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”.