Europe > Italy > Veneto > Venice > Articles > Fishy Business on the Rialto

“What news on Realto?” When Shylock asked Bassanio this at the end of the 16th century, it was no more that an echo of similar questions reverberating down 300 years. All Europe wondered at the same thing, jealously watching this commercial centre - the Wall Street of the day - on which the Venetian empire pivoted. On the Rialto were to be found glimmering gold and shimmering silks, rich brocades and heavy damasks, intricate silver work, strange and sought-after spices, and other foreign wonders which arrived in Venice from distant lands. It was to the Realto that a resentful Europe had to come to purchase a share of the bounty - until, that is, the explorations of Vasco da Gama reached India, and in so doing broke the Venetian monopoly of the Oriental trade. By the 18th century the quayside which once saw such frenetic financial activity had become the ‘in’ place for dawn revellers, whose only interest in money was the spending of it on dissipated pleasures. By 1802, Wordsworth was mourning the extinction of the Venetian Republic:
Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee
…Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.

Despite the greater riches of Venice’s past, who could argue that she is not still a gilded city? The Rialto bridge which now stretches across the Grand Canal was built at about the same time as Shakespeare was writing The Merchant of Venice. It replaced a wooden bridge, itself the last in a line of replacements for a bridge of boats which was created here towards the end of the twelfth century. The Rialto is the name of the area, not just the bridge, and comes from Latin rivoaltus, meaning a deep channel. Various distinguished architects submitted designs for the bridge, including Michelangelo and Palladio, but the less well-known Antonio da Ponte was the one chose, perhaps helped by his surname. It is over the famous bridge, lined with shops, that one must go in search of the fish market.

The Rialto remains the commercial heart of Venice, and was in full swing a little after dawn one morning, while the rest of Venice, which I had just walked through - my footsteps echoing behind me in the silence - had its shutters down and was still sweetly slumbering.

Gone is the booty from the Levant, but what exists now is no less colourful. As I threaded my way towards the fish market, I passed shop windows reminiscent of haberdashers, except that the coloured ribbons within were forms of pasta. Specialist cheese shops displayed roughly-hewn hunks of parmesan - delicious cubed and eaten unadorned -heavily marbled gorgonzola, mozzarella, ricotta, taleggio, mascarpone, and other local cheeses fresh from the mountains. Olive oil shops boasted a range of bottles any off-licence would be proud of, and a large glass jars filled with pine kernels and marked with the month of harvest. On I went, past coffee shops freshly roasting their beans for the day’s trade, chocolate shops decorated with sea-blue boxes of Baci, and bakeries with the characteristically flattered ciabatta loaves and trays of the macaroons (amaretti) which go so well with the old Venetian favourite, zabaglione. Next were the butchers’ shops with tidy bundles of plump birds, and pillows of calves’ liver waiting to be fried with the sweet Venetian onions. Delicatessens followed, with hanging rows of small, medium and large salamis alternating with smoked hams.

Turn a corner at the end of this street and there is square in which the fish market stands. Beyond it lies the Grand Canal and the quayside from where, in the 18th century, the playboys of the time liked to watch the sun rise. In the other direction stands the old church of San Giacomo, its message to the predecessors of those who now trade here inscribed around the apse:
Around This Temple Let The Merchant’s Law Be Just,
His Weight True, And His Covenants Faithful.

Running between the Grand Canal and the fish market is a fruit and vegetable market. I decided to start there and work my way backwards to the fish market, which was the real reason I had come. Faced here with such an explosion of colour, the shops I had passed en route seemed now mere clues in a treasure hunt for which the prize now lay before me - fresh figs, green and purple, their colours echoed by the juicy grapes beside them; cool lemons and sharp limes; heavily fragrant melons and sweetly-scented white peaches. The juice of the latter when mixed with prosecco makes the famous concoction Bellini, a cocktail invented by Giuseppe Cipriani at Harry’s Bar many years ago which has justly become the Venetian aperitif.

The vegetable stalls were dominated by porcini, among the first of the season. I counted twenty crates of them, earthy and deliciously powerful in scent, beside which the more delicate golden chanterelles were little competition. There was red, green and yellow peppers, so valuable in antipasti; deep red plum tomatoes and glossy dark aubergines, small and plump as a young child’s wrist; pumpkins, halved and quartered, their flesh autumnal and melancholic in colour. Above these hung spiky garlands of fire-red chillis and strings of garlic. There were salad stalls with compartments separating the different young green leaves, glistering wet in the early sunshine, and beside them a mountain of tightly curled radiccio rosso, brought from neighbouring Treviso. One of the most popular salad vegetables in this region, it is often eaten crisply grilled and served as a balance to the succulent local sole or monkfish.

Next were baby zucchini, showing off their magnificent flowers; pyramids of sweet onions and wicker baskets filled with tiny globe artichokes, green with soft heather-purple tinges, irresistible to the eye. All these were examples of how good is the soil on the islands in the Venetian lagoon for vegetable growing; the islands are constantly flooded by high tides, and left mineral-rich. Before retracing my steps to the fish market, I inhaled deeply the aromatic perfume of fresh basil from the bunches beside me. With its smell came memories of cool wine, pasta fit for the gods, and happiness ‘under the roof of blue Italian weather’.

