Who invented tiramisu?
The best known story credits Le Beccherie restaurant in Treviso, where it was made on Christmas Eve 1969. Friuli Venezia Giulia has older claims, and the argument has never been settled.
TiramisuA restaurant portion380kcal
A young dessert
Tiramisu seems like it has always been on Italian menus. It has not. Wikipedia sums it up honestly: it appears in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and exactly where and when is unclear. It is missing from cookbooks and food encyclopedias of the 1970s. An Italian dictionary first listed it in 1980, and English dictionaries had it by 1982. The name means pick me up, from tireme sù in the dialect of the Veneto, which suits a dessert made with strong coffee.
Christmas Eve in Treviso
The most documented story starts at Le Beccherie, a restaurant in Treviso owned by Ado Campeol. It says his wife Alba Di Pillo and the pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto created tiramisu there on 24 December 1969. It went on the menu in 1972. When Campeol died in 2021, newspapers around the world called him the father of tiramisu. The family never patented it, so anyone can make it and call it by its name.
Friuli says it was first
The region of Friuli Venezia Giulia tells a different story. Britannica points to a recipe published in 1959 from Tolmezzo, a mountain town, made by Norma Pielli at a restaurant popular with hikers. Wikipedia also mentions a semi frozen tiremesù served at the Vetturino restaurant in Pieris since 1938. In July 2017 the Italian agriculture ministry listed tiramisu as a traditional food of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Treviso and the Veneto reject that, and the two sides still disagree.
Where it came from before that
Both versions grew out of things people already ate. Britannica describes sbatudin, a dish from northeast Italy of egg yolks beaten with sugar and served with ladyfingers. Put coffee soaked biscuits under it, add mascarpone and cocoa, and you are very close to tiramisu. That is why the argument is so hard to end. The pieces were around long before anyone wrote down the finished dessert.
What it is today
Today tiramisu is on menus all over the world, and Britannica counts at least 200 variations. The classic still has ladyfingers dipped in espresso, a cream of egg, sugar and mascarpone, and cocoa dusted over the top. Some versions add a splash of liqueur, others leave it out. A usual serving is a square cut from a tray or a single glass. It is rich, because mascarpone is a very creamy cheese, and that is a big part of why people love it.