Regional Recipes of Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friulian cuisine has many connections with Carnic cuisine, as can be seen with cjarsons, frico and the use of herbs. First courses include homemade pasta cut into strips (blecs), seasoned with roast and game sauces, semolina and potato gnocchi, polenta made with cornmeal. The peasant tradition has transmitted omelettes in many variations: with asparagus, with wild hop sprouts, with varieties of wild herbs.

Desserts are mostly inspired by Central European traditions: apple strudels, ricotta, pine nuts, raisins, fragrant fruit tarts and the famous Gubana. Friulian wines, white and red, are highly sought after, and the tradition of spirits is quite important, especially with the production of grappa.

The cuisine of the Gorizia is basically Central European, with rural dishes as jota, cabbage soup, or beans and shank, goulash and Gugelhupf, cotechino with sauerkraut, goulash, herb omelettes, potatoes in tecia. Game meats (pheasant, hare, roe deer and wild boar) are widely used, and prepared according to local tradition or with Austrian and Hungarian influences. Boiled meats and ham cooked in bread are served with horseradish sauce. A typical product is the Gorizia rose, a radicchio with a peculiar rose shape.

Barbecued food is widespread, and influenced by the Balkan culinary culture, such as cevapcici and pljeskavice, dishes often served with lepinja (very soft bread) and ajvar (a sauce made of peppers, chillies, eggplants and garlic); and also ražnjici, meat skewers (pork, sheep or lamb), grilled onions and peppers.

The cuisine of Trieste reflects the historical reality of this seafaring city, which for centuries welcomed the most diverse people and culinary traditions; from this diversity a particularly varied and savory cuisine was born, combining Mediterranean traditions with Central European cuisine.

The traditional cuisine of Trieste is rich not only in recipes and seafood dishes, similarly to the Istro-Dalmatian tradition, thanks to the fishy waters of the Adriatic, with typical dishes such as scampi alla busara; but also of meat, coming from the karst hinterland and from the Danubian basin, with recipes that are linked to Central European culinary traditions.