Food in Rome
Typical dishes Eating in Rome is really exciting; no other city has so many restaurants, inns and hostelries.
The area of Trastevere, the stronghold of roman cuisine, counts dozens of hostelries, all lined together, around which rotates the nightlife of all Rome's population. In spring, further Rome's suburbs, towards Ostia or the Roman Castles, one can find restaurants with tables in the open air, under the trees, where the "pinzimonio" reigns. The "pinzimonio" is a very simple but delicious dish, it consists of celery or fennel dipped into a dressing of oil, salt and pepper. This starter delights any Roman, especially when it is followed by other important dishes, such as amatriciana spaghetti, lamb chops, fantasious salads, authentic pecorino cheese and some good wine of the Roman Castles. Roman cuisine bears its secret in the Latium's countryside: around Rome there is a vast rural land apparently barren, sun burnt and with little vegetation.
Indeed the area is of volcanic origin and is full of mineral deposits that feed the earth with a vitality that one can taste in its products. For example, the roman vegetables are among the most scented, just smell some celery, artichokes, peas, broad beans or salad and one can understand the tastiness of many dishes.
In this landscape, sheep meat has a very important role, it brings to our tables dishes such as "abbacchio", lamb meat, goat meat (kid), pecorino produced right from the shepherds and it enriches most dishes and is a real pilaster for desserts, especially when it eaten with a good wine. The "abbacchio" is the most famous sheep meat dish of roman cuisine: the victim for this wonderful dish is a sucking lamb that never ate grass, killed around the age of 20 days when weighting about 10 kilograms. Also goat and lamb meat are very appreciated, especially around Easter time. Another main character is pork: so one can mention the "pancetta" a sort of bacon (sometimes replaced by the "guanciale") and mostly the "porchetta"(pork cleaned of its entrails, boned and roasted and carefully dressed with aromatic herbs). The "porchetta" originally comes from Ariccia, on the Albani Hills, and then through Rome it reached all Italy. The most typical vegetable dish contains artichokes, the "carciofi alla romana" are artichokes filled with grated bread, parsley, anchovies, salt and pepper; another dish is fried artichokes "alla giudia", whose name reveals the Hebrew origin, that consists a very easy fried dish that only romans know can make and cut properly the big tender Latium's artichokes.
