Tiramisu is one of the most delicious Italian desserts to enjoy the traditionality of Italian cuisine in our Rossini pizzeria restaurant. With the arrival of summer and the rise in temperatures, many of our guests cannot resist tasting this small specialty during their evening in Barcelona.
Due to its great popularity around the world, today we will present you 4 curiosities of tiramisu that you did not know so that you can discover funny anecdotes about this irresistible Italian homemade dessert.
We hope you like them!
A name with many meanings
The word “Tiramisú” comes from the Treviso dialect, a variant of Italian from the city of Venice, its meaning has been interpreted and/or translated as “Pick me up”. “Pick me up”, “Bring me” and “Cheer up”. These translations are especially associated with the ingredients (coffee, chocolate, cheese, cream) and their hypercaloric content.
The current reputation of tiramisu
As we previously introduced, tiramisu is one of the best known Italian desserts in the world and it is a fact that many Italian restaurants in Barcelona incorporate it into their menus. It is especially curious that this popular dessert has obtained a series of recognitions:
On the occasion of European Day 2006, the dessert was chosen to represent Italy in the Sweet Europe initiative. On January 17, 2013, tiramisu was declared the official dish of the VI International Day of Italian Cuisine in New York.
Since July 29, 2017, the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies has included the traditional Friulian tiramisu recipe in the list of traditional Friulian and Julian agri-food products of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.
In 2017, the first “Tiramisu World Cup” took place, held in Treviso on November 4 and 5, a competition reserved for professionals who do not work in catering. The event was repeated consecutively in 2018 and 2019.
Tiramisu and its impact on the history of mankind
According to Italian sources, the winemaker Giuseppe Maffioli, a journalist for the 1981 Vin Veneto magazine, made an official historical chronicle on the preparation of the dessert.
His sources detailed that the tiramisu was created between the late 1960s and early 1970s, officially locating it in the restaurant “Alle Beccherie” in the Italian city of Treviso.
This restaurant was run by a pastry chef named Roberto Linguanotto, who wanted to recreate the types of desserts seen in his experience abroad.
In an interview with Maffioli he stated that his recipe derives from “sbatudin”, a mixture of egg yolk beaten with sugar, commonly used by peasant families as a tonic, to which mascarpone cheese is simply added.
However, this investigation brought a lot of controversy, since other Italian restaurants in the Treviso region wanted to claim the paternity of the dessert and other restaurants in the region such as “Al camín”, “Al Fogher”, “El Toulà” ….
Over the years, each of them speculated and spread different stories of the invention of tiramisu that were broadcast around the world.
A peculiar dessert created by a madam
Some local Italian legends attribute the invention of the dessert to a “madam” from a brothel in the Venice region a little before the First World War.
This unique woman prepared this delicious dessert to encourage or replenish the energies of her clients once they went to the brothel.
the main ingredients of tiramisu (such as chocolate or coffee) have energetic and aphrodisiac properties.
Years later this dessert was known by a member of royalty who later popularized it among the upper classes of the Italian court in Milan.
A whimsical space dessert
In 2013 Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, a lover of Italian pasta and dishes, requested a special menu from headquarters for his stay on the Russian Soyuz TMA¬09M dell’Esa spacecraft. Given this fact, a renowned chef from Turin created a dehydrated tiramisu for the astronaut, who received the dessert through a special food ship.
So far our post dedicated to the curiosities of tiramisu. We hope that these little curiosities have helped you to learn new things about this popular Italian dessert on our menu.
If you want to discover more curiosities and anecdotes, we recommend “The enigmatic Plaza Reial of Barcelona” and “Rossini extraordinary musician, passionate gourmet”.
See you in another post!
