a conversation with Rachel Roddy

Photo credit: Elena Heatherwick

Rachel Roddy is a British food writer, blogger, and the author of Five Quarters (in the US, My Kitchen in Rome) and Two Kitchens: Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome, as well as a weekly column in The Guardian. Rachel has lived in the Testaccio neighborhood of Rome for 13 years, and that neighborhood has been the inspiration for most of her writing. More recently, she and her family have been spending time in Sicily as well, based in the town of Gela, where her partner was born and still has relatives.

Rachel was gracious enough to be interviewed over lunch at one of her favorite trattorie in Testaccio, La Torricella, and the dishes we enjoyed feature prominently in our conversation. In the interview, we talk about what Rachel finds so compelling about Testaccio, why she prefers Roman trattorie to more formal restaurants, and the challenges and joys of raising her son in Italy.

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Justin Naylor: Thanks for making time for this interview today, especially over lunch at this beautiful trattoria! What struck me when I saw your first cookbook was that it was very personal, while many cookbooks these days, however gorgeous, lack a strong sense of personality or identity. That was the thing that first drew me to your writing. I was wondering if that was intentional or just a subconscious expression of who you are?

Rachel Roddy: I began as a blogger, so that was where it came from. Sections of Five Quarters are lifted directly from my blog. Everything was edited, and bits were rewritten, and the recipes were tested, but essentially I was a blogger. I arrived in Rome in 2005, and began writing the blog online in 2008. Before that, I was keeping notebooks, and sort of mimicking the food writers that I like. I’ve always read a lot of food writing, as opposed to just recipe books, so I was very inspired by Jane Grigson and Elizabeth David, who always had a sense of narrative. Also Nigel Slater, whose book The Kitchen Diaries is a kind of cookbook in diary form. And the blogs I was reading were mostly American blogs. I still keep an eye on a young woman called Molly Wizenberg, who was a chef. It was narrative, telling a story into a recipe. That’s what my blog was based on, and that’s the strongest vein in Five Quarters. It’s a diary form, with recipes, and history, and geography woven in.

JN: Could you describe what the neighborhood of Testaccio is like, what brought you here, and what has kept you here for thirteen years?

RR: Well, I always say it’s shaped like a piece of cheese. It’s a very distinct geographical shape. This wedge, which is like one quarter of a wheel of cheese, is one of the quarters that I refer to in the title of my book. In 2005, I had been in Sicily and was living in Rome up near Termini, and I’d been going to language school. My best friend came to visit, and she wanted to come to Testaccio. I had read the name in books, but I had never been. I remember looking at it in the book, and I remember thinking of this cheese shape. So, we came to visit. We went to the old market, we sat in a bar called Zia Elena. I was still undecided about what I was going to do, whether I was going to go back to Sicily or go back to England. I was very undecided. She said, “You should stay here for a while.” That afternoon I went to an estate agent, and they had a small studio flat in the block that we had just been near, which was a block from the old market. I had to take a contract for a year, and I thought, Well, OK, I’ll do that.

JN: What was it in that day that was so powerful that made you immediately commit to staying for a year?

RR: Certainly the old market was wonderful. A new market has taken its place now, but the old market was strange, a sort of fortified bus shelter. It had been a street market, and then they covered it in the 1960s and ’70s – it had iron uprights and a glass roof, completely covered in leaves – it had a very incredible light, an almost Caravaggio-esque light, didn’t it? Did you ever go to the old market?

JN: I never had a chance, unfortunately.

RR: It was a wonderful old market, lots of farmers selling their stuff there; lots of butcher stalls, of course, because of the legacy of the slaughterhouse in Testaccio; fish stalls; it was just a very lively, atmospheric market. Lots of local shops; it felt like a little village in the middle of Rome. I think other villages do exist, but it was the first time that I really felt a sense of it, that this was a place, and people lived here. It’s very linear, Testaccio, with straight roads, unlike most of Rome. It’s on a grid system. It’s modern, only 130 years old. So, my initial impression was one of almost shock. But then quite quickly you get the sense of community; there’s lots of schools here, there’s local shops, there’s the market. I see people still every day that I probably saw that first time, thirteen years ago. I suppose you can get that anywhere, but it had a very strong sense of place, and I thought, I like that, and I’ll stay here. Thirteen years later I’m still here, and very settled.

JN: You’ve written that in the first few weeks here you met more neighbors and shopkeepers than you had met in London in five or ten years, which is remarkable. I can understand the appeal of that sort of place.

RR: And I’m quite chatty! I mean, I’m very aware of my own romanticizing of a kind of “something else.” That’s something I do struggle with. As an outsider, the Rome you “want to find” – I found that Rome. But, yes, I did – it’s like a small village really, and it has that mentality. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, particularly as the area changes, but yes, that’s the strongest sense I think you get from Testaccio. And it’s a very inclusive area, it’s always been an area of stranieri [foreigners] – it’s not the real Rome, these were all newcomers. It’s now a lot of third-generation Testaccini, like Augusto here who owns this trattoria.

JN: When you first started meeting people, as a foreigner and guest, you felt welcome, there wasn’t a lot of awkward suspicion of an outsider? Because, as you say, it’s always been a neighborhood of outsiders and foreigners.

RR: Yes, maybe. I suppose there was – there always is – a level of suspicion of newcomers, suspicion of your motive, maybe. But I just didn’t care! Especially when I started writing about it – because I suppose in a way I made my foreignness useful, and gave myself a purpose, didn’t I? So, from quite early on I was observing Testaccio, even though I was living here. My foreignness was a part of it, that became an advantage. And now, of course, it’s become my job. It’s my job to be curious – maybe, in a way, to be an outsider who’s inside. I’m more aware of that than ever, especially since [my son] Luca, who isn’t an ousider, was born here, which is interesting.

JN: What sorts of changes have you seen in the neighborhood in thirteen years?

RR: Lots of changes. Lots of renovation. Lots of shops that have closed, or changed completely.

JN: Gentrification?

RR: Yeah, there is; I don’t want to be kind of “doom, doom,” about it – Italy is struggling at the moment, and there’s a housing crisis in Testaccio. Prices have really gone down. Testaccio has a quite interesting demographic. There’s a lot of council housing, still – and it’s a lot of council housing in the hands of grandchildren. So, grandparents would have rented the house, then they would have had children, one of whom would probably have grown up to live there. Now, there are a lot of empty flats in Testaccio that are lived in by one grandchild. People are finding it’s difficult to sell. There’s quite a lot of empty property; very, very high rents here. So, in a way, I think Testaccio is struggling – but yet, you know, trattorias continue to thrive. Probably most of the trattorias I’ve known and loved for thirteen years are still here. Better ones are evolving. But certain shops still thrive. We live above a bakery called Passi, which is this wonderful Roman forno. That’s still one of the busiest bakeries in Rome, and I think one of the best bakeries in Rome. It’s a working family, opened in the 1970s. And that thrives, and it’s lovely – people drive from Prati to buy their pizza bianca. So, it’s lovely to see traditions. And I join in; I always feel a bit of a cliché, but I do – I absolutely relish these traditions and celebrate them and am happy to spend my money and live, and for Luca to grow up eating pizza bianca and mortadella and carciofi when they’re in season. It’s lovely. It feels important; it feels precious, really.

JN: So when you first arrived, you were learning Italian, and probably working here and there to pay the rent. What led you to start the blog in 2008?

RR: I was keeping diaries, and a lot of those were focused on food. But it wasn’t even a really conscious thing. I didn’t really know what I was doing; I played around a bit. Some posts were just a recipe; I just wanted somewhere to record them. A friend of mine who worked for Marie Claire online said, “Start a blog.” I had never heard the word before, and it took me a couple of years to do it. But I was reading blogs, and it was a combination of factors. I had always enjoyed writing, I had always written, but I suppose in a way starting a blog taught me to write. I had studied English, but then I had gone to drama school. I had quite a lot of experience writing, but not formal experience. I hadn’t gone to university to study English, which was initially what I thought I would do. I felt like a bit of a failure in that sense. But having a blog taught me to write. I still struggle with believing that I’m a writer, really. I don’t really consider myself a writer; I suppose I consider myself somebody who writes recipes with stories. I still struggle with that. But it was quite an organic thing, I think, starting the blog. I read some of those [old posts] and I go, It’s just embarrassing. But it was a document, and I just wanted to write these things down. I was fascinated by the food, and it was such a good way to look at the city; I thought, I have to write this down.

JN: At what point did you realize that people were paying attention, and how did that affect how you thought about the project?

RR: I learned from other people; I copied, I mimicked what other people were doing. Of course, then people start commenting. Quite early on, people obviously saw potential because quite a few people got in touch with me and said, You should write something, you should write your memoir, you should write more recipes. Food is at the heart of it, the recipes and the history and the geography. My number-one inspiration has always been and remains Jane Grigson, who was wonderful. She died [in 1990], but her work lives on. She wrote these beautiful essays about food, and they had everything in them: history, geography, politics.

JN: In moving from the blog to the book [Five Quarters, aka My Kitchen in Rome]: did you work hard to make connections to make that happen, or were you approached with confidence from an agent or publisher to take it to another level?

RR: The book was pretty much done in the blog; there were loads of articles. Initially it was a bit more general, but I was really starting to focus in on Roman food, and it was Testaccio-centric. In the beginning, it was like a black hole. I didn’t even really know what I was doing. Back then I didn’t have a guide book, I didn’t have a smartphone. It was like I was plunging my hand into something without looking. But I was getting a sense of discovering Roman food, and I’d covered a lot of classic Roman recipes, I had a nice narrative around it. When I was approached about doing a book, I still didn’t have a title. I was still doing my blog very devotedly. I wrote a blog post, and it became the introduction to the book.

JN: Someone noticed your work and had confidence in it.

RR: It was Elizabeth Hallett, my publisher, who is just wonderful, wonderful. She’s quite visionary, and she saw it. But it was all there.

JN: I think you imply in the introduction to the American edition that you weren’t that crazy about the title of that edition [My Kitchen in Rome]? Five Quarters is a wonderful title, and it’s exactly right. But I understand why an American publisher would want something different.

RR: Yeah, they were worried. But there are five reasons for calling it Five Quarters. There was the reference to the quinto quarto tradition in Roman cooking; the reference to the shape of Testaccio; the reference to the general resourcefulness of Roman cooking per se; there was a reference to the five parts of an Italian meal; and then the most important fifth quarter is you, because you’re going to cook the recipes.

JN: You mentioned the quinto quarto tradition, and you also mentioned that when you first came to Testaccio, you knew nothing about Roman cooking. Can you tell us about your first impressions of Roman cooking and the cooking of Testaccio, and what you eventually found compelling about it?

RR: I just thought it was so… salty! I thought it was so salty and fatty. I mean, not in a bad way. I always remember being in a restaurant in Trastevere, sitting one very warm night — it must have been the first summer. I had gricia, an old-school gricia. We’d been in a bar before and we’d had peanuts, and I think we’d had prosciutto that day – I remember feeling like a dog! Just so much salt and pork. Then I remember talking to a friend later, a really good cook, and them saying, “Well, that’s the thing, it’s the pecorino, it’s the guanciale, it’s these elements.” But yes, it was so beige! Now, of course, I sit and I tell people, Have a gricia, have a carbonara, Amatriciana, etc. At the time, they were just kind of coming. I remember having artichokes, which were just very, like, that kind of dull khaki – wonderful, but very overcooked. Puntarelle – I really like anchovies, all those strong flavors. I couldn’t – it just seemed so kind of plain and functional. I quite liked it, but I couldn’t quite get a handle on it. And then, of course, there’s the quinto quarto and pajata, which I was interested in. Roman food can be a bit dirty in a way – I mean that in a good way.

JN: I know what you mean, yes. Not literally, but —

RR: It’s gutsy, isn’t it?

JN: Yes! Literally gutsy.

RR: For example, those kind of stracotti stews, and really cooked vegetables. Then slowly, slowly, I started eating in people’s homes, as well, and then I started eating at a little tavola calda called Volpetti. That was really a vital part of my education.

JN: Your first reaction to Roman food was, This is salty, it’s porky, it’s beige, it’s plain. How would you define it today if someone asked you, What is Roman cooking like?

