The Roman Food Trail

Paul Murray

The satirist poet Juvenal is well-known for commenting on the Romans at the time: “Two things only the people anxiously desire: bread and games.”

Not much has changed, for the Romans still love their eating and their soccer!

There is no such thing as a bad meal in Rome.

Our destination was Atillio Frigeri 103, just above Piazza Balduina. Lella, the sister of the late Enrico Milani of Enrico’s in Stellenbosch, prepared the evening meal, pollo alla romana. This dish does not exist in an Italian cookbook. It is a kind of unwritten meal that the nonna (granny) cooks up.

The local taxi driver - certainly a local, judging by his decadent ts and ds - dropping us off at our destination and gave the nod of approval as he pronounced the customary “buon appetito!”.

The evening’s meal was fit for a king, although at the time of ancient Rome the Caesars and their families ate far more grandly.

Diners at the court and in the refectories of the church during the nineteenth century were exposed to the best cuts. The poor were left with the “fifth quarter” – the bones, cartilage and offal.

Butcher shops were the first public eateries in Rome. As a result, tasty dishes emerged, such as coda alla vaccinara (oxtail cooked in the butcher’s method). These restaurants were in the same area where the abattoirs were, and there are some of them there still today.

Try Checchino since 1887. The restaurant emerged from a wine bar cut out from the Testaccio Grottos. Later, in 1887, the couple Lorenzo and Clorinda obtained a permit to convert it into a taverna. The restaurant gets its name from the chitterlings – considered as offal – that the slaughterers and tanners were given in kind (as payment). Other dishes are brain, tripe and a dark broth made from the animal’s blood.

You have certainly arrived when you have eaten at Checchino’s.

Try the Trastevere area for a different experience. It is well-known for its quaint eateries, especially those off Piazza Trilussa, named after Rome’s famous poet. It is best to go at night when the people go out to dine. A must is Checco er carrettiere, in Via Benedetta 10/13. Frederico Fellini’s favourite dish here was bombolotti alla matriciana (pasta with tangy tomato and bacon) or spaghetti alla carbonara (pasta with egg and bacon). Pictures of famous actors and actresses line the walls, together with the ropes of garlic.

You feel like a Roman here. The house wine is classic Frascati, from the Castelli Romani, a requisite for washing down the massive portions that the restaurant is renowned for serving.

Trastevere means “on the other side of the River Tiber”, Rome’s lifeblood and seat of its foundation. (In 756 BC it was on the banks of the Tiber that Romulus and Remus were discovered in a basket by the she-wolf Rhea Silvia, who suckled them to strength.)

Today the Trastevere is a bustling part of Rome – the real Rome, some would say. But the chances of meeting the Italian pontiff in one of the restaurants in Trastevere are as good as finding a really bad Italian restaurant in Italy. The Vatican is its own state and is constitutionally separate from Italy, but it sports no restaurants. So His Holiness comes across from St Peter’s when he chooses to dine out.

Quo Pontifex Maximus cenat?

The pontiffs traditionally eat at L’Eau Vive (Living Waters), a French restaurant in the middle of Rome providing a truly un-Roman dining experience.

But then combining the Roman with the French is nothing new.

In 1274 the city of Avignon in Vaucluse in south-eastern France came under a condominium of the pope and the French king. Because of the troubled times in Italy, Pope Clement V left Rome and came to Avignon. The Italian popes remained there for 68 years, a period termed the “Babylonian Captivity”, until Gregory XI eventually returned to Rome in 1377.

The poet laureate Petrarch lived and worked in Avignon, producing some of the most beautiful Italian poetry, which he wrote for his beloved Laura.

At L’Eau Vive gastronomy is a form of evangelisation, as the waiters chant a hymn written in 1953 by the abbot-pioneer Father Marcel Roussel: “The Lord calls us, the Lord wants to convert us.”

Tucked beneath the façade of the 16th-century Palazzo Lante delle Rovere the restaurant is in No 85, Via Monterone. Try what the pontiff likes, filet de boeuf au poivre, flambéed in cognac and served with green pepper sauce and dauphine potato swirls.

For the plebeians like us, things are a lot different. I recently led my customary schoolboy tour to Italy, visiting Rome for a few days. One method of keeping the troops happy is identifying specific ice-cream parlours at different points in the city. In this way, the itinerants get around, and they are kept busy.