‘One of the most successful new Venetian buildings with its springing arches below and its loggia above…’, wrote E. V. Lucas of the fish market, in a Wanderer in Venice (1913). He went on to describe the produce: “The strangest fish to English eyes are the cuttlefish which are sold in long slices. It strikes one as a refinements of symmetrical irony that the ink which exudes from these fish and stains everything around should be used for indicating what their price is.”

Even more picturesque is the episode in which Mr Lucas describes a fishmonger, in order to demonstrate the ‘vivacity’ of his eels, allowing one to bite him. It was with this in mind that I peered rather dubiously into the various buckets, containing what the ancient Romans referred to as a cousin of the snake 9they used only its skin, to make straps with which to punish children). That the eels were alive there was no doubt, and so they should be, as they are best eaten straight after killed and skinned. Eel (Anguilla) plays an important part in Venetian cooking, its rich flesh normally roasted or sauted, seasoned with herbs and married with thick wedges of the much-treasured polenta.

But what a choice was here. Not just regulars from the lagoon (which due to pollution has far less fish now than fifty years ago), but also the day’s catch from the Adriatic, and representatives from up and down the Italian coastline. Many of the eels came from the Comacchio Lagoon, south of Venice, which has since the Middle Ages been the hub of the eel-fishing industry. There were even live snails from the Gulf of Taranto, beneath brindisi.

The colours, the shapes, the glistering wetness and the writhing movements of the doomed; the beauty of some fish and the ugliness of others - all this was laid out in the many-pillared market-place, and slanting through the arches right the way along the building was the soft September light of Venice, caressing the sea bass, stippling the salmon trout, glinting on the sardines and playing shadows across the magnificent swordfish, until the whole took on the watery beauty that is Venice’s magic.

Among purposeful local shoppers I studied the fish. There were fresh mackerel (sgombro), onto whose silver skins a maze was painted by the Creator. They are popular all along the Adriatic coast, grilled slowly over a wood or charcoal fire, brushed with oil and flavoured with rosemary and garlic. There were wings of skate (rasa) and hunks of tuna (tonny), a much-loved fish in Italy, appearing in many antipasti dishes and from which is made the delicate tuna sauce for pollo or vitello tonnato. There was a jumble of orange-red gurnards, their prominent heads and pouting mouths an amusing sight. There were grey-green pollacks (merluzzo) and noble turbots (rombi), one of which I had later, simply grilled in a tomato and caper sauce pretty rose-coloured salmon trout lay next to less pretty dogfish (palumbo), a harmless member of the shark family.

Fillets of John Dory (San Pietro), a favourite in Venice and a delicious fish, were arranged on ice. It is called San Pietro from the large thumb- and fingerprints on its sides, which legend has it are St Peter’s. Its bony head and sharp spines, and the ugly mouth which can shoot out rapidly and engulf its prey, belie its delicate flesh, which ranks equal to turbot or sole. Because of its appearance, it is normally sold filleted. For the same reason, so too is the monkfish (rana, locally rospo), with its hideous toad-like face and tasty tail, but here I saw one in all its glory, grinning widely. The flesh of its tail is firm, with a taste reminiscent of lobster, and it is much eaten in Venice. There were long grey mullets (cefalo), which are delicious scaled, stuffed and served whole, and small bright-eyed red mullets (triglia). Red mullet, combining a unique flavour with a charming appearance, has long been appreciated - even Cicero and Horace sang its praises. In Venice it is traditionally marinated in white wine.

One of the most attractive fish in the market was the sea bass (branzino). They were shimmering silver and the black criss-crosses on their skin looked as if they had been hand-finished in pen and fresh fennel. Another beauty was the gilt-head sea bream (pagro), which has a distinctive golden spot on each cheek and one between its eyes, sometimes called its crown. The most prized of its family, it is exquisite baked in a paper parcel, brushed with a little olive oil, and sprinkled with fresh parsley. Giulio Cesare Tirelli, a famous Venetian chef of the sixteenth century, wrote that ‘The fishes that carry the crown are indeed the Queen of the others because they are delicate beyond belief.’ Also belonging to that clan, there was the dentex (dentice), a smallish plump fish with a skin of rainbow-like pink and silver hues. It is best grilled or roasted and served whole.

There was baby sole (sogliola) from the Adriatic, so good crispy fried, and salmon steaks cut and ready for purchase. In front of these were piles of iridescent sardines (sarde) and anchovies (alici), which it was remarkably easy to visualise darting through the blue water in shoals. Anchovies are often served as antipasti, normally raw, filleted, opened out and marinated for several hours in lemon juice. They are an essential part of that delicious dish of grilled and marinated aubergines, anchovies and sweet peppers, and are used to flavour many pasta dishes. In the old days anchovies would appear only on the tables of the poor, but nowadays they have a place in every Italian kitchen.