RR: Salty, porky, beige. [Laughter] Romans do have wonderful greens because it’s so temperate. Things like puntarelle, the kind of misticanza with little cherry tomatoes in it, the vegetable side dishes. The wonderful spinach.

JN: So the beige starts to turn to green, if you dig a little deeper.

RR: Yes, and then I started to understand the minestra. Because in the beginning, there’s pasta e fagioli, pasta e ceci, all these beige soups. It was almost like I could start seeing detail. There was also something about me being able to start seeing detail in the city I was living in. Before, remember, I didn’t speak any Italian, so it was all a big blur. It was all a big salty blur! Things just got a bit clearer. I think that was how I understood it. I remember thinking about the different sorts of pasta e ceci, some with the anchovies in the bottom, some without, as if things suddenly had color. The artichokes could be cooked differently: they were beige, but they’re kind of purple before they’re trimmed. And then, of course, being very inspired, starting to have courage – I’m quite a capable cook – being able to make recipes my own. For example, the soup I made today; there are many versions of how to make this broccoli soup. I like something quite brothy. I’m constantly inspired; in fact, I’m more inspired than I ever have been by Roman food. I just find it wonderful: I love the ingredients, I love the simplicity, I love the way that Romans make minestra or a broth, whether it’s bits of fish suspended in a broth, or egg yolks and breadcrumbs for the straciatella, or whether it’s the way they do wonderful things with artichokes, or the way they treat anchovies, baked anchovies. I just feel I have more to learn than ever about it.

JN: Could you take one or two traditional dishes that you especially love and say a little more about how they’re prepared?

RR: I do love that whole family of bean, legume, and lentil soups and stews, the various ways to make them. They say there are as many ways as cooks, but with pasta e ceci you cook some chickpeas so you get that nice, cloudy broth, and then in another pan you make a little soffrito. You could use carrot, celery, and onion, or you could just do garlic and anchovies, with the garlic just squashed, so it’s just a very sunny fragrance, as opposed to an angry one. And then, a bit of rosemary.

JN: Almost always rosemary in pasta e ceci in Rome, right?

RR: The thing about herbs is, you do find these recipes all over Italy, and the defining ingredient is often the herb. So, in Sicily you’d put oregano in, in Tuscany you’d put sage – I’m generalizing – and in Rome you often have rosemary. It’s amazing how that can completely transform a dish. Romans use lots of rosemary, lots of mint. So, you’ve got your soffrito, and then maybe a couple of tomatoes or a spoonful of concentrate, and then you unite the chick peas in their cloudy broth, and let that bubble for about twenty minutes.

JN: Using the broth from the chickpeas, as opposed to a separate vegetable or meat broth?

RR: You could make a meat broth, but the fringe benefit of soaking your own beans is that you get this broth. Unite the two, and then in the last ten minutes, throw in a handful of pasta, so you’ve got this enriched, herb-scented broth. You could purée some of the soup to make it creamy, you could pass it through a food mill, you could have it brothy, you could put in more tomato if you want it blushing more. The possibilities are endless. Very similar for pasta e fagioli, pasta and beans – and the same with pasta and lentils. You could, of course, have guanciale in the foundations, if you wanted. I love those.

Of pastas, I love carbonara, Amatriciana. But probably my favorite is cacio e pepe, which is pasta with pecorino cheese and black pepper.

JN: There are different ways to make cacio e pepe; it can be a disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing. The technique, compared to a lot of pasta dishes, is really difficult and important.

RR: It’s really difficult!

JN: Can you walk us through how you make cacio e pepe?

RR: Cacio e pepe is an absolute bugger. In fact, I’m writing about it for The Guardian now, and I’ve been asking around in restaurants. It’s pasta, cheese, and black pepper, and then you emulsify it with the pasta cooking water. It’s really tricky to make. I think the best way to do it is to make it for two. Because the cheese goes into clumps, the best way to do it is this: you get a warm bowl, you cook your pasta and drain it and you save the pasta cooking water. You put a ladleful of pasta cooking water in the bottom of this bowl. You then throw on your cooked pasta – a fresh pasta like tonnarelli, because that’s got very starchy water, and fresh pasta’s got lots of semolina clinging to it. Then you put loads of cheese. You want it grated fine; not using a micro plane, you want that old-fashioned bugger of a grater.

JN: When I first started making it, that’s exactly what happened: I would just used the regular micro plane, and it would clump. It’s really the powder grater that you want, so I’m glad to hear you say that. It’s such a important detail, because without that, maybe some people can do it, but not me. The powder is the essential part.

RR: It’s the bastard side of the grater that you never want to use. So, use the bastard side of the grater. In Felice, a very famous trattoria just where we live, they do it at the table, they do individual servings. So, you toss – more cheese, maybe a bit more water – and a spoon and a fork is the very best for tossing. I want to do a little film; I’ve resisted writing about about it, actually, because it’s really hard to do well.

JN: And it’s hard to learn from a book. I learned to cook from books; I didn’t learn to cook growing up, I didn’t learn to cook in Italy. I mostly benefited from the writings of Marcella Hazan.

RR: Yes, I really like her too.

JN: That’s how I learned to cook. But as much as I benefited from that, it’s no way to learn to cook. Even though I love cookbooks, and obviously you love writing, learning to cook from a book is a very strange way to learn to cook, as opposed to learning to cook at the side of someone who knows what they’re doing.

RR: And of course, here, Romans eat Roman food. Of course, there’s other things, there’s wonderful Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Japanese food, though not like London. But essentially, Romans eat Roman food, and it’s what’s around, so people are still making these dishes and they have very strong opinions about it. I’m quite self-conscious, I think, because I’m aware that writing for a newspaper and feeling like I say the same thing every day, that I do maybe lean into cliché. But I do go to the market every morning; it’s my job now, it’s my privilege to do that. I go to the same stall, I buy vegetables and every time I buy something there’s some advice, either from Filippo, the guy who sells me vegetables, or somebody shopping. Chances are, the people shopping there will be making Roman-style cooking. Now it’s carciofi [artichoke] season, and everyone’s cooking. Romans cook carciofi alla Romana, and everyone has an opinion. I suppose it’s like the traditional cooking of anywhere, but it still reigns supreme here. I have to remind myself; I’ve had a lot of just going back and listening to people, letting people show me how to cook things. I haven’t done enough of that lately, and I’m about to start doing more again – just going and watching people cook. It’s funny – sometimes people have shown me how to do things that I knew probably better than they did, not because I’m better than them, but just because I make them more. But it didn’t matter, I just need to shut up and watch, because you always learn something.

JN: By the way, this carciofo we’re eating is delicious.

RR: I love this trattoria; not everyone does. It’s never going to be a perfect trattoria, or particularly trendy.

JN: Those who aren’t as enthusiastic about it, what is their criticism?

RR: Sometimes it can be a bit school-dinnerish, maybe, especially if it gets busy, and Augusto can be a bit brusque in his manner if he doesn’t know you. The menu never changes. But I think he does certain things very well. I think his artichokes are delicious, his anchovies. He goes to my fish guy. Really old-fashioned ways of cooking, though, like boiled cod and potatoes, and certain things on certain days. But I like it very much, we come here a lot. Luca’s six, he’s grown up coming here. I think his fried anchovies are some of the best.

JN: Speaking of Luca, as you said, he’s not an outsider. You still feel like an outsider, but he was born and raised here. What have been some of the joys and also some of the challenges of raising your son here? Did you wonder, when he was born, whether you wanted to return to England?

RR: I suppose it did cross my mind, whether we would stay or not. I never really imagined that we would leave. It’s how I imagined: he’s born into this little villagey world. We live in a very geographically clear area, the boundaries are clear. He now goes to school on the Aventine Hill, so we go out of Testaccio. It’s beautiful; he goes to the most beautiful school right in front of the Giardino Lidia Paranchi. It’s a state school. We walk up there every day, we walk back down, we cross via Mammarata. We come to Testaccio, and the first thing we see is the piazza. The streets are punctuated with bars that we go to. I suppose, like me, he’s been born with this sense of place. We cycle and walk everywhere. He’s very clear about the boundaries, he knows the area. There’s a local library. I suppose children have a clear sense of their surroundings, but he must be very aware of where we live, where the forno is – I think life here, especially around food, is very traditional. Children, of course, often appreciate it more than adults. Children are very welcome in restaurants. They’re expected to behave well, but you know they just are. The children will be fed first – the first thing they say is Red or white pasta for the child? And it will be there. Children are accomodated in that way, so I think Luca has grown up with that sense.

JN: And he’s an adventurous eater? He’s only six…

RR: He’s being a bit of a pain in the ass at the moment, but I’m hoping it’s a phase. But, yeah, he is. Luca loves going to England. He has no snobbism about that and I don’t either, but he says, “Mum, these oranges have no sunshine.” You know?

JN: Is there anything that he can’t get here, that you wish he had, that he would have in England?

RR: I worry about his school; I worry about the traditional nature of the education here. He’s quite rebellious, Luca. I think if you’re good, you can thrive. Luca is quite cheeky, he’s quite naughty, he’s quite rebellious. A good English friend of mine runs the English school; when he met Luca – this was as a friend, not as a headmaster seeing a potential student – he said, “Please send Luca to me.” His view was, Luca will struggle in the state system here. He’s quite a little – he’s a cheeky monkey. And also, he’s bilingual, so he’s struggling. And he’s not reading yet; he’s six, so actually I’ve got all sorts of concerns about that but I’m not letting them get out of perspective. Schools are struggling economically here, massively. They don’t have facilities. I go back and I see my sister’s kids at a school in London – a very, very good one, but a state school – and it almost makes me weep, the kind of facilities the kids have there. But at the same time I know that Luca has other things here, and we have such a good quality of life here. We live a good, good life, and very happy. I don’t find life in Rome stressful, the way I found life in London. The pace of life here is completely different. It’s not just my choice to live a different pace of life, it’s the way life is here.

JN: Because your partner is Sicilian, you now spend quite a bit of time in Sicily. Could you say a little about how Sicily is a contrast to your life in Testaccio and what convinced you all to start spending more time there?

RR: Vincenzo was born in a town called Gela, which is on the south coast, a very industrial town.

JN: I think you said in your book, “…known for the Mafia and oil refineries.” Just to dispel any romantic notions!

RR: Really, really shocking. Interesting town – one of the first colonized towns [by the Greeks]. Kind of disappeared under the Roman empire, but then was very important during the Arab reign and then during the Normans. In the 1950s, they built an oil refinery and it became the tenth-biggest town in Italy in the course of about five years. You can see that – the town exploded. It’s kind of a tragedy, really, Gela. It’s been used as a case study for economic development without any growth whatsoever.

JN: So, the kind of place you usually think of people wanting to flee, whereas you have decided the opposite, to actually make a commitment to that place.

RR: Well, the thing is, Vincenzo’s grandparents were there; his grandfather was a tomato farmer. They farmed, they were incredibly traditional. In a way, they were a typical Gelese family. His mum and dad both went to work for the oil refinery – in a way that was their escape, but in a way it killed the town. The house was empty; all the cousins own the house. It’s an extraordinary town, Gela. I just feel I’ve scratched the surface. We’ve taken over the house. We’d like eventually to live in Sicily, I think. I think we’ll probably move there full-time. This is kind of the starting point. We opened up the house; I want to write more about Sicilian food, Vincenzo wants to spend time there, see some of his elderly relatives. Even though he came to Rome when he was twelve, he grew up with long summers in Sicily. So, yes, we’ve been looking after the house, which is quite a struggle.

JN: That’s remarkable to hear, that as much as you’ve come to love Testaccio, the pull of Sicily is strong enough to even move permanently.

RR: The idea is that we’ll always have a base here. We have this little studio flat here. We’ll hopefully buy something in the country, and start spending more time there. I’d like a garden. Maybe not in Gela but probably on that coast. The temptation is to explore a bit more.

JN: You mentioned the Mafia influence, which of course is a sad reality in many parts of Italy, sometimes on the surface, sometimes hidden deep below the surface. How have you personally come to terms with that aspect of life there?

