Top 10 restaurants in Rome

As more and more visitors are returning to Rome I am getting asked this question often, hence the post!  I originally posted this 10 years ago………that’s why they call Rome the ‘Eternal City’, nothing much changes very quickly, and when it comes to food, I am eternally grateful for that.

My definition of a top Roman restaurant is one that has one or more of the following characteristics:

• has been in operation for at least one hundred years
• is family run 
• specialises in traditional Roman cuisine (simple, fresh, and offal based)
• has a menu that changes depending on what is available at the market that day
• is frequented by Romans
• offers excellently cooked gluten free pasta dishes 

I found all the following through living here, walking past them, sampling them extensively (as well as a lot of others). There are also many excellent restaurants in the suburbs of Rome but I have stuck to the city centre, where most visitors will be staying and prefer to eat. So here goes, not in any particular order:

1.  Antica Hostaria Romanesca – Piazza Campo dei Fiori, 40 – 06 6864024

I have been going here for over 25 years. The bread and fettucine are home-made by the Nonna who sits in the small front room of the restaurant and makes it while you watch if you are lucky. Her grandson Luca and his sister run the restaurant. It consists of one small room plus a square of the piazza. There is a sign on the wall written in local dialect warning about the wait and not to bother the chef with complaints.  But it is worth it.  Dishes are individually and lovingly prepared, and spilling over with food of the highest and freshest quality. 

The Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Pollo con Peperoni (a uniquely Roman dish)/chicken with capsicum, and Fegato alla griglia/grilled liver (featured above along with the roasted porcini mushrooms and puntarelle salad, burrata cheese and grilled zucchini, and a dessert called Sbriciolata alla nutella) are the best I have ever tasted.  But everything on the menu is good, cheap, and cooked with care and attention to detail.  Try any of the specials as they will be seasonal and based on the chefs traditional knowledge. And while you are waiting you will have the spectacular Campo dei Fiori to watch – full of people, no cars, magnificent medieval buildings, and a statue of Giordano Bruno, the last person burnt to death there in 1600 for heresy (proclaiming that the earth circled around the sun rather than the other way around).  Reflect on how, if waiting for some spectacular Roman food while sipping wine and eating warm bread is the main problem you have at the moment, then life is much improved since 1600.

2. La Carbonara  – Piazza Campo dei Fiori,23 .- 06 6864783

You will be lining up often with international movie stars and politicians to get a seat but it is not a pretentious or expensive place, just a Roman institution.  At the other end of the piazza from Antica Hostaria Romanesca, it is thankfully much larger indoors so you can eat either on the piazza or inside with air conditioning / heating. It produces very traditional, high quality Roman dishes. The Fiori di Zucca/fried zucchini flowers (featured below along with the lamb chops and potatoes, and Carbonara in the background), Saltimbocca alla Romana (veal with proscuitto and sage) are the best I have ever tasted and the Carbonara is on a par with Antica Hostaria Romanesca.  Again you will have the Campo dei Fiori piazza to look out upon and will be entertained by a parade of non-stop buskers.

3. Da Luigi – Piazza Sforza Cesarini 23 (between Campo dei Fiori and Piazza Navona), 06 6865 946

I stumbled on this place when I used to live around the corner and noticed it was always full with lines of people waiting. Da Luigi is packed full with Roman families who like to keep this place a secret.  It is squashed along the side of a tiny piazza for outdoor seating but there is also extensive seating indoors in a variety of wood panelled rooms.  Here you will find reasonably priced, down-to-earth Roman dishes specialising in sea food but also pizzas and meat dishes.  It is noisy and always crowded and there is nothing to look at, but the variety and good reliable quality of the food makes up for it. Try the fried artichokes.

4.  Ai Spaghettari – P.za di San Cosimato, Trastevere 57-58-59-60

A beautiful, succulent and rich experience of a typical, restaurant, that has nevertheless been around for half a century or more.   It is based in the most traditional part of Rome, Trastevere, a mostly pedestrian only precinct, which is now packed with restaurants and is an enchanting neighborhood to eat in.  Ai Spaghettari is always noisy, has the television blaring, and is always full.  A pizza oven greets you at the door and you can watch while your pizza is made, being flung up in the air and all. There are vast amounts of seating outside and in, and service and menu are both good, featuring lots of traditional Roman specials.  If you don’t book you may be waiting a while but you will get a seat eventually. (no GF pasta or pizza)

5.  Pizzeria Popi Popi – Via delle Fratte di Trastevere 45, 06-589-5167

I avoided going to this restaurant for years as it looks like the typical tourist trap often found in Trastevere.  Red checkered table cloths, tables set outside in front of a beautiful, white marble church, and filled with tourists.  Then my Italian husband and his mates took me there.  Now we know the waiters by name.  Frequented by both Italians and tourists alike, its cheap and cheerful outdoor atmosphere make it a superb summer Roman dinning experience (and indoors for Winter).  They have a large and traditional menu (including pizza) and the food always tastes surprisingly good for its quick production, volumes turned-over, and large variety.  Their Tiramisu is one of the main  reasons we keep going back.  By the way, once I asked the waiter what the significance of the name was.  He told me its the sound that Italian men make when they squeeze the breast of a woman “popi, popi”.   Booking is optional but recommended, but if you just turn up the waiters will look after you. (no. GF pasta or pizza)

