion for women was associated to the delicacies of the table, and later his preference for strong scents -like wild game or Blue cheeses- was connected with women smelling of transpiration. Both of them aroused his insatiable curiosity.

The city became a hub, a trade centre, a city where you could find ordinary goods together with sophisticated and rare ones, manufactured by highly skilled artisans. Western and Eastern influences found in the city a fertile ground where it was possible to develop a unique style, the Venetian one, modelled on a Western base and enriched with Byzantine, Islamic, Spanish influences. For sure it looked “bizarre” to purists, but it was extremely attractive to the eyes, with such a taste for overall decoration, the elaborate interlaced branches all around the church portals, the colorful mosaics, the gilt tips of the Gothic arches with a Moorish touch.

Is it possible to define a “Venetian way of seeing the world”? Well, for sure local merchants needed foreigners, so the city developed a culture of tolerance and acceptance, although foreigners were supposed to accept Venetian strict regulations, under the control of the proper police. But they could improve their lifestyle in Venice, found a good place where to stay, raise a family and be happy. Which is the largest canvas in the Grand Council Hall? The Heaven by Tintoretto, and surely the Doge’s Palace was neither a church nor a monastery, but Venice was supposed to embody, in the whole world, the Heaven on earth with the Doge staying at the bottom. Happiness was a goal everybody was working for………

Not only businessmen had to be flexible and deal with foreigners, but also those who worked in the Arts, like painters, comedians, musicians who compared themselves with colleagues coming from abroad, since Venice was an international stage which played an important role in a successful artistic career. This happened especially in the age of Casanova when trade was declining, while visual arts benefited from the latest European trends, many intellectuals and painters travelled and made their reputation throughout Europe (see Francesco Algarotti, Sebastiano Ricci, Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto etc.).

Venice was renowned as the European capital of pleasure due to the sumptuous Carnival, but above all for freedom, in terms of free thinking and licentious costumes,a secular attitude towards life and human relationships.

You can describe a whole century, particularly the last one of the Republic, by analyzing the relationship between food and love. In this sense, how can we skip Giacomo Casanova? Not only because of his reputation as a consummate seducer and gourmand, but for his essays and meditations on both subjects, his intellectual and natural approach according to the way of seeing things on those days.

In fact he said “The chief business of my life was to cultivate whatever gave me pleasure to my senses”, a statement which the whole world would share……….. but he found a reason for it, deeply rooted in the history of his life. As soon as he was born, on April 2^nd 1725, his mother asked for a dish of prawns. This episode marked his life or justified his greediness and ,of course, prawns were one of Giacomo’s favourite fish dishes……..

Over the centuries Venice spoiled, at different levels, the steady population, developed a taste for luxury and for the pleasures of life. The economy was based on trade, but how it got started? In the early days, since this small town was built on marshes, flat and unhealthy, which kind of product could offer to the Mediterranean countries? Could a place like that have a future? Not at all, unless locals would bring the whole world to their own country, travel and negotiate with all sorts of people in order to obtain the best prices for the best goods.

So far nobody knew what Venice was, and it was very important to become respected and influential merchants. So the Venetians started an import-export business with the Greeks and the Arabs, who were already operating in the Mediterranean market. They managed to get amazing commercial privileges from the Byzantine Emperors, earn a lot of money and fame by supplying the Arabs with wood, metals and slaves. This happened from the IXth through the XIth century. Like any other merchant, Venetians were unscrupulous, self-confident, and Christians, despite the constant reproaches of the Pope!

To be continued………..

1969: the first 52 “Rauscedo” clones were officially homologated, while in the 1980’s the Company started some joint ventures in foreign countries. Of course Europe was at hand, and the Cooperative took agreements with “Agromillora Catalana” for the marketing of VCR products, then in 1989 with the Greek Company “Vitrohellas” and in 1996 with the Californian “Nova Vine”, while in 2000’s it was the turn of Australia and France. This is the reason why over 35% of the total production is exported, including China and India in the last years, and in 2006 they could boast the homologation of the 225th clone!