RR: My experience is very much seeing how a town has been damaged by the last hundred years. I don’t think I’ve done justice to Gela yet, honestly. Good lenses to look at the city through are, for example, what’s happening with tomato farming. Sicily is like a fairground mirror on the whole of Italy: everything is exaggerated, including corruption. The south coast is where all the boats are arriving from Lampedusa; there’s a huge amount of immigration. In Gela, we hear these terrible stories, but in fact the Gelese are extraodinarily accomodating. My brother-in-law, who is such a simple man, such a good man, he’s working with young refugees, and they’ve got them at the house. They’re the ones welcoming boats. Yes, there’s a lot of hostility about refugees but at the same time the Gelese are coping with it every single day. There’s so much happening there, but good and bad.

JN: What’s an example of the corruption in the tomato farming? Is it in the exploitation of labor?

RR: Yes.

JN: So that Romans, or whoever, can have tomatoes cheaper than they should be?

RR: Absolutely. The demand for small, sweet, on-the-vine tomatoes, all year round (by Italians, mainly) has completely transformed farming. It’s an area of intensive greenhouse farming. I was reading in The Guardian about Romanian women being kept in almost slave-like conditions.

JN: And that’s where the Mafia comes in, because obviously it’s against the law to do that, but they find a way to circumvent the law.

RR: Exactly. The Mafia is so part of the fabric of society, and has been since the 1960s and ’70s. Gela was known as being completely controlled by the Mafia, and Vincenzo’s parents left because of it. They will never go back. Sometimes you can look at Gela – and I’m looking at a very negative side of it – when I say I love the town, there’s lots of relatives that live there – but actually when you go, there’s nothing hopeful. There’s no hotels in Gela, there’s all these half-finished projects. You realize that, to keep the status quo, anything that could possibly involve making money is sabotaged. It’s as though people keep things at a base level.

JN: The control comes first, as it might in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – keeping the status quo, as you say, is more important than anything else.

RR: On one level it’s really upsetting. On the other, there are lots of young people, and there are new initiatives, land that’s been confiscated from the Mafia. There are these new laws by the rather charismatic mayor of Palermo. There are things happening. I have felt, much more than Rome, the need to understand things better there. It feels like such a vanity, but I would like to understand a bit more. The way that I can do it is to write some pieces about tomatoes and oranges – taking the lens of food, but as a way of understanding more [about Sicily]. And also, immigration. It seems now to be the point in my career where I can start trying to understand things better, but rather than trying to understand the whole story, looking at it through a specific lens. Tomatoes seems like one, because Vincenzo’s parents were tomato farmers. Through storytelling: that always seems the best way.

JN: This soup we’re eating is delicious, and you mentioned a few times that what defines Augusto’s cooking here is that it’s no different from the cooking that he or his nonna are doing at home. I wonder if you can talk a little about the importance of home cooking in Italy, and how home cooking differs from restaurant cooking. Maybe in the best cases, it doesn’t differ – that’s my perspective, that I learned from Marcella.

RR: I suppose you would look at the different sorts of places to eat, and their history. In the way I understand it, Rome has always been a city where people have come and needed shelter and something to eat, because it’s a city of pilgrims, particularly in the last 300 years and after the unification of Italy. Osterias, the way I understand it, were originally a bed and a place for your horse. You would probably get something to drink, and you might get something to eat. That was where the osterias came from, and they were essentially places to drink. I’ve always said it’s better to compare osterias and trattorias with pubs and cafes than restaurants. Because they are really functional places. My granny had a pub, a wonderful pub in Manchester. Trattorias remind me much more of that than of a restaurant. Trattorias were, essentially, people’s homes where people had home restaurants in the beginning. They were absolutely extensions of people’s homes; it would be mom or dad in the kitchen, or grandma, and mom or dad out front. They would essentially be serving traditional, local, pub-style, homestyle food, and that’s the spirit that lives on in places like this. And it’s the reason I love La Toricella. It’s still Augusto in the kitchen – with his wonderful Bangledeshi chef, whom he treats brilliantly, another reason to love this place – and he makes homestyle, Roman and Abruzzese food for anyone who cares to come.

JN: Of course, some people in the US might wonder why one would go out to eat if it’s the same sort of food one would cook at home.

RR: Yes, some would say that. I follow a lot of food people in London who are going out to these fancy restaurants and lots of ethnic restaurants. I love that you come here and there are tableclothes and proper glasses, but I don’t mind that I’ll get the food here that I would make at home. There are about four trattorias we come to and I’ve been coming to this one forever, and I love the fact that I eat the same sorts of things.

JN: Sure. Even a talented cook wants to go out and relax and have a night off, and yet enjoy the comfortable flavors of home. And it’s hard to cook and entertain at the same time, of course. A moment ago you coined a wonderful phrase that I think I have to start using: “chef-y” food. How would you define or describe “chefy” food?

RR: Well there are certain techniques. I think of home food as being the most simple and basic preparations, while for a chef the food would be elevated to a more elegant level. There might be double-filtered broths, or instead of poaching a whole fish as Agosto has done here they might pan-fry fillets of fish for a more elegant presentation. That kind of food is lovely, but it is rarely how I want to eat. And [my partner] Vincenzo hates it.

JN: What about it is off-putting to him?

RR: He loves delicious food, but not anything that looks messed around with. I know I’m going to sound like a twat; I love the efforts and the skill of chefs, but when it looks tortured on the plate, it just doesn’t give me any pleasure. I want lovely food and I want it to taste delicious, but not fancy. People sometimes say I’m a sort of pretentious reverse snob, but I can’t stand food that is exclusive.

JN: I get it. There are some people who enjoy wearing tuxedos or evening dresses, but most of us would rather not dress that way, at least not often. I certainly like to dress nicely – not sweatpants or ratty old t-shirts – but you can do that without going to the point that the clothing seems or feels stiff or excessive.

RR: That’s nice, yes.

JN: And of course with both food and clothing there’s a continuum and the edges blur. You used the word “tortured,” which is perfect. It’s just not at ease.

RR: Which maybe has to do with us, doesn’t it? Just our preferences. And I like the tuxedo metaphor. I just happen to loath food snobbism, and in England at the moment there’s a bit of backlash. Of course we need to address food banks and the fact that people are starving, but there’s a great polemic lately. For example, recently there was an article about a place selling “cauliflower steaks”, essentially slices of cauliflower. There was uproar about it, because it did cost about three times what it should cost. It opened up a whole polemic with people being very righteous about the fact that we should be preparing our own vegetables. Then of course, people came in and said, Well, what if you’re old and arthritic? Like any discussion, there were many, many sides to it. Of course I say to people, Prepare your own vegetables! Of course, there are gray areas. There’s my grandma: she’s an old woman and loves buying individual portions of cut-up vegetables. There’s just all these opinions about cooking from scratch. You have to be so careful. I firmly believe home cooking from scratch is a skill we should all be encouraged to learn and teach and share, and I think it’s something that still exists here in Italy. This basic, intuitive cooking.

JN: I completely know what you’re talking about when you describe this sort of cooking as “plain.” But at least in America, if I talk that way, there would be misunderstanding. In America, for example, “plain cooking” might imply something like poorly seasoned, flavorless or tough steak and potatoes. Or overcooked pasta with canned sauce. Or maybe the old stereotype of dreadful, bland English food. That could be described as “plain” too. So how do we distinguish between that and Italian cooking, simple but delicious?

RR: I suppose if you look at traditional English cooking from 200 years ago, you might find it to have more in common with Italian cooking. But one difference is the sheer abundance of types of ingredients in the Mediterranean. There were olives and grapes, grains, sugar from the dried figs and raisins. The riches here are quite extraordinary. It has evolved into having good taste, which is so characteristic of Italians. I see my son being taught it at school. It’s completely different from England. I mean, the kids at school here are given a five-course meal. They have pasta, and it’s red or it’s pesto, and they have their bread and their napkin.

JN: So it’s every day, and it’s five courses?

RR: Yes. You see these little creatures are learning to eat with bread and a fork. They’re learning that bread is always on the table, and water is there, and their pasta will be red, white, or pesto, and they’ll have their secondo, meat or fish, or a frittata. My son says “Fa schiffo la frittata,” [“Frittatas are disgusting,”] but they learn. They’re getting chicory, they’re getting fennel. In some English private schools, they might have wonderful food from organic kitchens, but maybe they’re not taught about food culture the way they are here. And now Luca eats just like Vincenzo. Where’s the fork, where’s the napkin? That’s not me teaching him; it’s his school. And they don’t always like it – chicory for example – but they keep giving it to them. It’s not perfect – I mean, there’s the obesity in the South – but the attempt at developing a healthy food culture and healthy rituals begins at home and is reinforced in the schools.

JN: I wasn’t aware there was obesity in the South. What’s up with that?

RR: I suppose it’s the industrialization of food which is causing problems.

JN: More in the South?

RR: There’s always been a huge dependence on carbohydrates in the South – think of pizza in Naples – but it’s also industrial snacks. Sugary snacks and drinks.

Photo of our fish soup, taken by Rachel

JN: To wrap up, I’d like to ask about salt. The soup we’ve been enjoying during this interview has been seasoned perfectly. If Augusto did everything else right by choosing the best ingredients and cooking them with care, but if got the seasoning wrong, the dish wouldn’t be pleasurable. I think of this a lot with cookbooks, too. No matter how carefully you write a recipe, if your readers don’t use salt correctly, the dish won’t meet its potential.

RR: Absolutely. For me it’s salting in small amounts but often. That’s something I learned here. When I do my initial soffrito, I’ll always add a little pinch of salt. And I’ll salt all throughout the cooking. I have three types: a very fine salt, a coarse one for pasta water, and English Maldon salt for finishing. I think it’s true: it’s how you bring out flavor. When you salt lentils, it makes them taste more like lentils. It’s a magic moment. I know you admire Marcella Hazan, and she’s such a good teacher on this. When I’m working on something, I might check out the versions from ten different books, and Marcella is always in that group. There’s a good chance I won’t follow any of them, but I’ll look.

JN: Of course.

RR: Her books are especially inspiring, and I’ll often look at her writing if I want to be inspired.

JN: Like your book, her books are personal. You get a strong sense of who she was. A strong voice. And it is inspiring.

RR: She’s a pragmatic writer, but there’s real beauty in the writing as well. There’s no pretention or froth, which makes me seem a little bit frilly in my own writing. But nothing gives me more pleasure than reading cookbooks, both for the recipes and the stories. To see what different cooks think about bay leaves, and what they want to say about bay leaves. It’s always been my favorite sort of reading.

JN: That’s a great place to wrap up, I think. Thanks again.

a conversation with Katie Parla

Katie Parla is a Rome-based food and beverage educator and journalist. Originally from New Jersey, she has spent the past fifteen years in Rome writing and giving tours on such diverse topics as underground Roman archeological sites and the modern craft cocktail scene in Rome.

Katie has been my own mentor in all things Roman since my first visit to the city in 2010, and she continues to be my most trusted resource in the city. She is the co-author of the recently published Tasting Rome, and she is currently finishing up two new books, one on the cooking of Southern Italy and one of the home-milling of flour for baking.

In our conversation, Katie discusses how Rome has changed in the past fifteen years, what she learned from being trolled online, and why people should start planning a trip today to Southern Italy.

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Justin Naylor: Good morning, Katie! You’ve been living in Rome full-time now for fifteen years, and I imagine that’s been long enough to really see some significant changes in the city, both gastronomic and otherwise. Many people probably think that things don’t change much in Italy, but of course they do. So maybe we could start with some of the changes since you relocated from the US to Italy.

Katie Parla: Yeah, for sure. There have been so many changes – and you’re absolutely right, that there is this romantic idea that Italy is this place where the food culture and its food system is sort of trapped in amber, pristine and preserved. In reality, the past fifteen years have been pretty heavily influenced by the economy, which makes sense if you think that a little over fifteen years ago the Euro became the currency and the price of everything went up. That affects how people can shop and also how restaurants can source. In both cases, there’s plenty of data to support that whether people are buying for a restaurant or for their homes, they’re very frugal and often choose conventional products over artisanal ones out of economic necessity.