6. Ciak – Vicolo de’ Cinque, 21 ,Trastevere 06 5894774

Carnivores unite! (You can probably tell by now that I am not a vegetarian but all of these restaurants have great vegetable dishes and vegetarian options on offer too, although probably best to avoid this one if you are a vegetarian). The window is packed with hanging dead animals of the kind not often seen – boar, pheasant, deer and hare.  Deep rich, red salamis of wild boar, pastas with venison ragu, stews of hare, Fred Flintstone steaks of beef, pork and veal are all on the menu here and nothing much else.  If meat is what you are after you will get any kind your heart desires (including heart…..).  It feels like you are eating in a Tuscan agroturismo with bare brick walls, lively noise and Chianti bottles everywhere.  The huge open grill is at the front and you can go and choose your type and cut of meat before cooking.  Best to book as it tends to be a restaurant that people go to specifically for this kind of food. (no GF pasta)

7.  Spaghetteria L’ Archetto – Via dell’Archetto, 26, Trevi Fountain 06 678 9064

This is the Frat Boy version of these top ten restaurants in that it has foregone all the add-ons of Italian cuisine and just focuses on the pasta.  Exactly 100 different pasta dishes can be ordered here and not much else.  But why would you bother coming here for anything else, their pasta dishes are fantastic?  Originally another restaurant I stayed away from as it seemed too gimicky, but I was dragged again along by my husband and his mates who had all eaten here for years.  Once I tasted my Fiume di Londra (London Fog) pasta dish I understood that no short cuts had been taken in delivering high quality, mouth watering food. This is a great place to go when you are sick of the same menus in all the other more traditional restaurants of Rome, although here you can get the traditional plates as well of course.  Try also the Pasta al Limone and the Penne alla Vodka a traditional dish that many restaurants disdain to put on their menus but is delicious and won’t make you drunk (although perhaps best not served to children).  Their vegetable dishes and Tiramisu are pretty good too.  Outside seating is on the cobblestoned street so cars will pass at your elbow.  Inside there is plenty of space available although it is like a warren, all underground, and airless at times.  If you book try to sit outside or ask for a table close to the entrance. 

8. Taverna Agape – Piazzetta di, Vicolo di S. Simeone, 26, (near Piazza Navona) 066879694

If you are looking for a romantic night out then this Roman institution is perfect. It offers everything except pizza and looks out onto a quiet medieval piazza complete with its own fountain. Try the pasta Cacio e Pepe (traditional Roman sheeps cheese and fresh black pepper) pasta.

9. Osteria dei Cappellari, Via dei Cappellari, 66, (near Campo dei Fiori) 069436 6598

A beautifully decorated, traditional osteria with relaxing ambience and excellent, seasonal food, everything except pizza. Its small and intimate, crowded with candles, mirrors, hats (cappelli) and a piano, on a cobblestoned medieval pedestrian street where once hat makers had their trade. Dishes are highly seasonal, portions are generous and desserts unmissable. Try any of the types of beef steak (filetto di manzo) here, especially if its with Porcini mushrooms. No seating outdoors but why do you need it when it looks so good inside?

10. Il Marchese, Via di Ripetta, 162 (near Piazza del popolo) 0690218872

Last but not least for an excellent cocktail and/or traditional roman food with a twist, in a place that feels ancient and new, elegant and informal all at the same time…………Try the steak tartare and the house cocktails.

If you enjoyed this blog you may enjoy reading my books. Click here https://brontejackson.wordpress.com/books/

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My favourite activity of the week

The market is a two minute walk from my apartment but is unrecognisable unless you already know what it is.  For six months I walked past the shabby collection of closed up boxes wondering what they were.  Each only slightly bigger than a skip bin, they were sometimes outnumbered by them. But one day I happened across them in the morning and now shopping at my local market is my favourite activity of the week.  Whatever befalls me during the week I know I have the market to look forward to.  I wake each Saturday morning excited and happy, looking forward to the experience that I know won’t disappoint me and will be over too soon.

I am standing at the edge of Aldo’s fruit and vegetable counter hemmed in on both sides and at my back with people.  Aldo keeps up a non-stop chant, tallying up the prices of the fruit and vegetables as he weighs them while customers impatiently crowd around thrusting their bags full of produce towards him.  Hands push out from behind me at the level of my hips, towards the apricots and peaches that are stacked up in front of me, as customers continue to shop while others wait in a non-existent line based on the time they first put their bags down on top of the fruit and stopped filling them.  Every time Aldo finishes serving a customer he tells the remaining ones which of them are next, up to the last person waiting.  No one ever argues and he never gets it wrong.

All women are referred to as beautiful “bella” and young “giovanne” by Aldo who is well into his 70’s and has regular heart valve surgery.  The older you are the younger his description of you is. I am referred to as a beautiful girl “bella ragazza”. I am 55. White haired women bent over double are referred to as beautiful little girls “belle ragazzine” while young women are called “belle donne”, beautiful women.

“Hey don’t forget about me”, shouts out a man.

Only people who are new to Aldo’s stall ever say this.  The rest of us know that he knows exactly who has been waiting and for how long, and we patiently or impatiently wait our turns.

“Throw me a bag Aldo”, someone shouts and another hand is thrust out from between the bodies to receive it.

“Are these the only type of apricots you have?”

“Yes they are”, he answers, “they are from my orchard, taste one I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“Do you have any prepared salad left?  Yes we do, Marie, get that young man a bag of salad.”

