Venice is a city by, of and – sometimes – in the sea, a place which quietly serves up some of the most sumptuous cuisine on earth.
You don’t have to be a gourmet to want to know what makes food tick, to better enjoy the feast you find on your table. What you have to be is curious. That’s the kind of clientele that gravitates toward Context Travel’s consummate walking tours, journeys illuminated not by tour guides, but experts in the field.
Context Travel brings precisely that to a Venetian journey: context. It’s an endlessly-fascinating, geographically improbable city with a food tradition all its own. To better understand that tradition, consider a walking tour of the Rialto Market and environs.
Context calls the Rialto “the culinary, social and economic heart of Venetian life.” And so it is. Locals buy their seafood here, and have done so for a very long time.
An expert docent will almost literally take you by the hand though the Rialto elaborating on the fish, vegetables and such that are native to Venice – such as the tiny artichokes that hale from the island of S. Erasmo, or the smallish shie – a shrimp fished from the city’s legendary lagoon. After the walking tour (it takes about two hours) finish up at a local eatery with cicchetti, signature Venetian snacks – and an ombra, a small glass of wine. Educated and properly fortified, you’ll then be able to shop the Rialto yourself with a modicum of confidence, learning how chefs prepare rixota de go – rice with goby, a fish from the lagoon. Then there’s polenta e schie, that tiny shrimp you saw in the market. Locals fry it and bed it down on a mound of soft, white polenta.
A good walk, a great meal, a glass or two of wine can help put the world’s problems in their proper context.
As for getting to Venice, OAG says Delta offers nonstop service from New York Kennedy and US Airways from Philadelphia.
(Image: josemanuelerre)
