Plenty of legends have been created around the origins of Tiramisu. One of them connects Tiramisu to the “zuppa del Duca” made in honour of Cosimo III dei Medici (1642 – 1723), without Mascarpone cheese. From Tuscany the fame of the zuppa spread out across all of Italy, and arriving in Venice, it was given the name tirame su (pick me up). Definitively, there are no sources that prove this.

Other claims have more credibility, particularly those arguing that the Tiramisu was first created in Veneto, in the city of Treviso, but in relatively recent times, perhaps in the early Seventies of the last century.

Two claims point in that direction: In 2007, an Italian Pastry chef and baker, Carminantonio Iannaccone, who now runs the Piedigrotta Bakery in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, in an interview with The Washington Post, claimed that he was the inventor of the sweet.

Carminantonio Iannaccone and his wife Bruna make news in The Washington Post

“Iannaccone's story is simple: he trained as a pastry chef in the southern city of Avellino, and then migrated to Milan to find work at the age of 12. In 1969 he married his wife, Bruna, and opened a restaurant also called Piedigrotta in Treviso, where he cooked up a dessert based on the "everyday flavours of the region": strong coffee, creamy mascarpone, eggs, Marsala and ladyfinger cookies. He says it took him two years to perfect the recipe, which was originally served as an elegant, freestanding cake”

On the other hand, also convinced that Tiramisu was born in Treviso was Giuseppe Maffioli (1925-1985), but not in the Iannaccone Restaurant. Maffioli, an actor, a writer and the founding editor of Vin Veneto, a publication on the wines of the region of Veneto, wrote in an article on coffee-based desserts published in 1981 that; “Recently, just a little more than a decade ago, in the city of Treviso emerged a new dessert, the

The first Tiramisu of Le Beccherie Restaurant Treviso

Tiramesù. It was proposed for the first time at the restaurant Le Beccherie by a pastry chef named Loly Linguanotto, who had by chance recently held a few jobs in Germany.”

He added: “The dessert and its name, ‘Tiramesù,’ meant to describe an extraordinarily nutritious and invigorating food, immediately gained popularity. Tiramesù was prepared with absolute faithfulness or a few variations not only in the restaurants of Treviso, but in the entire Veneto region and in all of Italy. The Tiramesù is, after all, a coffee-flavoured “zuppa inglese” like the one made in my own house on the day of St. Joseph for my grandfather’s birthday. This old preparation, though, was not yet Tiramesù, and it must be said that the name has its own prestigious importance.”

Roberto Linguanotto, former pastry chef of Le Beccherie

In an interview with Pietro Mascioni, in 2006, Alba Campeol, the former owner of Le Beccherie, claimed that the origin of tiramisu was an invention of her mother-in-law, after the birth of her, son (Alba’s) when she was very weak. “My mother-in-law,” she said to Mascioni “to help me recuperate some energy, gave me a zabaglione… with a bit of mascarpone cheese … and also added a bit of coffee to it.” She told Loly Linguanotto and asked him to prepare a dessert for the restaurant; “And he had the idea of making layers of Savoiardi cookies dipped in coffee. Then we added the cocoa topping. It was then that I remembered my mother-in-law’s words, and we called it ‘Tiramesù.’ It’s important to notice that in Le Becchierie tiramisu there was no Marsala Wine, while there was in Iannaccone’s. Aldo Campeoli, Alba’s husband, declared to the Washington Post, that he had never heard of Iannaccone.

Aldo and Alba Campeol, former owners of Le Beccherie Restaurant, Treviso

The dispute is still open. What is certain, however, is that, until well into the 1970s Tiramesu or Tiramisu, was not among the typical sweets of Italy. British cookbook author Elizabeth David makes no mention of the dessert in her 1954 Italian Food, nor does Marcella Hazan in The Classic Italian Cookbook (1973). And in respect to Veneto, Fernando and Tina Raris, in La Marca gastronomica published a list of typical Veneto desserts, compiled in 1964 by Giuseppe Mazzotti, on occasion of the Sixth Festival of Treviso’s Gastronomy, in which there is also no mention of Tiramisu.

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The second step of La Vita è Dolce worldwide tour is dedicated to Tiramisu.
Here a step by step recipe of Tiramisu as suggested by Fabbri

Giorgio De Chirico of Findi Restaurant in Paris (France) has it in his menu this week and Francesco Elmi, watch video, presents the most authentic recipe. Tiramisu is undoubtedly the most widely known dolce italiano in the world. For this very reason, it is the most counterfeited as well: Tiramisu could well be the symbol of the unhindered spread of Italian cuisine in the world over the last 30 years. It has been described as heaven in your mouth, but certainly, to help make it famous the relative easiness of its preparation has occured. It’s a dessert that doesn’t need any cooking, if there are packaged savoiardi on hand. It keeps well for a couple of days, it’s served cold, so it’s ideal for the end of the meal. But, as simple as it may be, if you use incorrect ingredients and exceed in creativity in its preparation - serious and all-too-common faults - you will find yourself with a Frankenstein dessert that has nothing to do with the original dish.

An Italian gastronomer, Davide Paolini, alias il Gastronauta, was right when, some time ago, he said that both pizza and Tiramisu should be granted the European Union GTS (Guaranteed Traditional Specialty) protection.Chefs are free to be as creative as they can, but should not label their creation, however inspired it may be by a traditional dish, with the name of that dish; firstly because it misleads the customer and secondly because they are exploiting a competitive advantage that doesn’t belong to them. Instead, it belongs to the cultural patrimony of a region, a nation, and its people, who have the right to defend and preserve it, and thereby, their identity. In other words no one wants to stop a chef creating a dish in which tiramisu is made with garam masala but they simply shouldn’t call it tiramisu.