SETTEMBRINI: A Flavor of Rome

Summer is fading, giving way to the coming of fall and a farewell to those sweet succulent figs, one of my favorites of the many flavors of Rome. The last of them are called settembrini, and perhaps because they'll soon be gone, are to me the best of all.

So it was with bated breath and fear of disappointment that I rushed into the Forno di Campo de Fiori to find, much to my greedy delight, pizza e fichi, Rome's white pizza stuffed with figs, and, in this case, also prosciutto.

It's impossible to describe the flavor, the lusciousness. You think you know how good a simple little ripe fig can be until you've had a Roman fig, and then, like many things in life, nothing else will do.