We had a number of difficult years, financially. Although on paper Italy is out of a recession, most people would report that they don’t really feel as though there’s been much relief. The 2009 financial crisis was really devastating, and not just for people’s finances – I think, also, for the morale of Romans, and Italians as well. I think part of that romantic stereotype of Rome is that people go out and they’re at restaurants and they’re spending time together and lingering over really long meals. That perhaps was the case for some people pre-Euro, but in the crisis economy people couldn’t go out as much, and if they went out at all, they were looking for deals or looking for value or looking to save where they could. Going back to that romantic stereotype, the idea that when people go out they eat an antipasto, primo, secondo, contorno, and dolce, a wine-fueled meal that concludes with coffee and disgestivo – that’s like a special occasion today. It used to be more of the norm, and now when people go out, they go out for a couple of dishes. They might split a dessert, a carafe of wine rather than a bottle. People have to be really savvy with how they spend at restaurants. And this sort of carries over into other dining, as well. Fast food – which is a term that I use to describe the sort of indigenous custom of eating pizza by the slice or suppli’, as well as the more globalized brands – has become a really big feature of the local food panorama. We have both grim fast food options these days, as well as some really exciting ones.

JN: How have the chefs responded to this change? Is there anti-EU sentiment like in Britain?

KP: I think there’s not quite the same anti-European Union sentiment that there is in the sense of the Brexit debacle, but it’s not as though Italians went to a vote recently to see if they want to stay in or out. Romans, in general, have survived financial difficulties for 27 centuries. It’s not a new thing for them. They adapt, just like anyone else. And that also applies to chefs. I think that in Rome there are restaurants and trattorias where the places exist to serve really great food. Sometimes the owners are exceptionally bad at business, so rather than getting the cheapest raw materials they go for the more expensive things, the more time-consuming items. Those are the places that I really love, and I know you do, too. So, bad at business, great at food.

JN: Right!

KP: Whereas, the restaurant business since antiquity has been driven by demand for cheap food. I don’t think there’s been necessarily a cataclysmic shift, because there were lots of place serving not-great food before, and I think that continues to be the case. I think that people’s response ranges from indignant – some people have straight-up retired, preferred not to have to navigate the difficult margins that are the reality today in the business more than ever. But the silver lining is, you do have a lot of young people who went away from Italy to find work abroad, had experiences in the food industry and the beverage industry, have come back and put their knowledge and lessons to work back home, investing the money that they earned abroad, and also, I think, a bit more conscious of what Roman flavors are, what Roman food is. When you leave a place and then return to it with a little time and distance, you can actually reflect on things that as a full-time resident you may have taken for granted. I definitely see that happening in the craft brewing industry, in the street food industry, in the cocktail and bakery category. So that’s really exciting, and I think it’s also part of the very natural evolution of Roman food. Roman food has constantly been changing; if we were doing this interview forty years ago, we would be talking about a totally different food culture; thirty years ago, 130 years ago. The city’s food culture and the realities around it are constantly shifting.

JN: How have your own tastes changed in the last fifteen years? Are there restaurants that you really enjoyed when you first moved to Rome that now you’re sort of embarrassed to admit that you enjoyed? 

KP: [Laughter] I realize I don’t have the capacity for shame, so I’m not afraid to admit that when I got here, every gelato tasted amazing. I would go to, like, Giolitti and Della Palma. I spent a summer doing thesis research here during college and all those terrible, exceptionally bad trattorie on Vicolo del Cinque served what is objectively disgusting food, but it tasted so good to me at the time.

JN: Since you work with a lot of tourists who are in Rome for the first time, I imagine those experiences help you relate to where they’re coming from, when  everything just seems amazing.

KP: Yeah! Food tastes better when you’re in a beautiful street that looks like a natural movie set. But I think I did arrive here with already two decades of conscious food experiences. I did grow up in the restaurant business, I was always working in restaurants, I spent most of what I earned working in high school and university on food. When I went to college, of my work-study funds, half went to my Italy fund, and the other half went to eating Ethiopian food and Indian food and all sorts of cuisines. I learned by eating various national and regional cuisines that, yeah – maybe that first chicken vindaloo that you have blows your mind, it’s the best thing you’ve every eaten, but then you try another one and you start to create a frame of reference. The same is true for carbonara or trippa alla Romana. While I might have been predisposed to be thinking about the quality of food, I did grow up in America, where we don’t judge food based on its digestibility factor, which is certainly something that people consider here. So, yeah, that plate of tripe might have tasted really good, but if it sits heavily in your stomach, was it really a successful dish?

JN: Do you think that is was mostly just experience, or did you have a mentor along the way who helped you distinguish good cooking from mediocre?

KP: You know, it was kind of a combination of factors. Almost as soon as I got here, I enrolled in a sommelier certification course, and that came just before my Master’s in Italian Gastronomic Culture, so I was already thinking of food in a more formal and academic way than most recent arrivals. I worshipped, and continue to worship, Maureen Fant, who is the smartest human. I read every word she ever wrote, she was an incredible resource, and I’d like to think of her as a mentor. She’s been really generous with me. I learned a lot from her; I still do. It was a number of factors and ultimately a personal decision to treat food as a discipline, and not just as the object of some review or article or travel piece or blog post.

JN: You’ve written about how it was not food but archaeology and history that took you to Rome in the first place, but that you quickly got entranced by the city’s gastronomic culture. Once your interests shifted toward food, what kept you in Rome as opposed to another Italian city?

KP: Rome for me is a relationship with a city that sort of transcends any explanation. I am utterly obsessed with the urban decay of this place. The things that keep me here are actually not the archaeology and the food and the wine, it’s more like I feel really at home in dilapidated 1960s failed experimental housing projects.

JN: So not the famous tourist center, but the periphery that the tourists never see.

KP: Yeah, I mean, what is so fascinating to me is that just short of 150 years ago, Rome’s population was under 150,000 and it saw these huge booms in population. So you have all this stuff that’s happening beyond that central nucleus where very few today Romans even live. Like the Borgate, the housing projects of the ’30s, they could have been monstrosities or hideous but instead they are so elegant. All the tensions, immigration, and  political movements that drove the development of the city, I find that thrilling.

JN: How soon after you moved to Rome full-time did you start the blog?

KP: I started my very primitive Apple first generation website in 2006. It wasn’t anything like what it is today. It was about underground archaeological sites, and wine, and random trips, and museums, and snacks, and all sorts of random things, and no one read it. While I was doing my Master’s the following year, I bought the domain parlafood.com, which was meant to be the website that accompanied my thesis, and once that was done I thought, I should probably use this for something. The name was super dumb, but, whatever, who cares? What did I know at the time, that it was important to have a cool name? So, in 2007 that’s when Parla Food was born. Back then, I didn’t think my name had or would have any type of real recognition, so I also had a personal website, katieparla.com, and eventually – this is probably about four years ago – I ditched Parla Food and moved all the content to katieparla.com. This might be a really boring part of the interview.

JN: People are really interested in this, though – we live in this strange age where, as you say, you start writing, you have no reputation, no one knows who you are, and it’s very difficult. But once you reach a certain tipping point, things go viral, and someone can go from being completely unknown to being well-known very quickly. What do you think the turning point was for you?

KP: It had to be in 2009 when I had my first by-lines in the New York Times, which came about because I had been writing so much on my blog and for some other smaller publications. I was banging out so many articles about so many Rome things, and that got the recognition of a New York Times editor, and that really catapulted my public profile. Back in 2009-2010 I was filing a lot of travel stories on Italy and Turkey and the US, just writing whatever I could for them. That led to a lot of other writing gigs. So it really snowballed, and now I write for a pretty wide swath of the food world.

JN: How did you connect with the New York Times initially? Was it the result of good luck, or did you reach out to them?

KP: I had zero confidence that I would ever write for the New York Times. It never occurred to me even to ask. In 2008-2009 they were developing their now-defunct In Transit website, and the travel editor was talking to one of the Metro section editors, saying, “I need a Rome stringer, do you know anyone in Rome?” and the editor responded, “Yeah, Katie Parla.” I got an offer and I was like, What the hell, this is crazy. Of course this is insane. Unbeknownst to me, people were actually reading my blog and the articles that I had been filing for other publications. I didn’t know that anyone had been reading them. So, that was a nice surprise.

JN: And I imagine your advice to anyone in the position you were in then would be to keep working and make sure your content is super high quality, and just keep at it?

KP: This is probably terrible advice, but I would say never say no to a paid writing gig as long as you are able to maintain your integrity. Never say no, and write until you are on the brink of mental breakdown. Forsake a social life. Something good might happen. Again, this is very bad advice! [Laughter]

JN: As you developed a more prominent reputation and profile in Rome, how did Romans eventually react to this when they figured out there was this American woman writing about Roman food culture, developing a lot of influence in the English-speaking world? 

KP: It totally depends on the venue, because there are some restaurants that are very much online, following the food press, and others that literally don’t care that I write about them for major publications – all that they care about is that I’m a regular and I have been for a long time, so my occupation is completely unimportant to them. But, yeah, I had a pretty violent entry into the Italian food press world. [In 2010] I wrote a take-down of a restaurant called L’Arcangelo; I wrote what I thought was a super-funny, very interesting take-down of the place. Then, a year later, one of the big food blogs basically wrote an article saying, Who is this bitch writing about our food? Clearly, Americans should be eating spaghetti with ketchup on it. I’m not joking – this is basically what the article said. And the response in the comments section was basically, Who does this person think she is? She can’t know anything; This restaurant is untouchable; She ordered wrong – that last part is actually true; in Roman restaurants you don’t order what you want, you order what they’re good at. I got really, really viciously trolled by a lot of men – I now know who they are because I figured it out – anonymous avatars who just like nothing more than degrading women, foreign women as a bonus. That was a very painful moment, and this trolling lasted a good two weeks, with all sorts of personal messages to my email. It was really f—ed up.

JN:  I know you have a thick skin, but it must have been really difficult. I can’t even imagine. 

KP: The reason I do [have a thick skin] is because this happened. I was like, OK, that sucked, and now I’m totally over it. I’m disappointed that it had to take something like that. I didn’t sleep for two weeks; it was a nightmare. But then I was like, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. These people didn’t read what I wrote, they don’t know where I come from, they don’t understand me, they have no interest or intellectual curiosity in my origins or my credentials. While maybe at first my confidence was shaken a bit, I now can take anything. I think that’s important, because I don’t work for L’Arcangelo, I don’t work for trolls. I promote Roman food culture as I see it, and try to teach people about it. I work for my editors and my readers, not for anyone else, and I’m not trying to impress people who have no interest in fairly judging what I do.

JN: There’s a happy ending, though, insofar as you eventually developed a very good working relationship with Arcangelo, right?

KP: Yeah, I mean, no one really wants to be in a long-term fight here. They want to be in a short fight, and then make peace. People are into arguing, they’re into drama – especially in this very incestuous food world – but they don’t want long-standing feuds, they just want a passionate fight and then some sort of resolution. And that’s exactly what happened.

JN: I watched the presentation that you did at Google a few months ago, and in the question period someone described you as their hero. I understand why this is, especially to a lot of young people who are interested in writing about food and wine as you have. You’ve been very successful, but I imagine that you’re not really comfortable being anyone’s “hero”. 

KP: Sure. Yeah, being someone’s hero, I feel completely unqualified for that. However, if I take a step back for a moment, I have worked very hard in a sometimes-toxic place, and, yeah – I work my ass off. I write a lot. I don’t do press trips or go to openings or accept invites in exchange for access or free food. I’m proud of that. In terms of my output, I know I could do more, I could always improve, but I hope that the fact that I’ve really, really tried to make it in a difficult city and have succeeded can provide some sort of hope to other people wanting to do the same. I could be a better role model, and a better hero, but taking myself out of the equation, it’s really important for people to have someone to look up to. It’s not a given that someone has this dream career and someone has that career already, but if a younger or less-experienced person can look at what I have accomplished and find some inspiration in that, awesome. I always am looking to friends and colleagues and assessing how they’ve been able to achieve what they’ve done, because working is hard, freelancing is hard. Just surviving can be hard sometimes. So, having heroes is important. I was super uncomfortable being called a hero, but I’ll take it.

JN: You were at Google as part of your book tour for Tasting Rome (2016). Could you talk a little bit about how that book came about?