Walking throughout the hangars, you can tell how much room and laborwork are required. As you can see in the pictures, grapevines need to be properly cut for the grafting, then they are dipped in paraffin to prevent moulds and bacterias. A whole area is refrigerated to store the grapevines, ready to be used or shipped abroad, with a maximum capacity of 70 million ones.

But who provides the rootstocks? The Company, which grows American ones in special nurseries. We drove shortly to a cultivated area surrounded by labs meant for the cloning. When Philloxera broke out in the mid-XIXth cent. most of our vineyard were heavily affected by the bug which killed the roots. It was found that American rootstocks and vines were able to adapt and survive the desease, so most of the grapes used today were imported from Usa, and successfully prospered in Europe. This is the reason why the same plants are grown now, and exploited for the grafting, while original vines are still supplied by the Associates, who don’t live in the Friuli only, but throughout Italy. Lots of clones have been already widely experimented, but scientific research progressed and found new biotypes from the same wine grape cultivar.

These are selected according to improving aspects, such as the production capacity, the quality potential etc. Therefore they need to be grown, processed into wine, so the expectations will be fully checked.

As you know, each grape requires the proper soil, exposure, climate, and care. When our escort mentioned the total nursery surface, I was pretty surprised, about 2500 acres!

Of course they weren’t located there, they are in Veneto, Puglia, Toscana, among the most gifted wine regions in the country!

A few weeks ago I went to Rauscedo, a small town in the Friuli Venezia-Giulia region, on the border with Slovenia and Croatia. This area is renowned for excellent white wines from distinct grapes, most of them are original, that is widely grown in the last centuries. A real opportunity for me to increase my knowledge of the origins of wine from the plant, and an successful example of cooperation and solidarity among 200 associates. Rauscedo was already a country village -”borgo”- in the XIIIth cent., based nearby the river Meduna, which caused over the centuries may floodings and forced the natives to move, come back, start the crop growing again, in a constant effort to stay forever in such a fertile land. It took a long time to improve, in fact the lifestyle of the peasants got better in the early 1920’s, when they realized they’d never work it out without the help of the whole village. In those years an early nucleus of natives started to grow vines but didn’t start any Company.

According to the anecdotes told by ancestors, it was an Officer of the Royal Italian Army who taught a peasant the benchdrafting tachnique, in the hope to improve his life and the one of the family. The year 1933 was crucial, since the Company was officially established, but the Second Worls War didn’t help the business which nearly collapsed. At the end of it, Italy was in ruins but Italians were relieved by the regained peace and invested on their own skills and traditional crafts.

In 1948 the Company produced 3 million grafted cuttings, so that immigrants who had left Friuli before the War, came back home and renewed the local production. Today it amounts to 65 million a year, garanteede by 200 Associates able to assure a helathy, long-lived and high quality vines for great wines.

The 1950’s and 60’s marked the development of the economy and the national industry, so that winemakers realized how important was to use productive and deasease resistant vines. The range of different grapes in Italy was very varied, while Estates were too small for the production of many different wines. In 1968 the Vivai Rauscedo established an Experimental centre charge for the scientific selection of the best clones of the main national grapes used.

The golden age of Venice as a Maritime Republic was the Medieval Age -instead of the Renaissance- until the end of the XVth century when the city displayed its supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. Food was traded on a daily bases, and olive oil, grains, spices, herbs, seafood and wine was imported from Southern Italy, Asia Minor and Africa.

However some products were under the direct control of Governamental authorities, such as wine, salt and grains. It means that the importation, the production and the sale of these goods was administrated directly by Gov. Offices and in the case of wine, by the Officers of the “Giustizia Nuova”.

Throughout the Medieval Age the Venetian aristocracy purchased large areas in the countryside near Venice, but the land was uncultivated since the trade was profitable enough to keep the lifestyle of the family.

When the Portuguese Vasco de Gama circumnavigated Africa in 1498 and reached the fertile Kerala region in India, and new sea routes started to operate in the East, Venetian rulers realized that in the long run trade wouldn’t have been any more such a big source of revenue.