Along with answering and organising he is still weighing goods and verbally tallying them up.

The stall is open on all sides and shaded with a low canvas that covers the array of tables topped with produce.  It traps the sound in.  It is very hot and I have been standing here at least ten minutes waiting for my goods to be tallied.  But I am not in a rush.  I let others fill their bags full of apricots from the mound in front of me not fearful of losing my place under the eagle eye of Aldo and actually hoping it will take as long as possible.  Because under this cacophonous, fragrant tent stacked with figs, overflowing with cherries, nuts and lemons, decorated with eggs, honey, mozzarella and lettuce, swimming in tomatoes and zucchini and pegged down with watermelon, eggplant and cabbage, I can feel my aura being gently cleansed.

My shoulders relax and start to ease themselves down from around my ears, my spine straightens and I can feel my feet firmly on the earth for the first time since the beginning of the week.  I take root amidst the vegetables and fruit and come back to fully inhabit my body again feeling each part of me gingerly integrating and coming into the present.  I watch an old man bend over peppers and inspect each one before putting it into a paper bag. I see a youngish man next to me enthusiastically filling a bag with small deformed apples and ask him in Italian what they taste like.  I exchange a smile with a woman next to me and ask how she intends to cook her cabbage (because I don’t know how to even though I love cabbage).  I join in a general conversation and answer another man who is wondering what beetroot is and what you might eat it with.  The cares and worries of the week cascade off me, puddle in a pool at my feet, and gradually melt away into the earth.

Too soon it is my turn to be served.

“It’s this beautiful girls turn now”, Aldo announces to everyone as he drags my bags over the mounds in between us, and starts to weigh and tally out loud.  It’s like listening to a race commentator.

“We have four zucchinis, some peppers and an eggplant.  What’s in this bag now?  Oh so we have also a bag of       salad and some tomatoes along with the zucchinis, peppers and eggplant and now I can see a fennel.  What do we have in this other bag?  Oh some apricots, peaches, figs and a quarter of a watermelon.  Now we still have the zucchinis, peppers, eggplant, salad and tomatoes along with the fennel, and we are now adding the apricots, peaches, figs and watermelon.”

 

No matter what I buy it’s always the same price, twelve euros. He throws the money into the red plastic bucket he uses as a cash register. Sometimes he doesn’t even add on half the vegetables in my bags.  I try and hand him more than the twelve euros and he responds by putting another few peaches into my bag and then stacking it full of lemons, thrusting the bags back at me and turning to the next customer before I can protest.

“You can’t pay whatever you want you know”, he admonishes me.

“Well you charge me whatever you want”, I counter.

“It’s my store”, he responds, laughing.

My husband takes the heavy load of fruit and vegetables from Aldo’s garden and we move away together, me slightly sad as it will be another week before I get to stand in the aura cleansing tent again.

“What do we need next?” my husband always asks.

I don’t know.  All week my days are about ‘to-do’ lists.  Some weeks, each day is divided into half-hour slots of time where I have to produce, do, or attend something for every slot.  So when I am not at work I don’t have lists.  I buy whatever takes my fancy and I follow my intuition.

The fish lady knows this.

“What about these salmon and “orata” fish burgers that I have just prepared, or the fresh anchovies marinated in vinegar and celery? Or how about this blue fish “pesce azzuro”,  that I have just finished frying with red onion for lunch?”

The first time I tasted the salmon, I rushed back the next week and demanded to know why it tasted so different to any other salmon I had ever eaten.

“I know”, she said, winking at me and pushing her blond curls off her face with the back of her plastic gloved hand while holding a long thin knife that never seemed to leave her palm.

“It’s from a special farm in Norway where they raise the salmon to be relaxed.  They play music to them. That way they develop a lot of fat just under their skin.”

Each time I am cooking the salmon I watch the layer of fat between the skin and pink flesh melt and spit, flavouring everything.  Today she hands me the package of salmon that her father has already prepared in anticipation for us.  It has ‘Australia’ written in black biro on the paper that the fish is wrapped in.  Like Aldo she wishes me a good Sunday and tells me she will see me next week.

Unlike the fishmonger, the butcher and I regularly need to brainstorm together before any purchases can be made.

“What kind of meat would you like?”

“Lamb.”

“How would you like to cook it signora?  Baked, grilled, casseroled, with or without potatoes (my favourite so if you were wanting to invite me over that’s what I would like you to cook), vegetables, or with a little wine and olives?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Together we come up with something and he grabs the relevant animal and prepares the cut.  He doesn’t wear gloves and cuts with a blade that could double as a paddle, some pieces are so thin you can see through them.

He is the head of the market and in charge of its comings and goings so he updates me on anything relevant and then asks what season it is in Australia, what temperature it is and how many hours flight it is again?

I linger at the grocer’s counter eyeing the array of fresh mini ricottas made from sheep or cow’s milk, some of them baked and standing up in little plastic sieves, some oozing and gooey like white butter starting to melt.  My eyes gaze upwards to the pink rounds of prosciutto, salamis and hams that would go magnificently with any of them, each one with their own salty, fatty, chewy taste.  Today I spot my favourite cheese, a camenbert made with buffalo’s milk, so subtle and yet so delicious it takes control of you and makes you finish the entire round in one sitting.  Everyone I introduce this cheese to has the same experience, and in a nation of experienced cheese tasters I am delighted to be able to offer something different and new.  It goes a long way to building up my credibility as a  resident of Italy, and being worthy of my visa.

