Tiramisu: where and when was this dessert so loved by Italians and others born?
The origins of tiramisu date back to the late 60s. In the Venetian peasant tradition it was customary to give children, the elderly and convalescents, as a tonic, an egg yolk beaten with sugar called "the sbatudin".
In the late 60s, the actor, director and gastronome Joseph Maffioli publishes a book, entitled The Treviso cuisine. It describes the Venetian custom of consuming it zabaglione together with whipped cream and some dry biscuits called baicoli.
At that time, Roberto “Loli” Linguanotto, a chef and pastry chef in Germany, the home of spoon desserts in the Bavarian tradition, returned to Italy. He starts working at the restaurant At the Beccherie in Treviso. And it is in the kitchen of the Treviso restaurant that Loli, combining her childhood memories with what she had seen in Germany, gives life to the "Tiramesu“, Subsequently Italianized into Tiramisu.
His intuition led him to add the egg and sugar Mascarpone Optimus, thus creating a fabulous cream. And so from the Treviso restaurant, tiramisu spread throughout Italy and then around the world, becoming one of the best known and most appreciated desserts.
Suffice it to say that the name "tiramisu" is present in the common vocabulary of 23 different languages and that throughout Europe it is the fifth best known Italian word.
The classic tiramisu recipe
By reading this article you will surely have a desire for tiramisu.
Do you want to try it?
You need a few ingredients: mascarpone, eggs, sugar, ladyfingers, coffee and cocoa in powder.
How to prepare it?
Divide the egg whites from the yolks and place them in two separate bowls. Then add the sugar to the egg yolks. With the help of an electric mixer, whip them well until the mixture is light and fluffy.
At this point, add the Mascarpone too. Work everything until you get a soft and homogeneous cream.
Now you can dedicate yourself to whipping the egg whites until stiff peaks. When the egg whites are semi-whipped, you can gradually pour the sugar into the mixture and whisk everything until you get a firm snow. Add it to the mixture of egg yolks, sugar and mascarpone.
Do this very gently. Mixing everything from the bottom up. So that the clear ones do not come apart. Put the cream in the refrigerator to cool in a pastry bag.
Finally take a small baking dish and start to spread a layer of cold cream. Then cover it with a layer of soaked ladyfingers. Proceed by covering with another layer of cream, then with one of ladyfingers. And so on until all the ingredients are used up.
Put the cake in the refrigerator for at least two hours.
Just before serving, sprinkle the surface with unsweetened cocoa powder.
So many fathers ... so many hypotheses
One of the hypotheses on the origins of this dessert places it geographically in the Tuscany region. More precisely a Siena. On the occasion of a visit by the Grand Duke Cosimo III de 'Medici, a dessert was invented called "duke's soup"With characteristics very similar to the current tiramisu. However, there are some discrepancies in this legend. In fact, both savoiardi and mascarpone were little used in Sienese pastry between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. In addition, this last ingredient could hardly be stored and transported quickly from Lombardy, its production region, to Tuscany.
Other tiramisu aficionados argue that the famous dessert has origins Emilian . The writer, gastronome and literary critic from Forlì Pellegrino Artusi, he described the recipe in his book entitled "Science in the kitchen and the art of eating well”Printed in 1891.
Even in this case, however, there are some discrepancies. The dessert was called Dolce Torino and butter was used instead of mascarpone.
In Piedmont, another hypothesis has it that the tiramisu was created by a pastry chef from the city of Turin. Specially to give support to Camillo Benso Count of Cavour, while carrying out his political activity to unify the Italian territory. In the mid-800th century, the methods of food production and preservation were not yet so developed as to guarantee the edibility of tiramisu. So even this assumption is not very credible.