KP: So, I was at lunch with Kristina Gill, who is the photographer and co-author of the book. She told me about a book that she had been trying to sell for four years, about the favorite recipes of Roman taxi drivers. I thought, That’s a terrible idea, no one likes Roman taxi drivers. So I was like, “Hmmm. Why don’t we do a profile of the city of Rome through its food instead?” I had been writing about those very topics for years, so it seemed like a great opportunity. We got together a proposal – actually, on my website there’s a very detailed post about how to write and sell a cookbook proposal – our agent, Alison Fargis, gave us a template, and so we basically said, this is what the book is going to look like, this is what the book is going to sound like, these are some of the concepts we want to cover, and here’s how we’re going to sell it. That was a really important feature of the proposal, and really critical to selling it for a very nice rate. Because one way to become extremely impoverished is to write a cookbook. Getting paid for it is very important. But I digress.

JN: So, one reason that you were able to get a good rate – not only was the proposal good, but you already had a pretty significant platform. People I talk to who would like to do something similar are frustrated because the first thing any agent will say to them is, “Before we develop any proposal, you need to have a pretty massive platform.” Is that your experience as well?

KP: I think if you have a massive platform, you can sell a book that is not a good idea. Having a massive platform gives authors a lot more in the way of leverage in selling a not-interesting idea. But if you have an interesting idea and you can argue in favor of being able to sell it, that’s important too. Selling isn’t just having 1 million Instagram followers. In the proposal, I wrote, “I’m going to go on a very aggressive book tour, selling this book through events.” I already had lots of experience running and selling out events, so I knew that with some organization and planning, and a lot of caffeine, I could sell the book, which is exactly what I did. In my next proposal, I’ll have to add that my mother will sit in front of Whole Foods with a trunkful of cookbooks and hand-sell them to people, because that’s basically what she does! [Laughter] She should get a cut.

JN: I love it – there’s nothing like mom. So, speaking of social media and having a significant platform, do you enjoy that aspect of your work, or do you feel it’s a necessary evil?

KP: I love Instagram; I’m an instant-gratification person. I love Twitter, but for politics more than food – if there are any readers that are easily scandalized, do not go on my Twitter feed. And Facebook for me is a necessary evil. It is absolutely the number-one way that Italians communicate, especially Italian food businesses. I don’t have a passion for it, but I do use Facebook. I use my personal page to post the larger articles that I write, and then I do a lot of visual stuff on my Katie Parla professional page, and some event promotion there too.

JN: I’m sure you’ve been gratified by the success of the book, and you put obviously a lot of effort into the book and the proposal as well. Have you been surprised at all – I guess no matter how much you believe in a project, it’s always a roll of the dice as well. Have you been pleasantly surprised by the success of the book?

KP: I was completely delusional, so I thought we were going to sell 100,000 copies. I’m very happy with the sales now. The reason why Clarkson Potter bought Tasting Rome is that they saw this as a book that will be relevant for a long time. The sales have been really consistent, I continue to tour – I’ve got events coming up in the summer, so two years after the book came out, there’s still interest. I’ll be able to sell the book, and share the book with people. But honestly, when you write your first cookbook, you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what good sales are, what bad sales are, if your launch is successful. All of that stuff is stuff you figure out later. In retrospect, yes, I learned a lot, definitely, marketing and selling Tasting Rome. I’ll hopefully be able to apply some of those lessons to future publications and do even better numbers.

JN: Especially for a cookbook, in a completely inundated market. It’s interesting to me, because when I started paying attention to Italian cooking about 15 years ago, around the same time you moved to Rome, there were books on Tuscany and books on Italian cooking in general, but Rome seemed to be under the radar. In 2007, Maureen Fant’s great book came out, published by Williams-Sonoma, and it seems in the last ten years, and especially in the last five, interest in Rome has exploded – there’s yours, there’s Rachel Roddy’s wonderful book that I love so much. How do you account for the sudden explosion of interest in Rome?

KP: Rachel’s book is so good! I attribute it to two things. In cookbook publishing, a book is considered a “competing title” if it’s been published within ten years. So, there weren’t many Rome books with large distribution that had been published within ten years. Maureen Fant’s book is such a good book, but it’s so hard to find – Williams-Sonoma makes it hard to get. But it’s awesome – I love that book so much, it’s my most-stained cookbook. So, it was time for another Rome cookbook. I love Rachel’s book as well, but the fact that it was a British title meant it wasn’t seen as a competing title in the American market, even though it now is available in the US under a different title [My Kitchen in Rome]. And then Jerusalem was a really transformative title – that’s Ten Speed’s book about the city of Jerusalem, really using the city as the anchor for the subject, for the recipes. In 2013 and 2014, a lot of books about places and regions and subregions were coming out, and so it was sort of the right time. Definitely, those two things.

JN: How do you distinguish Tasting Rome from some of those other books?

KP: I think Rachel said it best: her book and my book are friends. There are maybe a few recipes that overlap, but they’re really different stories of Rome. Rachel’s is her personal story, rooted in her life here, her building a family here, her partner and his relationship to Testaccio, her relationship to Testaccio. Instead, Tasting Rome – it’s not academic, of course, but it’s a little more rooted in history and interviews, and it’s really connected to individual people, like Flavio de Maio’s carbonara or Claudio Gargioli’s gricia – individual stories. While Rachel’s book is more of a personal account, Tasting Rome gives a voice to some of the people who really define Roman food but don’t know English or don’t have a platform. So, the book speaks on their behalf.

JN: Chefs are traditionally protective of their recipes. Were the chefs you profiled happy or reluctant to share with you?

KP: Both. The reason people are so generous and open with me is because I go to their restaurants. I don’t take free food, I pay for everything, I am a devoted regular, so they’re willing to share their recipes with me. Except Arcangelo, who deliberately gave me the wrong recipe, so I made him go into the kitchen and make gnocchi in front of me while I followed him around with a  scale.

JN: And now you’re just finishing up a new book. I would love to hear about that book, and when it’s coming out, and anything about that process you’d like to share. 

KP: Actually there are two!

JN: That’s even better news. Do tell!

KP: My solo title – are you ready for it – is called “Untitled South Italy Cookbook”.

JN: It’s been untitled for a while, I think. Is that changing soon?

KP: No. It won’t change soon, because the publication date has been pushed forward. In the publishing world, they don’t decide or sign off on titles until a certain period before the book is published. “Untitled South Italy Cookbook”, which is finished – the photographs are shot, all that is done – will come out in Spring 2019. The titled Flour Lab cookbook, which I am coauthoring with my friend the chef, miller, and baker Adam Leonti, formerly of Vetri, is coming out in the fall. It’s about milling flour at home for pasta, pizza, bread, and pastry. The photos were shot in January and I’m just about to receive my copy edits back.

JN: That’s so exciting!

KP: It’s about 25 archetypal recipes, so there’s how to mill flour at home for certain shapes of pasta in order to get the best extensibility, or whatever the characteristic is that you need. You can mill at home or go to your local mill – like Castle Valley in Doylestown – and choose the grain based on what you need to make or bake. The South Italy cookbook, on the other hand, is similar to Tasting Rome, in that it’s about 85-90 recipes, each preceded by a headnote, and then lots of features. But rather than focusing on a single city, it focuses on various aspects of Southern Italian food culture, and I define “South Italy” as the lower peninsula – Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, and Puglia.

JN: The Rome book took a lot of research, I’m sure, but it was also very familiar already. This book, I imagine, required a tremendous amount of research, travel, etc. What are some of the main takeaways of the experience?

KP: In a way, the Rome book was already written in my head, because I had been researching so many of these topics for so long. Naturally I had to spend some time tracking down recipes and developing recipes. That was not super time-consuming; I wrote Tasting Rome so fast. The South Italy cookbook, on the other hand, was a lot of travel, a lot of driving, a lot of taking photos of terrain and really trying to distill a very, very vast and varied landscape into a sort of South Italy 101 container. I want people to read the South Italy book and immediately start planning a trip, and feel immediately connected to those places and their flavors. It was a bit challenging to stuff a lot of information into the same amount of space as Tasting Rome.

JN: Despite the diversity of these Southern regions, which have their own character, what are some things that tie those regions together? Does anything unify the cooking of the regions you wrote about?

KP: There are a lot of vegetables, a lot of dishes that are just inadvertently vegan, tons of pulses and legumes, and pulpy, brothy soups. Until the mid-1800s, all the regions I mentioned were under Bourbon rule. Now, of course, they’re under Italian rule for the moment, but who knows what’s going to happen next. I think the intensity of flavors – especially from Calabria – I like to communicate that; the variety of things you might find on a Pugliese table, with lots of coastline with interior land; Campania having a tradition of pork, but using it as a flavoring – there are individual characteristics of each region, and of course of the subregions. It’s a veggie-driven society.

JN: Which I guess is connected historically to the fact that these regions were often poor, compared to some of their Northern counterparts, and of course meat is expensive. So it makes sense that veggies and legumes play the dominant role. 

KP: And a lot of the meat dishes were holiday-oriented.

JN: Is there a lot of hot pepper as well?

KP: There is quite a lot of pepperoncino, especially in Calabria and parts of Campania, and they’re sort of smoky peppers in Basilicata, but a lot of the ingredients that you find are the New World ingredients. There are the things that define the South – peppers and tomatoes, eggplants that came from North Africa and the Middle East, artichokes – those things that now have been absorbed into other parts of Italy, but really have been rooted down in the southern regions much longer.

JN: And you hope your book convinces people to go to these places, which could really benefit from more tourism. 

KP: Completely. Rome, Florence, and Venice have become so insanely packed. I think visitors to Italy are looking for an experience that feels, for lack of a better word, authentic and real. And with full insurance coverage, you can do anything to the car! You can drive it down a mountain if you want to.

JN: [Laughter] Good to know!

KP:  That’s going to be maybe the subtitle of the book: Get a car, get full coverage. You can drive to all these incredible places. Literally, all over Cilento, you’ll encounter more cows than humans, on the road, free grazing. It’s so amazing. There’s all this crazy delicious food. The interior of Basilicata is so unspoiled. These are regions that have been depleted of population, so there’s this sort of haunted mystery around them. They’re really, really special, so I do want people to travel there.

JN: Speaking of grazing, what did you learn about mozzarella di bufala for this book? 

KP: Mozzarella di bufala is produced in several parts of Campania. The flavor of the cheese is the product of the fermentation and the diet of the buffaloes, and the salinity of the cheese, which can be manipulated by the producers. I actually don’t eat that much buffalo mozzarella because there are only a few places where I know it’s coming from very happy animals. But when I do, you can taste it – the flavor of the mozzarella changes throughout the year. It shouldn’t be too acidic or too tangy, but it should have a little bit of that brightness to it. It should be juicy, and milky, and squeaky almost. It’s something that we can’t even get here in Rome, with very few exceptions. It’s a process that’s best experienced at Taverna Penta, where the animals are eating wild herbs and a sort of cocktail of different things that grow on the property, as well as Tenuta Vanullo.

JN: When I’m talking about mozzarella di bufala, I often find myself defending the wonderful city of Naples. I realize it’s not for everyone, a little rough around the edges, but I know you love Naples too. What would you say about Naples to someone who has never been there, and is thinking about visiting? How would you describe the city and characterize its food and culture?

KP: Naples is like all those great cities on the water: there’s chaos but also calm at the same time, in a strange way. It’s the global pizza capital, so people are into carbs. And it was the capital of a kingdom, so it has palaces and chapels and avenues, all the things that went along with being not just an administrative capital but a culture capital, an art and music capital. It’s so amazing and has such terrible PR, it’s kind of shocking. Admittedly, on my first trip I was a little nervous, because it was very chaotic, it was a lot. But with every trip, I become more infatuated with the city. It has more character and more soul than Florence could ever dream of having – no offense to Florence fans.

JN: I often find myself defending it for those who think it’s a dangerous place.

KP: It’s not. Have you been to Philadelphia?

JN: [Laughter] Fair enough!

KP: I love Philly, but Philly’s more dangerous than Naples, a million times over. But if you are afraid of encountering organized crime, don’t come to Italy at all, because it’s absolutely everywhere – whether it’s the stereotypical mafia goons, or the incredibly entrenched extortion for protection racket that is absolutely pervasive, to the deep corruption within many levels of government controlled by mafia families. It’s absolutely ubiquitous. Maybe because of Gomorra and because these stories that come out in the media, Naples seems to be more wild and dangerous than it is, but it’s not as though every other part of Italy is mafia-free. On the contrary.