But too soon it is over.  There is nothing left to buy unless I want a cotton handkerchief, a velvet dressing gown, or bleach, all housewife staples which are on offer and which I wish I needed, if only  to keep me looking at the market for longer.  But my husband knows we have mortadella in one of the bags and is inching me towards the exit.  And we have to stop at the flower seller on the way out.

Each week it is the same.  I moon over the herbs and flowers knowing full well we have no balcony and that all three of our window boxes are full to overflowing and threatening to take down one side of the building if I fit one more pot in there.  So I settle for blooms that cost less than one day’s worth of public transport and thank the vendor as he adds a few more in for free.

There really is nothing more to do except go home, enjoy the produce and look forward to the next market shop, one full week away.

Top 10 reasons to love Rome in Autumn!

1.Vino Novello.

November is the time for this years batch of Vino Novello or ‘young wine’ to be released. A red wine, it is produced in a way that accelerates fermentation and has no tannins.  Like a Beaujolais, it is fresh, fruity and deep. Italians have many, many rules as a society and a large quantity of  them are related to as suggestions (like lanes for traffic) except when it comes to food and drink.  The rule of Novello is that it is only available from October 30th until sold out (usually by the end of the week). It does not keep well so needs to be drunk immediately (I am just relating the rules). 

2. The color of the sky.

Rome’s sky turns turquoise in Autumn, its sharp blue the perfect back drop for its burnt orange buildings, and perfectly seen through leafless trees.

3. The food.

Autumn is the time you feel like (and enjoy) eating again after the sweltering humidity and heat of the summer. Oranges from Sicily, mushrooms from Tuscany, fresh pork sausages from the countryside near Rome all go well with Vino Novello as do the chewy salami‘s and tangy sheep’s cheese (pecorino).  Vegetables such as Funghi porcini mushrooms, artichokes and the very Roman puntarelle appear back on the market after their long summer rest, and last sometimes only a few weeks so all of a sudden everything has funghi porcini or artichoke in it.  Food is seasonal in Italy and therefore looked forward to.  The sense of anticipation and reminiscing is shared and joined in by everyone.  If you go to a friends house for dinner in Autumn you know that artichokes, puntarelle or funghi porcini will be on the menu. 

4. The sun

Finally you can sit in it.  Avoiding the sun was the past time for the past six months but now it is sought out.  Sitting in the brilliant Autumn sunshine is a legitimate past time and reason to go outside.  It can still warm, is too bright to look at and bathes everything in happy yellow autumn.  It also goes well with a glass of Vino Novello. 

 

 

5. Gardens

All over Rome, communal vegetable gardens are being prepared for Winter.  Pruning, weeding, digging and raking are all activities being undertaken.  Everyone lives in apartments in Rome so these small plots of land are a hive of activity being undertaken in the brilliant autumn sunshine, often followed by a glass of Vino Novello (just saying).

 

 

6. Leaves

I grew up in a suburb with lots of leaves where every autumn i delighted in diving into big piles of them and throwing them up in the air with my dad frantically yelling ‘don’t do that, there’s probably dog poo in there!’  Rome, having mostly trees that shed their leaves rather than evergreens, like in Australia, is full of leaves.  Just one of the many delights I discovered when I first came here. You can go to any large park in Rome and literally drown in leaf pools. You can run through the middle of them and throw leaves up in the air to your heart’s content and mostly they don’t have dog poo on them. Or you can just scuff them up under your feet in your local neighborhood.  No one rakes them up and they sit there for weeks until an Autumn deluge comes along and washes them away.  

7. The peace

Summer holidays are over, children are back in school, tourists are back at work. The summer squalls and winds are finished.  Leaves float gently down like stars. Vision is clearer through sparkling sunlight. The evenings come quickly and quietly, nothing stirs.

8. The temperature

It’s cool for the first time since April.  The mornings are fresh and crisp, the days sunny and bright, the evenings cold.  Perfect for Vino Novello.

9. The mood

The city rests. The violent rain lashed storms have washed the city clean from the detritus of the summer. Things are ticking along.

 

 

 

10. The olives

The first time you discover you have a friend that has an olive grove and who requires help with picking olives, you think yourself blessed and so so lucky to have landed a friend such as that. After you have helped picked olives for this friend you find that you are busy every November ever after.  Olives are great to eat, especially with a glass of Vino Novello, picking them is not great.

Private tours available via the Tour page on this website or https://www.facebook.com/romandaze/

Read more about Rome in: ‘Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all Seasons’.

Roman Life – Il Primo Bagno, The first swim of the season

Some things can’t be homogenised, commercialised, mass produced or copied.  Thank goodness.  You have to wait until they come around again, like the seasons of the year.  A lot of things in Italy are like that. Some see that as an archaic attitude to life, lacking rationale (economic in particular), and a wasted opportunity.  But not all experiences can be bought or made, sometimes they are just to have.  And its in the having and savoring, without a desire to do anything else with them, that Italians excel; and why their lifestyle and culture is so envied and, ironically, copied………

Its exactly eight years since I last tasted the tart little tarts, filled with fruit from the orchards and fields that surround them deep in the heart of the countryside south of Rome.  The paddocks are lined with glasshouses that supply the city with its peaches, figs, tomatoes, and berries.  Buffalo cows that produce the milk for mozzarella meander the streams that flow down from the rocky mounts behind them. into the sea just in front of them.  We search for the small, nondescript little cafe that we always stop at, about half way into our journey from the city to the sea and yes, it is still there!

