Curiosities
The coexistence of different traditions and cultures brought the classic dry Venetian patisserie to contaminate with the richer and more sophisticated Swiss and Austrian ones. Not to forget the Arabic influence for the use of spices, as well as the one of the Jewish tradition. Pastry chefs were united in the “Art of the Scaleteri”, that took its name from the “scalete”, doughnuts or wafers used as wedding desserts. The scaleteri united in a corporation in 1493: a trace of it still remains in the street and court of the scaleteri in Sant’Agostino. The beloved bussolai have a round shape, are easy to prepare and match nicely with sweet wines like vin santo and the zibibbo. You can give an “S” shape to the same mixture to get a cookie very nice to dip (mogiar, in Venetian) into the wine! The zaeti (literally “yellow-ish”) are typical Venetian cookies made of polenta flour and raisin. They take their name from the intense yellow colour that characterizes them. Indeed, in Venetian dialect the word zàlo means “yellow”: that’s the reason behind the name of this delicious cookie.