Therefore in 1556 a new Gov. office , the “Ministry of Uncultivated lands” ,started to support a vast project of land reclamation in the Veneto in order to reclaim the marshes and grow crops, new seeds imported from America, and eventually different sorts of grapes.

I am not saying that new grapes came from the “West Indies”, but for sure the trade increased in terms of volume and financial importance.

The Fourth Crusade in 1202-04, gave a new impulse to the importation of grapes from both the Greek Islands and the inland too, when merchants decided to export the vines and grow them along the Dalmatian coast and especially in the Istria peninsula, just opposite the Venetian Lagoon.

The soil was good, exposed to the sun and the warm winds of the Adriatic Sea, so the vineyards growing Malvasia, Moscatello Giallo, Ribolla Bianca, Pinella d’Arbe soon became part of the landscape.

And what about fishermen? First of all “they were a lot, one of the most common jobs in a city on water, despite its taughness. The population was much larger and the demand was constant, making fishermen proud of their role in society, as a vital part of the local community.”

It is important to point out the increase of the demand of fish by those who live on the mainland. Until the 60’s fish-eaters lived on the coastal areas, and in fact you can find few seafood based dishes in the Veneto culinary tradition, apart from the “Baccalà alla vicentina” (Vicenza style cod) or some fresh water fish.

An important aspect of food is the smell and the look of it. Fish is “fishy”, it stinks quickly if not fresh, it often looks ugly and is slippery at the touch. I mean, how many times you need to wash your hands to get rid of the smell of fish? Women who lived in big cities couldn’t distinguish a seabream from a trout, so it was better to ask the vendor to clean and cut the fish nicely, like a small steak.

Eventually the demand focussed on a specific range of products, such as seabass, seabreams, cuttlefish,squids, salmon, monkfish, some crustaceans, scampi and prawns.

At the same time the development of mass tourism increased the number of new Trattorias and Restaurants, while the Lagoon was heavily polluted by an uncontrolled industrial process. The lifestyle of the Venetians improved, women started to work and partly lost the culinary skills of their mothers, fish could be found in supermarkets, cut in fillets easy to cook.

Pollution contributed to lower the amount of Lagoon fish, which became more and more expensive………….. and today? What’s the current status of the market? What about the annual budget of it? How to select the good quality products? How are vendors and chefs dealing with the traditions while fulfilling the modern needs of customers?

You’d better book the “Crazy for Fish” tour to experience more! It lasts 3 hours and includes the visit at the Rialto Fish Market, along with a presentation of the Vegetyable and Fruit one. Later you’ll have the opportunity to interact with Massimo, the chef of Loris restaurant, and increase your knoledge about the Lagoon or Mediterranean seafood, the products selected on that day, how to clean, cut and prepare them in order to enhance the natural flavours. In order to fully appreciate his culinary style, after the tour you will have the chance to taste a selection of the most typical dishes, at lunch or dinnertime as you prefer.

Don’t say anything, you’ve got to try first………… we’re looking forward to meeting you!

 A traditional “Fritto misto” included small and whole fish, that is “papaline, sardoni, sarde, sfogetti, passarini, moeche, peoci, schie”, in a word local and cheap products. Today you would be surprised to see what touristy restaurants serve for the same dish: mainly frozen fish like calamari rings, scampi tails or prawns, maybe fresh anchovies. Loris added a detail: Scampi were not an ingredient of the Fritto misto. They were caught in Sicily, and due to the large amount of it, they were used to fill the hollow spaces of the wooden boxes loaded with tunas for exportation, so they would stay still.

Scampi looked beautiful, bright orange with long white claws, and were scattered on the fish to attract clients, who weren’t interested in buying, so before closing down scampi were given for free to the last customer. With the time scampi become more expensive, due to their likeness with lobsters and untill ten years ago they were imported from Yogoslavia, where the national authorities were not aware of the quality, which was much better than the Italian ones. With the advent of Croatia, prices went up too much and the importation decreased a lot.

