'In the Mediterranean diet vegetables are of fundamental importance,' points out Antonio Brizzi, Costa corporate travelling chef, 'and there are numerous vegetarian dishes in Italian cuisine that have always been part of our culinary tradition.
'The new regional menus just recently introduced on board Costa ships include many dishes that fully satisfy certain needs of many of our guests. For example, in Venetian cuisine, there is a soup called “risi e bisi” (rice and peas), as well as Treviso radicchio strudel with Monte Veronese DOP cheese. The Ligurian regional menu offers a delicious dish, trenette with pesto, while moving South, and specifically in Puglia, there is dish consisting of celeriac and caciocavallo cheese,' he added.
The wide array of dishes also includes a reinterpretation of the traditional arancino, stuffed with rice and vegetables and served with stewed lentils, a vegetarian burger made with kidney beans and served with a garden rocket and apricot salad, cauliflower and fig tempura, flavoured with raspberry sauce or sweet potato and red onion soup.
Also popular, says Brizzi, Porcini mushroom and Savoy cabbage soup laced with fig vinegar, an appetizer consisting of cold zucchini stuffed with goat cheese and toasted almonds, and country-style spaghetti with stewed chick peas and vegetables.
