In "Historically yours", Olivier Poels explores the origins of a pastry made from soaked biscuits: tiramisu.

In his native Italy, his precise origins are subject to real legal battles between competing regions.

Olivier Poels takes the opportunity to deliver an easy recipe.

It is a typical Italian dessert, yet the precise origins of tiramisu are much less clear than it seems.

In "Historically Yours", Olivier Poels returns on Wednesday to the controversies surrounding this supposedly aphrodisiac sweetness (its name means

"Raise my morale") 

and unveils a recipe easy to make yourself. 

Tiramisu literally means 'Pull me up', which means 'Cheer me up'.

And it is indeed a dish that lifts the spirits, to the point that it is considered in Italy as an aphrodisiac.

It is even claimed that prostitutes in Venice ordered some for their clients.

Duel of regions for his fatherhood

We do not know exactly where he was born, and Italy knows a lot of fights around the history and creation of tiramisu.

A first hypothesis claims that it could come from Tuscany.

The dessert would have been invented in the 16th century for the arrival of the Grand Duke Como 3 de Medici.

But in Italy there is very little cooking codification and recipe book, unlike in France.

Thus, we do not find in Italian literature any real written mention of a tiramisu recipe before the 1970s. This is still very late.

This makes the Venetians say that the recipe was actually invented in the 1950s - 1960s, in a restaurant in the city of Treviso.

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"False", they retort in neighboring Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region where it is claimed, with photos to support it, that the dessert was born in 1952 in a restaurant in the municipality of Tolle Mezzo.

There is still a legal battle between these two Italian regions today: the Veneto has included tiramisu in the official list of its traditional agricultural products and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia is suing it, of course.

So we don't really know exactly where tiramisu originated, but it seems certain that it comes from northern Italy.

And that today it is an emblematic dessert of the country.

Above all, it is very easy to perform.

Few ingredients are needed and just need to be served chilled. 

Tiramisu

Ingredients:

  • 20 spoon cookies (ladyfingers)

  • 100 g sugar

  • 250 g of mascarpone

  • 1 coffee

  • 3 eggs

  • 5 cl of Amaretto

  • Cocoa powder

Recipe: 

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar and mascarpone.

Beating egg whites.

Incorporate the egg whites into the yolks-sugar-mascarpone mixture until a light and smooth cream is obtained.

Mix the coffee and the Amaretto.

Dip the cookies in this mixture.

Assemble the dessert by alternating layers of cream and biscuit.

Sprinkle with cocoa powder.

Store in the fridge for at least two to three hours before serving.