A somewhat bigger catch is the impressive swordfish, and here it was displayed with pride. One of the most common Sicilian fish, it is caught - even hunted by harpoon - in the channel that divides Sicily from Africa, and is sold fresh in the markets in autumn and winter. Swordfish (pesce spada) has a fine sweet flesh; at the Cipriani Hotel, on the island of Giudecca, I had steaks of it perfumed with lemon, olive oil and oregano. For this sauce, known as salmoriglio, the above ingredients are beaten together lightly and then brushed over the fish after it had been grilled. I also had smoked swordfish, in a salad with fennel, orange and black olives. Francesco Leonardi, and eighteen-century chef to the Neapolitan aristocracy, recommended marinating swordfish in a mixture containing truffles or plums- depending on the season-before frying them and deglazing the pan with Champagne.

As a contrast to the lively-looking fish, still glistering with the last drops of the water from which they were pulled, there were rows of the water from which they were pulled, there were rows of dried cod (baccala or stoccafisso, the first cured by salting, the second by the wind). Imported from Scandinavia and North America since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively, its cheapness, high nutritional value and long ‘shelf-life’ made it popular in remote inland areas, where it was taken upon arrival at ports such as Venice. It became much loved in Venice, too, and at one time there were numerous recipes for it. Now, the most commonly found is baccala mantecato.

‘Mantecato’, in Venetian dialect, means ‘worked’ and refers to the amount of preparation needed to produce this dish. Arrigio Cipriani, the proprietor of Harry’s Bar, where every Friday and Sunday you can sample it, describes the method thus: ‘The first and most important step is to bash the fish as hard as you can against the stone steps leading down to the canals or against the stone mooring posts, until it becomes pliable.’ Then it must be soaked lengthily, cooked, skinned, boned and cooked some more. For baccala mantecato as served at Harry’s Bar, the fish is cooked in milk, drained, and mashed with parsley, anchovies and garlic; then olive oil is slowly trickled into it until it has the consistency of ‘firm mashed potatoes’. A dash of the milk in which a wedge of polenta: the taste of ‘pure heaven’.

Beating dried cod until it is soft reminded me of similar instructions regarding octopus (polpo), and I went in search of them. I found beautiful specimens here, nicely springy to the touch (that is why they have to be beaten) and far more handsome than the neighbouring squid and cuttlefish. The Adriatic coast harbours a mass of these cephalopods (literally, head-footed), tiny ones such as moscardini or polipetto and the delicate small squid (calamaretti) which are full of flavour and exquisitely tender, and larger variations on the theme. Squid (calamari) are long-bodied and have two long arms in addition to their eight short tentacles. They are most often stewed or cut into rings and fried for that wonderful dish, Fritto Misto Mare, but I have also seen them stuffed with their own chopped tentacles plus a gorgeous pinch of parmesan, parsley, and garlic, and then braised in white wine.

Cuttlefish (sepia), described earlier by E.V. Lucas, have the same tentacle-and-arm arrangement as the squid, but their bodies are shorter and chubbier. Recipes for cooking cuttlefish-and instructions for extracting their ink sacs undamaged- appeared for the first time in a fourteenth-century Venetian dialect cookery book. Cuttlefish are an element of typical Venetian fare, most notably stewed in their own ink and accompanied by polenta. The ink of the squid and cuttlefish has a very intense flavour and it is much used both for colour and taste in pasta and risotto dishes - risotto nero being one example. Risotto makes a perfect bed for the numerous shellfish found in the lagoon, particularly the delicious tiny pink shrimps, gamberetti, which make a superb dish, mixed with baby zucchini. But there was no shortage of ingredients for risotto here, and what a joyous task it would have been to choose them.

There were two types of crab, the bright, spiky crab (granceola) from the Adriatic, so called because of its long legs and here considered a delicacy, and the Mediterranean crab, to my mind superior in flavour, and certainly less frenetic in its activity. There were crawfish (aragosta), or clawless lobsters - which again I find inferior to the true lobster, and which certainly do not bear comparison with the wonders that are caught here: plump, juicy, peach-coloured scampi, which are also irresistible dipped in oil and breadcrumbs and grilled; boldly striped imperial prawns (mazzancolla); clams (vongole) and mussels (cozze), both sold in big netted bags. In Venice, risotto is made more liquid than in the rest of Italy: ‘Deve avere l’onda (“It should be like a wave”) is what the locals say.

I left Venice early in the morning: the air was fresh and the sun still misty. We sped across the top of the Grand Canal, past where the many moored gondolas bob up and down, their shape, according to an old Venetian poem, originating when a crescent moon dropped out of the sky to shelter a pair of young lovers. Under bridges and along narrow canals we went, the green water slapping hard on stone banks, and then we were out into the open, on the aquatic highway, salt spay in our faces, and counted, as I passed them, one, two, three- no, five, motorboats laden with edible goods, latecomers bound for Rialto. How I wished I was going their way…