SLOWFOOD AND I PICK A WINNER

No, Carlo Petrini, honorary President and Founder of Slowfood, didn't check with me first. It was simply a matter of good taste that IL QUINTO QUARTO, one of the select restaurants in my book Flavors of Rome: How What, and Where to Eat in the Eternal City, was chosen by the picky-picky panel of Slowfood judges as best trattoria in Lazio for 2009.

IL QUINTO QUARTO is just a few side steps off the beaten tourist trail in Rome, closer to Vatican City than to the Colosseum in the Ponte Milvio area, across the famous Milvian bridge where the Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312 A.D., thereby ushering in the age of Christianity to Rome. (It's always nice to absorb a little history on the way to dinner.)

One of only two restaurants in the region which offers exclusively the food and wine from the region of Lazio-- of which Rome is the capital, IL QUINTO QUARTO serves all the traditional dishes from the treasury of Roman cuisine as well as some innovative twists on these classics.

Pasta alla gricia, case in point, is a basic and simple Roman recipe of pasta (spaghetti or rigatoni perhaps) with guanciale (similar to pancetta but from the jowl of the pig), lots of ground black pepper, and pecorino romano.

One day having lunch at IL QUINTO QUARTO, I ordered a featured dish of rigatoni alla gricia con le pere. the variation on this classic being le pere (pears), little juicy fresh pear niblets adding a subtle sweetness to but not over-whelming the sharpness of the original composition.

S0 Brava, Bravissima to Angela Pagano, my friend and colleague, and her extraordinary team at IL QUINTO QUARTO.

Osteria "Il Quinto Quarto"
Via della Farnesina, 13
00134 - Roma | Tel. 06 3338768
http://www.ilquintoquarto.it/restaurant/default.asp

WHAT WOULD BRUNO THINK?

In 1600, the heretic monk Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake smack in the middle of Campo de Fiori.  His social status was upgraded considerably about 120 years ago when a brooding bronze likeness was erected on the spot of his unfortunate demise. 

Some might cry "heresy" to what's taking place here these days.

What appears to be a style makeover is going on in the Campo de Fiori area.  Obika, the famed mozzarella bar "chain",  just took over the space of a favorite hangout and long-standing bar ("bar" in the classic Italian sense of the word) in this Roman neighborhood, attracting a younger clientele.  New hipper stores seemingly pop up overnight along  Via Giubbonari, once a thoroughfare for discount shopping, and a metro dig is going on across the street on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. 

What can't be improved upon should never change. And so the pizza bianca from Forno Campo de Fiori still rules!  And Bruno still stands guard over it all.

MY FAVORITE ROMAN PASTA

RIGATONI ALL'AMATRICIANA

I'm always asked the question "What is my favorite Roman dish?"  Impossible to answer. But forced to name my favorite Roman pasta, on most days, my answer would be rigatoni all'amatriciana.

The official pasta for amatriciana is bucatini, but since that long hollow noodle has a way of ending up in your hair and on your clothes, rigatoni is often preferred. 

This dish originated in the town of Amatrice in Northern Lazio and didn't include tomatoes until the Romans seized it and claimed it for their own  Serious food fights have been known to occur over whether or not onions should be included in the recipe (most Romans seem to like it this way but many purists  do not) and whether pancetta (Italian bacon) or guanciale (similar but from the jowl of the pig and covered with black pepper) should be used. 

THIS PIG NEEDS NO LIPSTICK

Romans like them young, and they like them tender. Inveterate meat-eaters, Romans have a particular fondness for porchetta, that's "little piggy" to you.  Weighing no more than about 20 pounds, these baby pigs (I know - I don't like to think about it either) are de-boned, rolled, and then  oven or spit-roasted over beechwood and seasoned with fennel or rosemary, garlic, salt, and lots of black pepper.  

This was my dinner at L'Osteria de Memmo (Via dei Soldati, 22) in Rome, but you might want to head for the hills, to Ariccia (the town in the Castelli Romani just 15 miles from the Eternal City),  famous all over Italy for its porchetta.   Roadside stands dot the streets all around this town, where you can order up a few slices on a piece of paper to whet your appetite or perhaps a lunch of a porchetta sandwich - a pig in the blanket, Italian style.

DINING ROOM WITH A VIEW

Non ci sono parole, an Italian phrase that means "words fail" which certainly applies to the beauty of Ravello on the Amalfi Coast, a gem of a town all be-decked in color and sweet air and looking out to the Bay of Salerno.

Mamma Agata (www.mammaagata.com) and her daughter Chiara offer cooking classes in their home in Ravello.  You'll finish up the day on Mamma Agata's terrace over-looking a spectacular panorama, sipping wine, and eating dishes such as pappardelle con peperoni e salsiccia (pasta with sweet peppers and sausage) and her lemon cake, unlike any lemon cake you've ever had because the lemons of Amalfi are unlike any lemons on earth and Mamma Agata is one amazing cook.

ALL SHRIVELED UP AND WRINKLED

You go along thinking you know all you need to know about tomatoes in Italy - Pachino, the small round sweet ones from Sicily, San Marzano from the soil around Mt. Vesuvius, Cuore di Bue shaped like a cow heart and common in Emilia-Romagna, and others as varied in size, shape and color as is possible within the pomodoro family. And then one day you're wandering around a market (in this case, the Testaccio market, my favorite one in Rome) and there in one of the stalls you see what looks like a bunch of tomatoes that should have been dumped a week ago.
I should have known - these love apples were shriveled up and wrinkled on purpose. Carmelo, the most renowned tomato expert in Rome, has a PhD in Tomato. (His stand in this vast market holds tomatoes, boxes and flats of them, and nothing else.)

So why, I asked him, do you do this to perfectly beautiful shiny skinned tomatoes? When you ask questions like this of Italians, they always make you feel a bit idiotic, like you should have been able to figure it out.

It seems that taking tomatoes at the peak of ripeness, setting them outside in certain climatic conditions, but away from the sun (we're not aiming for the sun-dried variety here), reduces the proportion of water and increases the level of sugar thereby creating the absolute best sauce tomato.

So there you have it. Sometimes being all wrinkled up is a good thing.

WHAT THE DOG BROUGHT HOME

Truffles, those highly prized fungi, are available all year long in Umbria.  Ranging in color from inky black to creamy white, depending on the month, they are so abundant in this region that the canines who root them out are constantly on the go.  (Dogs are the truffle hunters of choice since they find but don't eat, whereas pigs will live up to their reputation and gobble up the bounty.)

This was lunch one day at the elegant restaurant in the Hotel Brufani Palace in Perugia - pasta fatta in casa con tartufi neri, homemade egg pasta with black truffles.  A gift from the dogs, if not the gods.