20. Veneto
Rice and pea risotto
Nothing betrays the cucina povera (peasant cooking) roots of Venetian cuisine quite like the city's most famous dish. Risi e bisi, rice and peas ("bisi" is "peas" in Venetian dialect), is more soup-like than most northern Italian risotto dishes.
The peas and rice float in a vegetable broth made from a simple base of onion and pancetta -- the fatty, cured-pork cut.
Venice never had a king, but this dish was certainly fit for the doge -- a kind of chief magistrate. It was traditionally served at the annual Doge's banquet, held on April 25, the saint's day of the city's patron, St. Mark.