JN: Does the presence of that sort of corruption – at this point, you’ve been there fifteen years – are you stoic about it, or does it still kind of creep you out, knowing that these things are going on? 

KP: I mean, I think about it all the time. You know, in Italy you can’t really change things, except with your consumer choices. So I like to go directly to things, I like to see the land they come from, I like to have an understanding of how things are being made, and I know that that is a really time-consuming endeavor that not everyone can handle, but I think it’s really important to acknowledge that if you’re eating food, you’re probably contributing to the mafia at some level, and all you can do is try to lessen it through specific choices. So, when you go to a market and you see that oranges cost 1.5 Euros a kilo, that’s probably because the mafia has enslaved African men to pick them. If artichokes are super cheap, the ones that come from Puglia may have been plucked out of the ground by enslaved Romanian women. So, understanding the food system, understanding the extent to which the mafia is involved in the food system, and making your choices accordingly, acknowledging that it’s going to cost more to avoid that system, that’s the only way to do it as a regular consumer.

JN: We haven’t talked yet about wine, even though that’s a huge part of what you do; as you mentioned before, you have your sommelier certificate. I know this is a big topic, but how would you describe your approach to wine in general? For people who are new to Italian wine, how would you describe the Italian wine landscape at the moment? What kind of wines do you seek out, what philosophies of winemaking do you most admire and try to promote?

KP: I do offer wine tastings; in addition to the private food tours I offer, I also do private wine tastings for groups up to six people. My approach to wine is to give a panorama, not necessarily of the whole Italian wine scene or market, but more to get people comfortable with the geography, and the grapes that come from the geography of Italy — because Italy has twenty regions, they are vastly different economically, linguistically, topographically, and not everyone is going to be able to visit all of them and see where grapes are grown and see how the food and wine interact with each other. I try to lead people through a tasting that focuses indigenous grapes, that focuses on how wines are made, and to some extent tries to demystify wine. I like to stick to really traditional wines, ones that haven’t been manipulated by a lot of intervention from the winemaker, whether that’s a lot of wood in aging or the use of reverse osmosis to change the alcohol by volume or the acidity levels. I personally drink almost exclusively natural wines, wines that are made not necessarily in the total absence of sulfur dioxide, but with very small, minimal amounts, and indigenous yeast, rather than lab yeast. My natural wine palate can even tolerate some volatile acidity, so sometimes more extreme wines, but also really clean wines that you might not think fall into the category, because they don’t have some of the defects that you associate with natural wines. And in the US right now, because a lot of sommeliers are interested in these smaller, artisanal producers who are using less intervention and really showcasing local grapes, you find tons of examples of natural wines in smaller shops, especially, like Moore Brothers, which you know well.

JN: We probably should wrap it up there, then. I really appreciate your time, Katie, I appreciate all the mentoring you’ve done for me over the years. 

KP: For sure.

 

on being a guide

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tour guide

It would have been nice to stand amid these ruins [of Ephesus] reading Paul, or to talk about how to reconcile material happiness with spiritual joy as we were on the very spot where Paul preached, where the ethos of Athens met the ethos of Jerusalem. But our guide never really told us Paul’s story. He spent most of his time instead taking us through the royal palaces, with the grand chambers, frescoes and meeting halls. He gave us those material facts about the place that tour guides specialize in (who built what when), but which no one remembers because they don’t really have anything to do with us emotionally. The Ephesus visit was an occasion to have a good discussion about how to live and what really lasts. But if anybody was thinking such thoughts, they went unexpressed.

David Brooks

When we encounter a great book or work of art, I think it makes certain demands of us if we’re paying attention and approaching it with sensitivity. Because life is a mystery – an ultimately unanswerable riddle of incomparable richness – the best books and works of art reflect that richness. This doesn’t mean that we live our life without convictions, adopting a cynical and nihilistic relativism that lets us off the hook from responsibility of choosing how to live. But it does mean that whatever convictions we choose to hold – whether faith in God, or inalienable rights, or reason, or something else – must be recognized as expressions of faith or choice and not as articles of dogma.

This is an approach to living which was deepened and solidified in me at St. John’s College in Annapolis, a college that eschews the typical lecture approach of education – a kind of dispensing of information – in exchange for a pedagogy of engagement and inquiry. According to this approach, education is not the passive result of receiving information but the active process of synthesizing information through thoughtful reflection and discussion.

This approach has served me well, both in life generally and in my former teaching career. It has also served me well on my culinary trips to Italy, particularly in Rome where we take daily cultural excursions in addition to our work in the kitchen. We visit museums and go on walking tours, and so we study not only cooking but also the history, art, and culture of Rome.

Although there are legions of guides in Rome with better credentials to lead tours of the city and its museums, I like to do most of the tours myself because the experience David Brooks describes above is also my experience. Because our society has embraced an educational model based on passive receiving of information, the almost universal temptation of guides is to take on the role of authority, dispensing for two or three or four hours a litany of facts and technical details which, although they certainly have value, miss the forest for the trees. Those who study art history, for example, are often interested in the technical aspects of the painting (which are certainly important) but they rarely use the painting as an opporunity to engage in reflection, and they rarely ask their clients to engage much in the process either. The tour becomes a one-way street of information instead of a commual effort of inquiry.

Discussions on history tours are full of names and dates which are easily forgotten five minutes later because they’re not connected to anything that matters to anyone. I’ve been on tours of the forum in Rome which give the names and dates of various ruins, but I’ve rarely been asked to reflect on the fragility of civilization (including our own!) —  which seems to me the greatest value of visiting the ruins of the Roman forum. Which consul or emperor did this or that is not going to be remembered ten years later, but having thought about the ways in which our own civilization reflects the blessings and defects of Ancient Rome certainly will.

Knowing that the Colosseum’s proper name is the Flavian Amphitheater because it was built by a father and son of the Flavian dynasty – Vespasian and Titus – will be forgotten by most people before dinner. But discussing the addictive nature of the ancient gladiatorial games and the ways in which people today still struggle with addiction, and pondering whether human combat to the death might one day come again to our own culture… I hope these questions stay with clients long after the tour is finished.

One of the most profound questions I’ve ever heard about Bernini’s miraculous sculpture Apollo and Daphne came not from a professional guide but from another amateur, Sister Wendy. The sculpture depicts the story of Daphne being turned into a tree to save her from the unwanted sexual advances of the god Apollo. But after she becomes the tree — a laurel – Apollo continues to revere it and adopts the laurel tree as his symbol. In speaking of the pagan myth, Sr. Wendy asks us to ponder it from a slightly more Christian perspective. She speculates that the myth represents Apollo getting exactly what his heart desired, but not in the way he thought he desired it. We can agree or disagree with Sr. Wendy’s speculation. That’s not the point. The point is to engage with a work of art not as a series of facts to be absorbed but as a series of questions to be encountered.

At the end of the day, we can study history, art, and literature in order to become more thoughtful people with a more nuanced and mature understanding of life and both its enigmas and truths, not to become “experts” or to prop up our own preconceived notions. When we go on tours, we should seek the same approach. Perhaps it’s not for everyone. Perhaps some would just prefer the ease of receiving information. But I enjoy a different approach, one which invites engagement and reflection.

coffee in italy

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Italy

A properly made cappuccino and pastries at Roscioli Pasticceria, in Rome.

One of the joys of Italian life is the coffee bar. Even though we have a lovely espresso machine at the farm, Italian coffee bar culture is probably the thing I miss most about Italy when I’m not there. One orders at the cash register, takes the receipt to the bar, watches the barista make up to four or five coffees at a time with care (hopefully), and enjoys the drink quickly at the bar. It’s possible to sit down at an Italian coffee bar for an additional charge, but it’s stopping in for a quick coffee at the bar itself which is, to me, the most delightful thing to do.

I’ve very rarely had bad coffee in Italy. Some places are certainly much better than others. Some take pride in the drinks they’re making. Some are just going through the motions. Some properly clean their equipment, while others are sloppy. Some source beans with attention to quality. Others just use industrial beans.

But even at their most average, coffee in Italy is usually delightful. Milk is properly frothed and served at the right temperature (not 1000 degrees). Cups are properly pre-warmed.

Not as successful are the pastries at coffee bars. Although they are wonderful compared to the dreadful pastries one often finds at coffee shops in the US, the harsh truth is that 90% or more of coffee bars sell industrial pastries, as Katie Parla thoroughly detailed in an article in Eater.com last year.

In a development which has significant improved my life, the historic and respected Roscioli bakery has recently open a coffee bar a mere 5-minute walk from the property in Rome where I teach and live a few weeks a year. Not only do they make their coffee with care, they are one of the few bars which produces their own pastries from quality ingredients and eschews industrial shortcuts. The difference is immediately obvious both by sight and taste.

It’s easy to romanticize Italy and assume that quality is more common than it is. Sadly, there is not enough demand for quality from tourists or even Romans to ensure it. Nonetheless, the few who do produce exceptional products of excellence are diamonds in the rough, and I for one am deeply grateful for them.

A horrific example of a cappuccino from a bar in Venice, one of the few Italian cities where it is in fact very hard to find a well-made coffee. Note the “soap suds” type frothing, the mark of an amateur. It was also about 1000 degrees and impossible to drink. Terrible.

an abundance of riches

When I started cooking in the late ’90s, there were no cookbooks focusing specifically on Rome, at least that I could find. But a few years later there was a flurry of publication: David Dowdie’s Cooking the Roman Way, Jo Bettoja’s In a Roman Kitchen, and Maureen Fant’s Rome (Williams Sonoma).

After another few years of quiet, a new crop of Rome cookbooks has suddenly burst on the scene offering an abundance of riches for those interested in the cooking of the Eternal City.

First, I offer an apology for not including a discussion of Rome: Centuries in an Italian Kitchen by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi. It has only recently come to my attention and I haven’t had a chance to spend time with it yet. When I do, I’ll report back.

But I have spent time with three new books on Roman cooking: Eating Rome by Elizabeth Minchilli, Tasting Rome by Katie Parla and Kristina Gill, and My Kitchen in Rome by Rachel Roddy. You might wonder whether the market needs three new books on Rome. But these three books differ so much in content and tone that it wouldn’t be at all redundant for someone interested in Rome to own all three.

 

Elizabeth Minchilli’s Eating Rome was the first published, and it is perhaps the most diverse in its content. In addition to recipes, it is full of charming stories as well as copious recommendations of where to shop, eat, and spend time in Rome. Minchilli is American, but moved to Rome with her family in the 1970s when she was 12 years old. They only stayed two years, but after numerous repeat trips for vacation and graduate school, she eventually married a Roman and has lived in Rome ever since. Having spent three decades in Rome, her breadth of experience is hard to match.

For the sake of full disclosure, I must say that the second author, Katie Parla, has been my friend and mentor in all things Roman since I started taking my high school Latin students to Rome and hired Katie to do our touring. I quickly learned that her expertise in the Roman culinary scene equalled her expertise in Roman art, history, and culture. So when I heard that she would be publishing her first cookbook, Tasting Rome, co-authored by Kristina Gill, I was pumped. Katie has an exceedingly rare gift of excellent taste. I’ve been let down many times by restaurant recommendations, but rarely from Katie. She has high standards, and like the late great Marcella Hazan, doesn’t suffer fools or fakes. She has strong opinions and doesn’t keep them to herself. This makes her writing compelling, especially on her blog. Her cookbook is beautiful. While it doesn’t have the breadth of Minchilli’s book, it more than makes up for this with its depth. It doesn’t try to do everything, but what it does it does very well. Perhaps its most unique and valuable characteristic is the extent to which it offers recipes from some of Rome’s finest chefs. The gnocchi recipe is the recipe from gnocchi master Arcangelo Dandini. The spaghetti alla gricia recipe is from Claudio Gargioli of Armando al Pantheon, to me the restaurant with the most exquisite rendition of this dish. The amatriciana is from Nabil Hassen of Roscioli. The fact that these chefs were happy to share their recipes with Katie for the book is a great testament to Katie’s reputation in Rome. Having recipes from masters such as Arcangelo, Claudio, Nabil and others elevates and ennobles Katie’s book. If there is a shortcoming to the book, perhaps it is that it’s surprisingly impersonal, and Katie’s personality doesn’t come through as it does on her blog. But it is a very important book, and one that I am thilled to have.

