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From a religious point of view the concept of Trinity is easy – in the kitchen, however, it requires some analytical skills.

Honest-to-goodness Tirolean tris.

For starters: the name “tris” is not a traditionally Tirolean one. As it is no tradition to assemble three different “things” into one meal. Looks like this idea comes from Italy where “tris” simply means trilling. But trilling of what? Could be anything really: three different kinds of pasta, three different kinds of sauce, three different antipasti, … you get the idea. The name “tris” allows for great culinary creativity. Theoretically.

Starting in Italy, the idea of “tris” caught on in South Tirol where you can find it as “trio” which already makes more sense to us. And what did the Tiroleans do with it? Well this is an interesting story. It seems that local chefs not only embraced the “tris” but turned into something inherently and intrinsically Tirolean by creating a dish that combines everything that’s considered holy here: large dumplings, small dumplings and funny shaped dumplings (really pasta pouches).

This is what makes the worldly “tris” a truly sacred meal, a “trinity”. Another interesting fact is that there never was some kind of culinary authority that told us what a tris had to be: it just came over us like a nameless wave, quiet yet overwhelming and irrevocable. It’s not a grilled sausage, French fries and ketchup (the kids’ and ski hut trinity), no, it’s the dumpling that was chosen to form the sacred Tirolean tris.

Since there is nothing written in stone about what a tris has to be, it can be basically everything. As long as it is dumplings, of course. You can take cheese dumplings, spinach dumplings and stuffed pasta pouches; or: spinach dumplings, fried and pressed cheese dumplings and pasta pouches. Get it? It’s easy. Not. For some reason you can never ever serve liver, speck and bread dumplings on one plate; or Tirolean dumplings, semonlina dumplings and pasta pouches. Not tris. Why not? An in-depth analysis of traditional tris showed the following: a tris is a Tirolean tris only if a) it is a combination of dumplings and pasta pouches and – watch out for this one - b) if they can be served with brown butter and grated cheese OR already contain cheese.
This is what a truly authentic, holy, Tirolean tris is, although most chefs probably couldn’t tell you the definition – it’s pure intuition. And that’s the real miracle.