Carpaccio

Carpaccio is raw beef sliced so thin it is almost transparent, laid flat to cover a plate, and dressed lightly, in its original form with a mustard-mayonnaise sauce drizzled in a lattice and in the version that has since taken over with olive oil, lemon, salt, shavings of Parmesan and a few rocket leaves. It was invented in 1950 at Harry's Bar in Venice by Giuseppe Cipriani for a regular customer, the Contessa Amalia Nani Mocenigo, whose doctor had put her on a diet of raw meat; Cipriani named it after the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio, whose exhibition was on in the city and whose reds and whites the plate resembled. It descends from the carne cruda all'albese of Piedmont, raw veal with oil and lemon, and the name has since been borrowed for any thinly sliced raw thing, from tuna and salmon to beetroot and pineapple, which is a usage rather than a dish.