Last but not least is Rachel Roddy‘s My Kitchen in Rome. To me, it’s the best title of the three. The original British title of the book, Five Quarters, might be even better, as an homage to the importance of offal in the Roman kitchen as well as as a metaphor for the frugality and honesty of Roman cooking. But the American title, My Kitchen in Rome, is pretty great too because it immediately brings to mind a homely, personal, and authentic quality which is the book’s greatest characteristic. Rachel came to Rome about 10 years ago and hardly intended to stay. But as for so many others, months turned into years. Back home in England, cooking had played a part in her life, but it was a part amplified and enriched by cooking at home in Rome, in particular in the Testaccio neighborhood which has informed so much of Rachel’s cooking and which she writes so lovingly about. Rachel is refreshingly honest about the limitations of her kitchen: tiny, no exhaust fan, improvised equipment. It’s a reminder that good cooking comes from humble surroundings. But in the loving descriptions of her kitchen, of her neighborhood, of her husband and child, of her favorite restaurants, markets, coffee bars, and butchers; in her loving descriptions of all of these, Rachel communicates a real sense of her personality, a real sense of herself, and this makes the cookbook both rare and a treasure.

All three of these women have come to know Rome as an adopted home, and all three communicate in their own ways their love for the city. All three have blogs. But despite the similarities, all three offer very different books, each of which is worth adding to your collection.

Justin Naylor, chef and proprietor of Old Tioga Farm

another love letter to Armando

Learning to season correctly is the most important skill a cook can learn.

Marcella Hazan, Ingredienti

A few years ago I wrote a love letter of sorts to Armando al Pantheon, my favorite restaurant in Rome. I have to do it again. I’m here in Rome for one night on my way to teach two weeks of cooking classes in Bologna, and once again I was just blown away by the meal I enjoyed at Armando. I have had the pleasure now of introducing many clients to Armando over the past few years, but I have not dined there alone in a while. No restaurant is perfect. Last year they seriously undercooked our pasta. But I know of no restaurant in Rome that more consistently delivers perfection time and again than Armando.

What’s so amazing about it is that being a stone’s throw from the Pantheon, they could do a great business without caring at all, just dishing out mediocre food to tourists who would be delighted to eat anything while on vacation in Rome. What’s amazing is that Armando still cares. They understand the elusive quality of good cooking, and they deliver time and again. They understand that cooking is personal, not something one can just train anyone to do well. Good cooking must have character. And as Marcella has emphasized, good cooking must be seasoned properly.

When I think of Armando, seasoning is what I think of. I’ve written a lot about salt, and rightfully so. What has so impressed me about the cooking at Armando is the perfection of their seasoning. It is tempting in restaurants to go overboard, to ensure that the first bite is overwhelmingly delicious but to create the problem that the more one eats the more one finds the dish too intense. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten food that is so correctly seasoned as at Armando. It gives the illusion that the food hasn’t been salted at all. It is so discreet, so much in the background that it never draws attention to itself. Yet, the seasoning is playing the key role in the deliciousness of the food. The other key is moderation. The first dish I ever ordered at Armando years ago was Spaghetti alls gricia (with guanciale). When it arrived I was surprised to see an extremely lightly dressed pasta, with just a few pieces of guanciale. And perhaps the first bite underwhelmed. But unlike many restaurant dishes, the more I ate the better it got. Armando understands the principal that it is just as important what you keep out of a dish as what you put in. The result is cooking which is light, balanced, and clear.

We still have seats available for our next culinary tour to Rome in March. If you’d like to join us for a week of cooking, culture, and fellowship, e-mail me: justin@oldtiogafarm.com. You too can discover the magic of Armando.

Spaghetti with truffles (Sorry for the poor photo quality. Smart phone in low light.)

Grilled lamb (Sorry for the poor photo quality. Smart phone in low light.)

Braised artichoke (Sorry for the poor photo quality. Smart phone in low light.)

Chocolate mousse, not sure the whipped cream is necessary. (Sorry for the poor photo quality. Smart phone in low light.)

baked peaches with amaretti

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amaretti, Peaches

In my last post, I mentioned a dessert I hoped to make at the restaurant in August if I had perfect peaches to work with: baked peaches with amaretti cookies. The truth is, it’s still a great dessert even with imperfect peaches. And if there are still peaches in your market, I highly recommend giving this one a try. Actually, this might be the best time of year to make it because although it’s made with warm-weather peaches, to me it’s perfect on a cool September night like tonight.

The recipe is an Italian classic, memorialized by countless Italian cooks and cookbook writers. My version is derived from Rachel Roddy’s wonderful book My Kitchen in Rome, which deserves a blog post in its own right. The only place I differ from Rachel is in cooking time. She recommends a 40-minute bake time. I like even longer, at least an hour, or even more depending on the oven. I like them really concentrated, though not burned.

The only challenging thing about this recipe is finding amaretti cookies, especially finding the best ones. For many years I used a domestic brand, which was fine. But when I finally used a high quality imported brand, the difference was obvious. Amaretti are made from bitter almonds, and good ones taste of it. Here is the one I’ve been using recently.

Baked Peaches with Amaretti Cookies

1. Slice three or four peaches in half, scoop out the pit, and place skin side down in a baking dish.
2. Combine 6 crushed amaretti cookies with ¼ cup sugar (white or raw), 1 egg yolk, a little lemon zest, and 4 tablespoons softened salted butter.
3. Spoon the filling into each cavity and bake at 375 for one hour, or even longer. The peaches should be concentrated and maybe a tiny bit crisp at the edges.
4. Serve immediately or later at room temperature.

Roman pizza

Tags

Italy, Pizza, recipes

Margherita di Bufala at Emma Pizzeria

About ten years ago I learned to make thin-crusted Tuscan pizza from Caleb Barber of Osteria Pane e Salute in Woodstock, Vermont, who had learned it in turn from a baker in Tuscany where he had apprenticed. So I was really excited when I first came to Rome five years ago to learn that Rome had a thin-crusted pizza tradition too.

I always enjoyed pizza in Rome, even though one felt the quality wasn’t all that it could be. So I was delighted when I learned a few months ago about Emma, which really pays attention to high quality ingredients, including carefully made, naturally leavened dough.

I’ve had a chance to eat there three times in the past two weeks and each time both the pizza and the suppli (rice croquettes with mozzarella) have been exquisite. The suppli were especially nice in a city which serves too many pre-made, pre-frozen suppli. Emma’s suppli are characterized by an especially intense, acidic tomato component.

Wood-fired oven at Emma.

This type of pizza’s crust is so thin that it is rolled out with a pin instead of being stretched by hand. I’m not sure about the Roman version, but the Tuscan version I learned from Caleb is enriched by high-quality, aromatic olive oil, which keeps the crust tender, even while being shatteringly crisp.

I taught my students to make it this morning, showing everyone not only how to make and handle the dough, but also how to produce pizza sauce which tastes of perfect tomatoes rather than the heavy, sugary junk that too often passes for sauce in the US.

One of my students doing a great job.

The other focus of the class was high quality mozzarella, which unfortunately is extremely hard to find in our part of northeastern PA, but which is ubiquitous in Italy. While the highest quality mozzarella is made in the countryside around Naples from the milk of water buffalo (mozzarella di bufala) there is also plenty of high quality cow’s milk mozzarella (fior di latte), both of which work well for pizza.

I stressed the importance of balance and moderation, such a critical component of all good Italian cooking.

This one got a little too charred, but in some ways it’s even better that way.

After all of our breads and pizzas were made, we sat down to a delightful and leisurely lunch.

all’Amatriciana for one

Bucatini all’Amatriciana is one of the holy three pasta sauces in Rome (also alla gricia and alla carbonara) based upon guanciale. Guanciale is cured pig jowl, and though you might not have heard of it or eaten it, trust me that it is the very finest thing one can do with a pig. Yes, better than American bacon or even prosciutto (at least for me). The flavor is wonderfully rich and distinctly porky in a way unique to guanciale. People offer say to substitute pancetta in the states, but please don’t do that for this dish, especially since most pancetta available in the US is absolute junk. Real guanciale from domestic producer La Quercia can be purchased in New York from Eataly or Philadelphia from diBruno brothers. It freezes fine, so go out of your way to buy some and keep it for several months in the freezer, cutting off a little here and there as needed. If you can’t go to the trouble of obtaining guanciale, just don’t make this dish. There are other lovely things to eat. Though I have long made alla gricia and carbonara, Amatriciana had always troubled me a bit. After consulting numerous recipes, I just couldn’t get it to taste just right, like the best version in Rome from Arcangelo Dandini, which he uses to dress his heavenly potato gnocchi. But last week I was eating at Armando in Rome, and they were publicizing their new cookbook with a little pamphlet, and in the pamphlet was their recipe for amatriciana! I made it tonight, and though I might tweak it just a bit, it was better than my previous attempts, some of which included onion and too much tomato. Armando’s version keeps tomato to a minimum, uses wine, and uses no onion. Tonight I’m cooking for myself at Casa Sinibaldi in Rome, awaiting my new group of students to arrive tomorrow for a week of culinary and cultural immersion, and so here is Armando’s recipe for Amatriciana, scaled down for one!

Spaghetti all’Amatriciana

Most traditional is actually bucatini (thick, hollow spaghetti), but I prefer spaghetti, or better yet, small rigatoni since I have an idiosyncratic dislike for tomato sauces with spaghetti.

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil and properly season with 2 tablespoons salt. Add 50 grams pasta and cook about until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, brown 10 grams of pancetta in a pan with a little olive oil, then remove from heat, remove the guanciale, and add a splash of white wine. Add 2 tablespoons tomatoes (fresh or high quality canned and crushed) and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Cook for about 5 minutes.

When the pasta is ready, drain and add it to the sauce along with the reserved guanciale. Add generous grindings of black pepper and about 10 grams grated high-quality imported pecorino romano cheese. Plate and serve at once, with additional pecorino, black pepper, and olive oil.

Note: Although Armando doesn’t use it, Marcella Hazan includes a little butter in her recipe, and I have a suspicion that Arcangelo might do the same, though I’m not sure. Although butter is not traditional in most Roman cooking, it’s worth a try.

gnocchi at last

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gnocchi

The first indication that all is not right with gnocchi recipes is that they directly contradict each other. Some say that one must only use Russet baking potatoes; others say that Russet potatoes won’t work. Some say you need an egg. Others say an egg will ruin the dough. Some say to boil the potatoes. Others say they must be baked. Some insist on using imported Italian flour. Others say American flour is just fine. Some insist on giving the gnocchi an impression by pressing them against a fork. Others say to skip this cosmetic step. Some say that making gnocchi is “easy and simple.” Others write that they have mastered it only after decades of experience. What in the world is going on?

My introduction to gnocchi came through Marcella Hazan’s excellent book The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which was my daily guide in the early years of learning to cook. She says definitively that the potato must be neither too mealy (like a Russet) nor too waxy. It must, moreover, not be a freshly dug “new” potato, but one which has aged a bit and become an “old” potato. She also says definitively that though some cooks even in Italy use an egg, it is looked down upon and creates a rubbery product which some refer to as “Paris style” (tells you what Italians think of Parisian cooking). I don’t really remember my first attempts years ago to make gnocchi, but I know they weren’t encouraging. Concluding that gnocchi just weren’t that impressive, I lost interest in them for years.

Then I found myself in Rome under the tutelage of Katie Parla. After complaining to Katie about some mediocre gnocchi I’d eaten the night before, and after hearing her explanation that many places serve low-quality gnocchi made from dehydrated potato flakes (yuck), Katie took me to L’Arcangelo, not too far from the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo. She assured me that Arcangelo Dandini’s were the finest gnocchi in town and some of the best in all of Italy. That is high praise, but Arcangelo’s gnocchi didn’t disappoint. After years of hearing that gnocchi should be like airy pillows but never experiencing anything close to that, the first bite at L’Arcangelo was a complete revelation. They were indeed weightless and exquisite. Sweetening the deal further, he had sauced them with the most exquisite expression which I had ever had of the Roman pasta sauce all’Amatriciana (tomato with guanciale and pecorino). It remains one of the finest dishes I’ve eaten in my life. And on each return visit, the same experience has been consistently repeated. Desperate for some inkling of Arcangelo’s secret, I begged him for advice. He explained that the key was to boil the potatoes in equal parts salt and water.