According to Loris, there is another reason why Fritto misto has changed. As I said, it consisted of a combination of different kinds of fish, since traditionally the dish was served “a scotadeo”, that is “hot-finger way”. Fried food has to be eaten when ready, otherwise it gets soggy and looses the flavour. What they did was holding the hot fish with the fingers, open it, take the quill and the tail off, suck the head, and eat the rest with the skin on it! Considering that Lagoon waters were and still are shallow, fish was small, so how can you use knife and fork? Fingers were perfect, although not so fine……… Venetians don’t do it any more!

It is noteworthy to say that fish was on display as it was, the whole thing, you couln’t see any fillet. Women were able to clean and fillet all sorts of fish, and cook it the Venetian way, handed down from their mothers, and knew how to use the different parts of it. The ‘moscardini’, small pulps, were renowned for the brown and black innards you could find in the body, or you could cut out the ceeks of an ugly wide fishhead in order to prepare a delicate Risotto, a secret kept by a few fishermen only. A fish in particular was given for free after shopping: the “gò” or Lagoon Thumbfish, a small light brown fish that people could catch anywere, the Lagoon was plenty of it. The bad thing was the huge amount of bones in such a tiny body, but housewives had time enough to separate the soft white meat from the jelly bones and make one of the most typical main courses, the “Risotto coi Gò”. Today the average price for it is 13-15 E per kilo.

For sure the Venetians more rustic, and knew what hunger was from their relatives, when in the War years Venice was not supplied everyday with food. So whatever “la mama” cooked was fine, and she didn’t worry about the smell of fish throughout the apartment for days, the family would get used to it quickly.

Loris says, “the busiest day of the market was Friday, due to religious prescriptions, since Christ died on that day and therefore Christians are not allowed to eat meat. Venetians cooked “di magro” dishes, mainly seafood and vegetables. “ Vendors did their best in offering the premium fish at the market, they expected men and wifes together choosing the fish for the ‘Fritto misto’. It was common to see people queuing before the stalls and wait patiently for their turn.”

In truth fried food is not what you expect for “di magro”, being dipped in fat and served straight away. However traditions are subject to a certain modernization, so the main thing was the lack of meat on a plate. For the family the “Mixed fried seafood” was an event, the only dish served at dinner ’cause it was impossible to have more food, plates were plentiful and it was fun to clean and eat the crispy fish!

Surfing the Net, it is easy to find commentaries about the Rialto Fish market, most of them are enthusiastic about the atmosphere, the variety of the products, the quality of local food.

I perfectly agree with them, I chosed to live just a few steps from the market and today I couldn’t do without. But when you happen to spend some hours in company of a true expert, after a great meal and a good amount of alcohol in your veins, you realize how many things have changed over the decades, and how much they affected our lifestyle. You can check it in the menus of the restaurants, in the shelves of a wine bar, in the customers’ taste and demand. Just connect data, and you’ll go beyond appereances.

These are the feelings which followed a casual conversation with Loris Manna, a friend and collaborator, about the Rialto Fish Market in a hot summer day. He has worked there for 24 years, starting from scratch, first by delivering fish to Trattorias, then by running his own stall till some years ago. Now he’s in charge for a reputed restaurant in the Cannaregio district.

He started from the traditional customer, the Venetian housewife, not only because Loris simply adores women, but also ’cause of her role in the economy of the family. He said “They were a lot, the best buyers of the market, for sure 80% of those who shopped there, while the rest consisted of cooks who worked in Trattorias. Women very knowledgeable about seasonal products, the Lagoon and the Adriatic ones, the freshness, and cared for the quality of food” But how much imported fish was on sale at the Rialto? According to Loris, very few, imported mainly from the Mediterranean around Sicily, which provided the best Tuna and Swordfish. Today you can read on the labels “Pesce nostrano” -local fish-, an expression already used by the Romans who called the Mediterranean Sea “Mare Nostrum”. In truth “nostrano” is referred to the fish caught nearby Venice, which in the old days of the Serenissima was “the Gulf of Venice”.