Venetian-Style Sandwiches

Tramezzino—which can be translated a “a little something held in between”—was a term coined in Venice to replace the foreign word “sandwich.” But a tramezzino is a particular kind of sandwich whose most distinctive characteristic is that it is soft: Soft is the white bread and soft is the filling.

Each tramezzino is actually the triangular half of a sandwich cut diagonally, its cut side turned to expose the filling bulging in the center. Nearly every café and wine bar in Venice makes tramezzini, displaying them in stacks. They are often found served thus at the smart parties in the palazzi, showing their stuffing to spare guests the unpredictability of a blind choice.