Two exceptional ice cream places come to mind. Giolitti in Via degli Uffici del Viccario is over a hundred years old and offers seventy flavours, as well as delectable pastries to be enjoyed with cappuccino.

The rich handmade ice cream called tartuffo is found nowhere as nice as at Tre Scalini on Piazza Navona. The piazza was once the stadium of Diocletian, where games and chariot races were held (local nobility clergy and artisans used to live in the houses off the piazza). Renaissance and baroque styles blend beautifully off the square as friends, Romans, tourists and countrymen become part of the hustle and bustle of real, everyday life in Rome.

For two thousand years Romans and visitors to the city have enjoyed coming to Piazza Navona. After the Spanish Steps and together with Piazza Trevi, it is a famous meeting place for young and old.

Many come here as a respite from following Dan Brown’s itinerary in Piazza del Popolo and the Pantheon.

There is always the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt and Sigourney Weaver at Tre Scalini.

One of the missions for a tour leader is to find eateries not frequented by tourist groups. Alan Epstein’s gem of a volume As the Romans do highlights the ancient and modern, old and new, and celebrates life in a stylish, dramatic city, the Eternal City. There are some amazing places to eat, listed in his book, an antidote to the curse of tourism.

There is possibly no substitute for roaming (no pun intended) the streets and alleyways in search of a true Roman meal. Just off the Piazza Trevi is La Piccola Arancia, a typical Roman restaurant. To be able to secure a place, getting there early is advisable. The bill of fare is truly Roman and not expensive.

“Cenabis bene …” as Catullus said.

We kept on going back, because the guys went mad for the Roman dishes, such as coda alla vaccinara or spaghetti all’amatriciana. As is the case with youngsters, they enjoyed the “healthier” portions.

A Roman adage goes like this: Alla tavola non s’invecchia (you never get bored at the table). The reason is simple … the food is delectable!

Look out for Roman eateries offering inexpensive meals, such as L’economica in Via Tiburtina. Ada, run by two elderly ladies, is a quaint eatery serving really nice food and where you can enjoy local Roman wine as an accompaniment to the meal. Find it in Via dei Banchi Nuovi, but you have to go early because the ladies close up by eleven and the place is open only between Mondays and Fridays.

Do as you will … but when in Rome, find only Roman places to eat!

By the way, broccoli (brassica oleracea) is not a hybrid from cauliflower. It is an ancient Roman plant, cooked up by tens of thousands of Roman cooks and chefs over thousands of years. With Roman pine nuts (think of Respighi’s symphonic poem “The Pines of Rome”) and some Frascati, be prepared for a tasty pasta dish.

Try the following broccoli pasta. Please note: the pasta must be prepared before commencing with the broccoli sauce and it should be ready to be boiled about 7 minutes before the broccoli sauce is ready.

Broccoli sauce a Paolo
Take 500 g broccoli. Cut away the thick stems. Place the broccoli in a saucepan over a moderate heat, lined with a smattering of prized olive oil. Cook for about 5 minutes and then add some white wine, to reduce. Add a few pinches of mushroom stock. Add the wine bit by bit for another 15 minutes, over a moderate heat. Add a half a cupful of pine nuts with the first application of the wine. Cook until the broccoli has softened, but not to a pulp. At that point add chopped, fresh sage leaves (without the stems) and a tablespoon of butter, and allow the sauce to simmer for another 2 to 3 minutes. Grate a bit of nutmeg over the broccoli. The sauce is ready to serve.

Pasta made by hand
Take 500 g flour and ten eggs and make the dough by hand. It is preferable to make five separate pieces of dough. For each 100 g flour, make a hole in the middle and place two eggs. Work the flour and egg into dough and leave for 20 minutes in the fridge and then knead for 5 minutes. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a thin flat surface. Cut the pasta into strips and hang for a short while over a chair. When sufficiently dry, place the pasta strips into boiling water in a deep saucepan, add salt to the water and a drop of oil so the pasta does not stick. Boil for 5 minutes or until the dough is cooked through, but do not overcook.

Serve in pasta bowls and add the broccoli sauce as well as some freshly ground Parmesan cheese and a drop of prized olive oil.

This recipe serves 5 to six people.

Enjoy with chilled Italian Frascati.

Arrivederci Roma and Buon appetito!

LitNet: 24 January 2006

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