Gnocchi all’Amatriciana at L’Arcangelo in Rome

Of course, equal parts salt and water is more like a slurry than anything to cook potatoes in. Maybe something was lost in translation. Maybe he was just pulling our leg. But it did lead me to an intriguing discovery: Syracuse salt potatoes. Salt potatoes originated in Syracuse, New York, when salt miners would boil potatoes using the local salty water from the marshes near the mines. Using an incredible salt ratio of 1 cup of salt for 6 cups of water, this method raises the boiling point of the water so much that the potatoes cook at a higher temperature and the water more completely cooks the starch, giving the potatoes a remarkably firm but creamy texture. Though one would imagine that so much salt would make the potatoes inedible, their skins protect the potatoes, which hardly absorb any salt at all.

I had a hunch that something like this might be what Arcangelo was talking about. But when I made them using the method described by Marcella and also her son Giuliano, I still had heavy, gluey gnocchi. Although I revere Marcella Hazan, I began to doubt that her recipe could produce the sort of gnocchi I was looking for.

So I began to look at other recipes. I quickly learned that about 95% of all gnocchi recipes call for Russet baking potatoes (the kind Marcella says won’t work) and an egg. The most exacting of these call for baking rather than boiling the potatoes, which makes sense. Since adding too much flour is the downfall of gnocchi, and since the drier the potato, the less flour will be needed, it seemed logical that baking the potatoes would decrease their moisture and make for lightly gnocchi. So I tried this method, but to no avail. They were edible, but not the ethereal gnocchi I was seeking. I even went to a cooking class taught by a chef I greatly admire. She too called for baking potatoes and an egg, and her gnocchi were good, but they weren’t the ethereal gnocchi I was seeking. A friend of mine was also seeking to master gnocchi, and we would commiserate at the seeming impossibility of the task. If not for my taste memory at L’Arcangelo, I would have dismissed gnocchi and given up.

Then, poring over recipes and articles online and in books, I noticed that the most authoritative sources still seemed to argue for making gnocchi without an egg. When I learned from Katie that Arcangelo also makes eggless gnocchi, I knew that must be the way. Just as importantly, these sources argued for making gnocchi not with a baking potato, but with another type: Yukon Gold. This is a potato that I know well. It is the primary potato we grow in our market garden for our vegetable customers. What is it, I wondered, about the Yukon Gold potato which makes it superior for gnocchi?

This question led me to the single most critical piece of information about gnocchi-making. Since most of us don’t grow potatoes, we don’t know much about them. In stores, they have meaningless names like “Eastern” potatoes, whatever that means (nothing). But then, I happened upon this magnificent chart describing the different textures and cooking characteristics of various potato varieties.

Source: Wood Praire Farms (www.woodpraire.com)

This chart shows that potatoes actually have two kinds of starch, not one, and that those who say that Russet potatoes are more starchy than other types have no idea what they’re talking about. They have more of one of the types of starch, amylose, which makes a floury or mealy potato, and less of the other type of starch, amylopectin, which causes the potato to hold together when cooked. Moreover, some potatoes are more moist than others and some are more dry than others. When I thought about gnocchi-making, where you want a dry potato that holds together when cooked, and then I consulted the chart to see what varieties fit that bill, right there I found the Yukon Gold potato (along with several other varieties one never sees in a store).

At once it all made sense. If you use a baking potato, no matter how dry you get it, it is a mealy, floury potato which will fall apart when cooked, and which therefore requires an egg to help the dough hold together — even if this leads to a heavier, rubbery result. Dough made with a Yukon Gold, however, has enough amylopectin that it will hold together on its own, without need of an egg, and since it is a dry type of potato, it will require minimal flour.

Hugely encouraged by this knowledge, I humbly realized that I had come full circle and that Marcella and Giuliano Hazan had been right all along. I made a batch using Yukon Gold, the dough came together easily and held together, and my first bite, though not quite at Arcangelo’s level, was the first bite of gnocchi I had ever made which could be described as weightless.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to immediately repeat my success. I had been using Italian flour and I got a bad bag which ruined my next batch. My third attempt was ruined with too much flour. Just as I thought I was getting somewhere, I began to question whether my one success had been a fluke. Everyone says to use as little flour as possible, but when I used as little as possible (about 100 grams for 800 grams potatoes), the gnocchi tasted too raw, too much of straight potato, and they weren’t weightless.

But then I had my final epiphany. Rereading Giuliano Hazan’s recipe for the hundredth time, I gave adequate attention to a phrase I had passed too glibly: incorporate flour until one has a smooth dough. I’ve been cooking seriously for fifteen years, but what the heck does a smooth dough mean? How smooth? What should it look like? Feel like? This information is almost always left out. Every gnocchi recipe always stresses to not  overwork the dough or they’ll be tough, just like the instructions for pie dough. But just like with pie dough, the invocation not to work the dough often leads to the opposite error: underworking the dough, being so scared to handle it, that the ingredients never become fully incorporated. I had figured this out years ago for pie crusts – that you had to work the dough enough to get a homogeneous mass that actually came together – but I hadn’t really applied it to the gnocchi dough. I had been working it so little out of fear of overworking that the dough really wasn’t homogeneous or smooth as Giuliano says. On my next batch, I gently massaged in the flour until the dough was completely smooth and homogeneous. I boiled and tested one gnoccho and it still wasn’t right, so I increased the flour to 150 grams (about 1 and 1/6 of a cup) and the gnocchi suddenly and miraculously became ethereal. I realized that too little flour could be a problem too, even if the gnocchi held together, and that there was a magically sweet spot, which for me was 150 grams of flour, though I imagine this could vary widely depending on what potatoes one uses and how one cooks them (I was still boiling them in a high salt water).

Of course, just when you think you’re home free, one finds disagreement over how long to cook gnocchi. Some say till they float. Marcella says till they float and then 10 seconds more (adding or subtracting a few seconds as needed). Huh? A second of cooking makes a difference? Others says to cook them for a minute after they float. One once again feels like one is in a house of mirrors. To make matter worse, how can you tell if they’re floating if you have water boiling violently and they’re being knocked all around? My breakthrough here came just several days ago, courtesy of Rachel Roddy. She very sensibly points out that the gnocchi should cook at a gentle simmer (almost a poach), not a tempestuous boil like pasta needs. When I cook them that way, it is immediately obvious as soon as they float. For me, they cook in 1 minute and 45 seconds, a very short cooking time which to me suggests light and airy gnocchi.

How do you know you’ve made them correctly? When cooked they should be solid in appearance, not grainy or dissolving, but they should be ethereal. What do I mean by ethereal? Think of the most weightless pancake you’ve ever eaten, one that seems like a cloud, compared to heavy, dull pancakes. Likewise, think of the most light mashed potatoes, as opposed to heavy, dull ones. You should experience that same thrill when eating gnocchi.

There are still questions I don’t have a definitive answer to (does the salty water really matter?), but I’ve been able to repeat my success enough to feel confident offering my recipe as a likely candidate for successful replication. Ironically, gnocchi are very simple in one sense — but in another, they are one of the most challenging things I’ve ever learned to cook, and one of the dishes most difficult to teach through the written word. If ever there was a time to stand at the side of an experienced cook, this is it.

Potato Gnocchi

1) Bring 1 quart of water and ¾ cup salt to a boil. The Hazans do not call for this heavily salted water, and perhaps someday I will eliminate it, but for now it works for me and seems in line with Arcangelo’s advice. The potatoes will not become saturated with salt unless their skins break, which has never happened to me. The extra salt seems to firm up their skins and keep them intact. Paula Wolfert, who has excellent advice about gnocchi and admits that she only recently mastered gnocchi after cooking for 40 years, recommends baking the potatoes instead. I have not had success with that method, but I can’t dismiss it and others might find even better success with the baking method.

2) Add 1 ½ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, all of a similar size. If you can’t find Yukon Gold, you can try another plain boiling potato, but you’re taking a risk. I know it seems silly, but you could always mail order the Yukon Gold. Or grow them yourself! Cook the potatoes until tender, about 30 minutes, until easily pierced with a toothpick. I keep the heat on medium low and keep the potatoes covered to reduce evaporation of the water.

3) Immediately slice the potatoes in half and peel the skins. They are hot, but use a towel if you need to. They need to be peeled right away and passed through a food mill or ricer. Some swear by the former and others by the latter. I use the ricer. Rice or mill them onto a well-floured wooden board. Total flour needed will be 100 to 150 grams, including the flour on the wooden board. I measure out two bowls, one with 100 grams and one with 50 grams. I know I’ll need at least 100 grams, and then I use as much of the remaining 50 as I need.

4) Some people, including Paula Wolfert, recommend allowing the riced potatoes to cool. I haven’t found that it helps, but you might try it. I actually like to work the dough while it is warm. It feels softer and more pleasurable.

5) Add the remainder of the 100 grams and massage the mass gently into a soft, smooth, and homogeneous dough. It will be tacky but not sticky. It will be a beautiful gold if you use yukon gold. You won’t see flour and the dough will feel soft and lovely.

6) Cut off a piece, form it into a little gnoccho, and throw it in some boiling water. Check it when it floats. If it falls apart or still tastes too raw, add some or all of the additional flour. There is no simple answer here. Only practice and experience will teach you the right amount of flour. I’m still learning myself. According to Anna del Conte, the best gnocchi makers in Northern Italy use only 100 grams of flour for one kilogram (about 2 pounds) potatoes. For me, that’s not enough. For me the sweet spot is consistently 150 grams. I should add that I am using imported “00” Italian flour. I have no experience with American all purpose flour when making gnocchi, but that is what the Hazans recommend. I believe unbleached pastry flour would also be a good choice. Italian flour is more finely milled than most American flour, and the kind of flour you use will affect how much you need. Only experience will teach you.

7) Once you are satisfied that the dough is right, cut off a tennis ball sized piece and roll into a snake, cutting the piece in half as needed to make it manageable. I like larger gnocchi and aim for a ¾ inch thick snake. I cut off 1 inch pieces and I DO NOT use a fork to make an impression on the gnocchi. The traditional argument is that the irregular surfaces of “forked” gnocchi catch sauce better, which I do not find to be true. Arcangelo doesn’t indent, and that is good enough for me.

8) This amount of dough makes about 50 gnocchi, depending on the size, which is 6 moderately sized portions. I only cook about one third of them at a time in 2 quarts of water seasoned with 1 tablespoon salt. Unlike pasta, which needs much more water to move around in, cooking a small amount of gnocchi in a smaller pot works well for me. Keep the heat at a steady, gentle simmer but not a rolling, tempestuous boil. For me, they cook in just under two minutes, which I take as a good sign that I’ve produced light and airy gnocchi. Heavy gnocchi take longer to cook.

9) Once they float I remove them with a slotted spoon and place them in the pan with their sauce, tossing gently, while I cook the remaining gnocchi. Once all are cooked, serve at once. Just as with pasta, gnocchi go down hill quickly and within minutes you’ll have a cooled, heavy mess on your hands. Really, gnocchi are at their best for 1 to 2 minutes after cooking.

10) Many people suggest that smooth or pureed sauces are best for gnocchi. Pesto and butter/sage are two classics. I disagree, however. Arcangelo’s amatriciana is perfect with the gnocchi. I’m not completely happy with my own amatriciana, but I am completely enamored of gnocchi with sausages, tomatoes, and cream.

11) To make this sauce for a full batch of gnocchi, brown about 1 cup plain sausage in a little olive oil, and then add about 1/2 cup diced onion. Cook until soft and lightly colored, and then add about 1 cup chopped tomatoes (high quality canned are fine) and a knob of butter. Add a generous pinch of salt and cook until the tomatoes are reduced and broken down, about 5 minutes. Add a moderate glug of cream and reduce until moderately thick. Remove from heat.

12) As the gnocchi are done, toss gently with the sauce. When all the gnocchi are done, plate at once and garnish with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano.

My very own gnocchi sauced with sausage, tomatoes & cream