And so are the tarts……… I choose blackberry and as I bite into it thank goodness that some things stay the same, that some things are a genuine expression of their local resources and culture.  I thank goodness that the owner of the bar still serves these tarts, as she watches me.  No doubt wondering why a foreigner, who has probably lived all over the world (I have), would bother to look so happy and satisfied at a roadside stop somewhere between Rome and Naples.  But I have come literally half way around the world and waited eight years for these little dense, well built, rounds of fruit.

We continue on our way to Sperlonga, a beautiful white stone, seaside town built on top of a cliff.  Its staircase, which begins at the sea, twists and turns up the mountain through caves designed to be blocked off so that invaders (including a pirate called Red Beard – really!) couldn’t reach it.  The water at Sperlonga is a particularly high quality due to the underground springs of fresh mineral water that bubble up through the seabed, in bursts of freezing cold water, in the otherwise 22 degree, translucent blue, undulating body of sea.

At the bottom of the cliff the large stone, knee height pool that fills with natural spring water is still there, built for the women of the village to do their washing in and take advantage of the clean, cold water.  Italy bursts with fresh, cold drinking water from the ground for its citizens.  Where ever you are it seems the earth sprouts forth the enticing and the necessary to enable and cherish life and encourage it to stay (or return) right here at its source, enjoying and relaxing in its abundance.  Maybe that is why the residents are so thankful to their local Saint, who presides in a full life sized statue over the beach.

It is hot and sunny, the perfect day for our first swim of the year/season. We have our lunch in the shade of the Saint, giving thanks and celebrating our first swim with local buffalo mozzarella, local tomatoes and a zucchini and ricotta strudel from this months La Cucina Italiana cooking magazine, http://www.lacucinaitaliana.it

When I first arrived in Italy, I was fresh from back packing around the Greek islands.  I wasn’t carrying any cook books in my backpack.  The internet didn’t exist and cookbooks in English were rare. I knew how to cook but not how to use Italian ingredients (I had no idea what to do with an artichoke and some months it is THE main vegetable on offer), or cook Italian food (and many of the ingredients I was used to were unavailable – pumpkin, ginger, coriander, self raising flour).  I was especially not used to only using seasonal produce.  I was so stunned the first time I asked for strawberries and everyone in the shop laughed at me.  So I needed to learn how to cook in Italy and I needed to learn Italian.  In the days before the internet, La Cucina Italiana monthly magazine did both.  I learnt all the Italian words for food and cooking terms, including local expressions like ‘a string of oil and 2 fingers of milk’, as units of measurement.  It helped that there were a lot of pictures, step by step guides and special features each month on what to do with the in season vegetables and fruit, as often you couldn’t get much else.

“Do you have anything besides zucchini?” I once asked my fruit and vegetable seller.

“What do you mean?  We have dark green zucchini, light green zucchini, baby zucchini, zucchini flowers, why do you need anything else?”

So in zucchini season its helpful to have a few recipes for zucchini. I have translated it so you don’t have to learn Italian as well. See below for recipe. Serves about 9.

1. Slice up finely and length ways (called a listerelle) about 6 zucchini (not the baby ones) with a bunch of spring onions and fry them for about 10 minutes in some italian extra virgin olive oil (its really important to use this oil and not another type), with salt, pepper and sage, oregano or bay leaf.
2. Mix together 300g ricotta cheese with 200g of fetta cheese, some salt, pepper and a small dash of italian extra virgin olive oil.
3. Mix the cooled, cooked vegetables in with the cheese and spread it on a sheet of flaky pastry.  Put another sheet on top of it and close the edges  so it is as rectangular as possible.  Make some slits on the top of it and brush it with egg yolk.  Bake it for 20 minutes at 180

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact me for one of my private tours in the Tour page on this website or my Facebook page – Roman Daze

Read more in: ‘Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all Seasons’, Melbourne Books, 2013

Available at all bookstores nationally within Australia, FAO Bookstore Rome, and via Amazon, Kobo and ibooks.

http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Daze-Bronte-Dee-Jackson/dp/192212933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389659611&sr=8-1&keywords=roman+daze

Click here for a free download of the Prologue and first chapter.

Click to access roman-daze-la-dolce-vita-for-all-seasons.pdf

#holidaysinitaly #holidaysinrome #rome #italytrip #thingstodonearrome #toptenthingstodoinrome #booksaboutitaly #walkingtoursofrome #romandaze #brontejackson #memoirsofitaly #writersinrome #englisgspeakingwalkingtours #aussiesinrome

A tale of Italian cities – Taranto rehabilitated

Each year when I attend the Italian Film Festival in Melbourne I feel like I get a glimpse into the heart and soul of Italy through the films that have been made, and most loved, by Italians that year.  Last year I was struck by the number of films set in or around Taranto, where my husband is from, and which during the 17 years I lived in Rome, no one ever seemed to have visited or wanted to.

