The dish is called risotto di piselli all’onda but it could also be the Venetian rice and peas or the classic risi e bisi. A complete one-course dish, traditional and of ancient origin.

I discuss it in detail here, and today I take up the classic recipe again, revisiting it slightly while using only local products.

Returning to my Venetian tradition, childhood memories, to Germana, my very sweet, food-loving and chubby mother, who managed to give flavor and color even to the lightest dishes.

With my father Francesco, the kitchen turned into a perfect mix of tradition and light eating.

I remember the attention at the table to light foods, little butter, only extra-virgin olive oil, few long cooking times, only the freshest products.

A phrase my father often repeated and that has accompanied me over the years was: Do we eat to live or live to eat? We eat to live!

So, together and unconsciously, they instilled in me the passion for traditional dishes, but reinterpreted lightly, making them modern and suitable for our times.

That’s why I could never love healthy food for its own sake, but healthy and beautiful, light and tasty, wholesome and colorful.

I remember the Sundays when we left early to buy rice in Grumolo delle Abadesse, the asparagus in Bassano del Grappa, the cherries of Marostica, the walnuts of Lugo Vicentino, the peas in Lumignano or the potatoes in Rotzo. The best local products, straight from those who grew them.

What was brought to the table was very important: fresh, the best quality. All this is the passion that those who preceded us gave us.

I talk about my parents because, unfortunately, I hardly enjoyed my grandparents; I only remember Cesira, my father’s mother. Small, always smiling, unbelievably quick at folding tortellini. I also remember the slaps on our hands because my twin and I tried to steal some still raw to eat them.

It is precisely thanks to traditions, love and passion of those who came before us that the desire to carry on these simple values is born.

This risotto di piselli all’onda is a tribute to them, a heartfelt thank you for what excites me every day. It is a continuous search for the flavor of those times, a taste of nostalgia, a taste of love unfortunately not reproducible but which gives the impulse to try and try again until perfection.

Often my sister and I exchange recipes, “mom used to make it like this, but it doesn’t have that wonderful taste” — shall we try again?

I am extremely grateful to Follador Prosecco who invited me to the Follador Heritage contest 2024, for the 255th anniversary of the family’s winemaking tradition, a cultural heritage and homage to Giovanni Follador founder, nicknamed Nani de Berti. Generations with authentic love for the land and the world of Prosecco.

This pea risotto all’onda is paired with a Valdobbiadene DOCG Brut Nani de Berti Prosecco Superiore.

Let’s get to the risotto! In an old cookbook of mine I found the Venetian risi e bisi recipe: Sto bon magnareto vien parecià coi bisi “magnatuto” cioè i biseti noveli che vien, giusto, de sta stagion primaveril.

Want to try making the wave on your risotto? With short sharp taps, push the pan forward without lifting it off the surface, then pull it towards you; you’ll see a wave form that shows the risotto’s creaminess.

Now it’s pea season, so, ready, go.

If you’re interested in recipes of regional tradition both Venetian and from all over Italy, you’ll find many on the blog; also try these: