I've long had a love of roman food, and this
article from the New York Times really captures
the essence of the tastes and smells you can
encounter when you travel to Rome.
THE BOUNTY OF ROME: By Mimi Sheraton
Roman
Food - How does Rome taste? An odd question perhaps,
but
the sort that comes to mind when I read
travel accounts that define cities by sights
and sounds, colors and tempo. What about the
flavor, I wonder, meaning that more literally
than figuratively.
Say Rome to me and my first thoughts are not
of the swirling traffic around the marble wedding
cake that is a monument to Vittorio Emanuele
II, nor of the eaten-out stone melon that is
the Colosseum, nor of the "Dolce Vita" set
as immortalized by Fellini. Rather, I think first
of the creamy foam, or spuma, that tops lightly
sugared espresso at the always jammed Sant'Eustachio
around the corner from the
Pantheon, the coffee
bar that I still consider this city's best.
Next, thoughts turn to Rome's own big, round
globe artichokes available from late February
to mid-April and most succulent simmered in olive
oil with mint and parsley — alla Romana — or
as carciofi alla giudea— flattened and
fried to resemble dried sunflowers and one of
the many Jewish culinary inheritances from the
city's Ghetto — preparations that do almost
as well by other artichoke varieties in other
seasons.
Among Roman pastas, I remember favorites such
as the guanciale-and-egg-decked carbonara, cacio
e pepe with its cheese and pepper sting, the
mellow tomato-and-onion-sauced amatriciana and
the unusual, delectable pajata (pronounced pie-YAH-tah),
pasta tossed with chopped intestines of newly
born lambs that still hold remains of milk, resulting
in a creamy, meaty tomato sauce. And gnocchi
alla Romana, unlike others in Italy, are rounds
of semolina baked under a golden glaze of butter
and cheese, an elegant variation.
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These lusty eaters enjoy their meats close to
the bone, gnawing through roasted abbacchio lamb,
suckling pig or braised oxtails. They dote on
innards like tomato-simmered tripe and tantalizingly
chewy coratella, a savory hash of mixed lamb
organs. Suffusing all are the seasonings that
define the Roman kitchen: the air-cured pig's
jowl bacon called guanciale; salt-etched anchovies;
garlic; fiery, red peperoncino chilies; black
pepper; the pungent sheep's milk cheese pecorino;
and rosemary, sage, parsley and minty mentuccia.
Trying for a genuine sense of place — ever
more elusive in these days of global homogenization — I
seek out restaurants featuring traditional Roman
food and am therefore as unlikely to order artichokes
alla Romana in Kiev as to try chicken Kiev in
Rome. But it is in markets and shops that I discover
most about local food and manners, scouting regional
products to look for on menus. Even more intriguing
is the tense interaction of vendors and buyers
bustling through daily routines, exhibiting manners
and mores, trusting or not, bargaining or not,
according to local custom.
For enticing displays of both Roman food and
folkways, there is no better market in Rome than
the Campo
dei Fiori right in the heart of the city. A veritable
stage set of an antique marketplace, facing the
16th-century Palazzo Farnese and bordered by
romantically faded buildings, cafes and restaurants,
it comes to life every morning (except Sunday)
until 1:30 p.m. The site of public executions
during the Renaissance, it is now dedicated to
far more felicitous pursuits.
Vegetable and fruit stalls are gardens of temptations,
the heavenly artichokes still on long, leafy
stems, and in season there is the particularly
Roman puntarelle, a tangy salad green with long,
jagged leaves, and the tiny sweet strawberries — fragoline
di Nemi — that grow wild in the Castelli
hills of Lazio, Rome's province. Usually there
is broccolo Romano, a spring green cross between
cauliflower and broccoli in pyramid-shaped heads
formed of tiny shell-like nodules.
Last fall, I learned more about Roman food in
the home kitchen of Paola di Mauro, the culinary
doyenne
of a wine-producing restaurant family. She has
informed the work of many Italian-American chefs
including Mario Batali. Among other bracing Roman
dishes, she prepared a lovely soup of that broccoli,
based on a soffrito, a sautéed, minced
blend of guanciale, garlic and parsley, and served
it with thread-thin vermicelli and grated pecorino.
Fresh mushrooms prevail at some stands in the
Campo dei Fiori, while the ancient-looking dried
versions are in stock at others. At least six
sizes and shapes of zucchini, crimson tomatoes
and peppers, garlands of garlic and giant bouquets
of parsley and rosemary take center stage, while
around the edges open shop stands offer flowers,
meats, poultry, cheeses and breads, all noisily
hawked by vendors to every passer-by. Each time
I return to this market, I am most surprised
by the aromas. As beautiful as New York's Greenmarkets
are, rarely do apples, pears, grapes, strawberries
and, I swear, artichokes exude the perfumes of
those at this Roman treasure.
Similar charms abound in the less expensive,
more rustic open market in Testaccio, an old
district that is a place of sylvan parks and
tree-shaded residential streets, but once the
center for slaughterhouses and still known as
the quinto quarto, or fifth quarter, referring
to the innards and trimmings butchers kept for
themselves. There one finds the piled-up enticements
at Volpetti, a salumeria where, among the luxurious
delicatessen, cheeses and candies, I first sampled
corallina. It is Rome's prized fresh salami of
spicy, lean pork and lard, once relegated to
Easter but now available year round, thanks to
refrigeration.
Finally, Roman food claims two special breads — the
round rosetta with a top pattern suggesting an
open rose, and the crusty, oblong pane di Genzano,
which comes from a town in Lazio on the slopes
of a volcanic crater.
Use the menu on left hand side
to navigate through the Roman
Culture section
of my site.