I had been visiting Taranto regularly over the years, spending long periods at Christmas, Easter and the summer months.  It always seemed strange to me that a place that was so much cheaper than the rest of Italy, with some of its best beaches and spectacular food, was not over run with Italians and other tourists. To me it was a place of unique beauty, full of love and laughter from my in-laws, and people that stared at me unabashedly like I was an alien, but who were never the less incredibly welcoming and friendly.

I got engaged in 2002 and I was living in Rome at that time.  When I excitedly shared the news with my local Roman café/bar owners and shop keepers that I was to be married, there was a look I didn’t recognise that came over all of their faces, and a distancing.  Their congratulations were formal and stilted, quite different from the jokey comradery we had built up over the years.  The change seemed to come because I said my fiancée was from Taranto, not because I said I was to be married. I recounted reactions I was getting to the new I was marrying a man from Taranto to my fiancee.  To my surprise he wasn’t surprised.

“Taranto doesn’t have a great reputation in the rest of Italy”

I felt like my parents had told me I was adopted, that the view I had of the world was wrong, and that everyone was in on the conspiracy.  I listened to the descriptions given by my fiancee  as examples of what others in Italy thought of Taranto – lazy Southerners, violent knife wielding thieves, impoverished communist strongholds, aggressive and illiterate fisher-folk, Mafia corruption, and backward saint worshipping enclaves.

So it was with much pride and some amazement that I watched ‘Daddy’s Girl’, ‘Ever been to the moon?’ and ‘Pomodoro’, three films all set in or near Taranto in the 2016 Film Festival.  Each of these films juxtaposed the North of Italy with the South.  Only this time the stories had changed.  Taranto is portrayed as a bastion of humanitarian principles in a world gone mad with excess and ego, a stronghold of human kindness in a world obsessed with image and power, a place that has not lost its core human values of connection with the land and the life sustaining food it produces, and as having deep wisdom about the true needs of the human soul.

In these films it feels like Italy is telling a story about herself; portraying herself as the troubled teenager that went off to find her fortune in the big city and got sick from too much of a good time, returning to her roots to find what she has been searching for, what truly sustains her, was always there.  The common theme in these films is that modernity, luxury, wealth, fame are not always the pots of gold they are made out to be, there are disadvantages to them just as there are to primitiveness, poverty, sobriety and ignorance.  It seemed that through these films Italians were expressing their lessons learnt and revaluing some things about themselves that perhaps previously only outsiders could see.   I am looking forward to the 2017 round of films and this years’ stories that Italians tell about themselves.

What my dad knew about Italy

would not fill a book.  However………..

When I first moved to Rome he began speaking to me in Italian …….

“Where’s the wheelbarrow?”, he would ask, when I phoned him.

“Is it in the elevator?”, and

“Hello, beautiful girl.”

These were the only three phrases he knew and it revealed his history of having worked with Italian labourers on building sites.  (He told me once that what Italians didn’t know about concrete wasn’t worth knowing.) As the Project Manager he needed to be able to ask them these questions  and many of them didn’t speak English.  He also heard them often trying to chat to women passing by.  I never knew my dad could speak Italian, or how much he liked it until I began living there, and he gleefully repeated all his known phrases to me every time we spoke.

My dad first encountered Italy as a young man on honeymoon in the early 1960’s.  He and my mother arrived by ship from Melbourne, Australia, along with hundreds of Italians returning home to look for brides and for family visits.  They docked at Naples.  Dad said he had never seen men cry until that moment.  He said the ship erupted with crying men, hours out of Naples, as soon as they could see land, and that the crying didn’t stop for hours until they docked and were met by crying mothers.  He was very impressed with how manly Italians could be and yet how much they could cry.

As an engineer my dad was very interested in buildings, art, furniture, design.  All the things Italy offered an abundance of.  He and my mother toured around the major cities, he documenting everything in slides – the Duomo in Milan, the Vatican in Rome, the canals of Venice and the Bay of Naples.  His love of design shows through in each of his photographs.

Several decades later when my dad and my step mother visited me once in Rome, we stopped in a piazza in front of the Pantheon, a beautiful, round Roman temple, right in the centre of the modern city of Rome.  We took a seat at an outdoor cafe.  The waiter arrived and my dad asked for a drink I had never heard of and couldn’t pronounce, even though I spoke fluent Italian and he didn’t.  The waiter responded in the affirmative and without a glance backwards took off and brought back what ended up being an alcoholic, cherry liquor in a tall glass with soda water, and a blob of vanilla ice-cream floating in it.   Something he’d remembered that he had drunk last time he was in Rome, in 1960.

He told me that one of the saddest days of his life was after that first trip when he and my mother arrived back in Australia, after spending over six years travelling and working in Europe and Asia  (during which time my brother and I were born in Malaysia).  He loved the influences of Europe and Italy, and felt Australia was very quiet and very far away when he first came back.  He was completely understanding of my need and desire to stay and live in Italy and encouraged me to stay as long as I liked.  He told me that he could walk around a piazza every day and not get bored but that once he had seen somewhere in Australia once it was enough for him.  It never entranced him the way a European city could.  I felt the same.

Growing up I remember Dad was very popular with his Italian employees, so much so that they gave him gifts of live birds, home-made salami’s and other incredibly smelly foodstuffs, cakes, eggs and tomatoes.  Once I came home from school to find mum in a bad mood and a strange Italian bloke in our back yard hammering together a cage for the doves he had brought over for my father.

“What are we going to do with those?”, she asked my father.  “We don’t know anything about birds!”

