A midmorning snack along the street, off the Rialto Bridge in Venice. Soft slices of crust-less white bread stuffed with a mountain of chopped seafood — shrimp, squid, other lovelies of the sea, probably pulled from the giant market just up the calle — in a dressing, probably maionese, generous with chile heat. Somehow managing not to slop it all onto myself. Eaten standing up in the street as tourists and Venetians, both, bustle about.
Our idyllic culinary memories of vacation drive us to search out those flavors back home. But the simple Italian sandwiches called tramezzini are hard to find. Their more well-known cousins, panini, are everywhere in the U.S., since they caught on like pizza a few years ago. But tramezzini, not so much. In Italy, you'll find them in cafes, train stations, everywhere, stacked on silver trays, cut to show off their fillings of egg salad, or prosciutto cotto and sliced artichokes, or tuna, capers and tomatoes.