“It’s a sign of respect, darling.  He wants to give them to me.  I have to accept them.”

Dad provided a huge party for his builder’s labourers at Christmas with as much beer and food as they could eat.  He also gave them money from his own pocket when they needed it.  Once it was to pay the funeral costs of a labourer who had died at a work site he also worked at.  He loved the exuberant hugging and kissing and emotional displays he got included in as one of them.  He never lost his fascination for Italian men and their camaraderie from the moment he had that first experience on the ship with them.

He loved that my Italian husband Alfredo, called him Giovanni (Italian for John), and taught him even more words in Italian.

“How are you?  I’m good thanks, how are you? I speak Italian.  Do you speak Italian?”  He would repeat over and over, every time he saw my husband.  He plied Alfredo with dozens of questions every time he got the opportunity.

“What’s the name of the football team based in Turin?  Where is the city with the round, white houses?  What dialect do you speak?  How far is it from Bari to Brindisi? Do Italians eat much meat?”

He never lost his interest in or passion for history, geography and all things Italian, and treated Alfredo as though he was a living specimen of a culture he found endlessly entertaining and inspiring.  His daughter (me) who was actually a Social Anthropologist he never asked anything of.  I wondered if he knew anything about the depth of my knowledge and association with Italy, the country I had lived and worked in for 17 years.  I sent him postcards and wrote him emails with photos of everywhere I travelled, long before I met Alfredo.  One day he got out a huge Atlas to confirm a conversation we were having, just the two of us, about a certain part of Italy.  It fell open naturally at those pages and I saw inked in lines drawn all over Italy and other places I had visited.  He had traced my journeys and plotted them all on the maps in the Atlas, using the postcards and emails I had sent him.

He understood my need and desire to live there but when I was back in Melbourne, towards the end of his life, he often expressed anxiety at the thought of me returning.  Last year we were shopping for some dinning furniture and took him with us.  We were in an Italian furniture design shop whose headquarters was in the south of Italy, the region Alfredo is from.  As I touched the furniture I sighed and indicated how much I missed it.  He turned to Alfredo and said in a menacing but joking way “No, she is not allowed to go back now.”  My blood ran cold as the thought of disappointing him hit me.  Returning was always an option for me.

My dad passed away 1 month ago.  In those last days of palliative care, I sat and held his hand and looked in his eyes and told him I loved him and heard him say it back.  Whenever Alfredo spoke to him and called him Giovanni, he responded with a smile and tried to speak in Italian back.  I am glad I don’t have to disappoint my dad by returning to a country I love.  I am glad I am now free to go.  And I am glad I returned to Melbourne, to spend these last years with him.

I am glad I inherited his love and passion for travel, for history, for geography and for learning about new languages and cultures and I will always take him with me where ever I go.

Vale, Giovanni, Vale.

 

The legendary Giulia (Noi e la Giulia)

How can a movie that highlights the brokeness of Italy and its people, be so uplifting?  By acknowledging everything that is present, and focussing on what is good.  So Italian.

Every aspect and characteristic of Italian society is presented in this film.  How they work together or not is cleverly woven into the interactions between these characters.

• Winner

  • Best Actor in a Supporting Role – David di Donatello Awards 2015
  • Best Comedy – Italian Golden Globes 2015
  • People’s Choice Award – ICFF Italian Contemporary Film Festival Canada 2015

THE MAFIA

Represented in three generations, in clothes and language that appear clichéd, they still have enough believable (and actual) power to terrify a group of educated and grown men who know that in spite of their legal rights, the law, and natural justice; that being assassinated for daring to not pay a fee to the local mafia, is a sure thing in many parts of Italy.  But this is the first time I have seen an Italian film about the mafia where ‘the people’ win.

Films depicting the mafia have slowly changed over the decades.  From semi-glorifying the mafia, then depicting it as evil but always winning (One hundred steps, 2000, Gomorrah, 2008), to challenging that this should be the case (The mafia only kills in the summer, 2015).  The legendary Giulia goes even further in a way that I am hoping represents a  change in the power dynamic.

            

In this movie the characters not only dismiss the Mafia’s age-old reasoning (the state provides no help for this region and only the ‘families’ provide support and economic infrastructure so you should pay them fees like you pay taxes to the state), but they actively fight back and then ‘remove’ them.   Doing to them what has been inflicted by them, for centuries.  In doing so they also ‘rescue’ one of them from the role he has been forced to play.

The mafia rises again though, showing how hard it is to cut off the head of this Hydra, and at the end of the movie you are not sure who is the victor.

The individuals that make up the Mafia show that, like other roles in Italy, the one you get is often determined by the geographical location of where you are born and what kind of family you are born into.  Although there appears little room for choice and this has led individuals down the paths we are shown, the central characters show that choice is possible, although painful and requiring great courage, and that happiness can be the end result.

SOCIALISTS

Many people don’t know about the deep connection many Italians have with Communism and that it is still a significant force in Italian society and approaches to living.  It explains many things about how Italy works.  There is a deeply held reverence and respect for work, whatever that work is.  There is more importance on having work than what type of work it is, as all work is considered valuable and all workers deserving of respect.  There is a strong sense of everyone having their say and acting only when there is consensus, and when there is, throwing your lot in behind the majority for the sake of getting things done, rather than standing apart and sabotaging (many nonItalian politicians could learn from this).

The strong ‘people power’ sentiment is represented by a character who lives his communist values by keeping everyone together and ensuring that everyone is treated equally in the face of extreme fear and lack of resources.  He is the one that fights for their rights against the parasitical mafia who want to send them broke as a new business, and whose practical experience and ‘hands on’ approach to life ensures that the right foundations are laid for all to enjoy .e.g. he is the only one who knows how to fix a toilet using only his bare hands, some rubber gloves and a tea towel……….

REFUGEES

Italy is heaving with refugees from Africa and elsewhere.  Literally millions land on its shores every year and many of them eek out existences where no one else would bother, and in the dry, deserted lands of the interior and south of Italy.  In this film, a tribal Prince from Ghana who led his nation into warfare is treated with fear and derision by a broke celebrity who wears an ‘Italy for Italians‘ T-shirt and thinks that Ghana is in Nigeria.  The refugee helps them out in a crisis, rescues them from themselves, and protects them when they are in danger.  Essentially performing the role that Italy has performed for them.

  

 

 

 

 

CELEBRITY SEEKERS

The cult of the celebrity, superficial relationships and fake connections are all exemplified in one of the characters who depicts Italy‘s fascination and long-held reverence for television and all who appear on it.  The fantasy world of television where looks and money mean substance has long been seen as a major foundation of Berlusconi’s success in political campaigning.  It comes unravelled as we see the truth of the exploitation  of others that is required for this image to be maintained, how it can’t actually produce or contribute to anything, and how it has to be ‘saved’ by the older generation of practical socialists who have the know how and the courage to back up their goals.  The story of Italian politics over the past two decades.

QUIET, DESPERATE CONFORMER

“When you hate your job, you begin to hate everything about the world and your life is about escaping. In your 20’s it is to run a bar by the sea, in your 40’s it is almost always a country B & B”.  Such is the powerful line from one of the central characters as he is lamenting the fact he has never chosen to do anything he really wants to do in his life.  The failure of the state, the stranglehold of the mafia, and staleness of the socialist approach to life have all amounted to work being difficult to get in Italy with unemployment rates around 50% in many regions of Italy and nationally never under 10%.

Many people just quietly buckle under, are grateful for anything, and accept demeaning treatment to keep their jobs while slowly feeling like their souls are dying.  They accept a high level of dissonance between their own personal values and what must be accepted in order to keep their livelihoods going.  There is  a generation in Italy that got so used to never being able to achieve anything, and seeing that merit was not a reason to receive, that they gave up or left.  This character represents them.

POLICE/THE STATE

The Mafia characters continually refer to the Police as not being relevant.  To those of us who come from nation states that function, it is hard to understand how this can be possible.  Is Italy so advanced that everyone polices themselves?  Does everyone just obey the law naturally as exemplary good citizens?

Partly the answer is ‘yes’ because it becomes apparent when the Police behave little better than the Mafia that it is not due to them there is law and order.  The ‘fees’ for protection that they request are just as high as those asked by the Mafia, and their behaviour just as demeaning and inappropriate.  The difference is that there are more of them and they are sanctioned by the state in a much more obvious way than the Mafia are.

For many the actions of the Police in this movie will be hard to take seriously and have little impact.  Surely this is an exaggeration?  It is a movie after all.  For real life examples of Italian Police behaviour, see the movie ‘Diaz – Don’t clean up this blood’, 2012.

LOOSERS/FAILURES

I love the fact that they celebrate failures in this movie.  A sign of a healthy culture is one that celebrates failures and successes as being part of the same cycle.  Many cultures (particularly those that focus on the celebrity and superficial aspects of life), ignore or denigrate failure.  It takes an exceptionally strong one to celebrate it.

I find it a common characteristic in the Italian culture – to accept all that is there about life – mental illness, financial ruin, poverty, childlessness, vulnerability, weakness, old age, death, illness, loss, loneliness, and not shun it or hide away from it, but to integrate it into daily life, as well as not using it to define who a person is, or always will be.

The admissions of the four characters of their failures was poignant and confronting given that it had mostly resulted from their own choices rather than circumstances.  Instead of making them want to crawl under a rock and admit defeat they used it to go for their heart’s desires, feeling like they had nothing to lose.

HOPE AND NEW APPROACHES

The Madonna is still a powerful icon in Italian society  and the pregnant, single woman in this movie exhibits enormous power in bringing the gang of characters together, nurturing them, and inspiring them to achieve their dream of opening a country B & B.  She is beautiful, feminine, bedecked in flowers and colorful robes and has her protruding (new life, new start) belly constantly on show.

And there are others too.  Amidst the tired but still proliferating Mafia there are other groups represented in this movie that bring international influences, connections with the wider world, and a post industrialised version of Italy – Tibetan monks, Brazilian capoeira dancers, Yoga practitioners, bikies, and young (ish) social media savvy travellers.

Even though most of the worst and most unpalatable aspects of Italy are plainly in view for all to see in this movie it still presents as incredibly inspirational and optimistic.  It is  because of the steady approach to adversity the characters display, the fact that they allow different and more positive influences into their lives, the fact that they never lose heart or fall into despair, and the fact they focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t.  It is the recipe of modern-day Italy.

http://www.italianfilmfestival.com.au/films/the-legendary-giulia

Don’t forget to check out my book Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all seasons on http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Daze-Bronte-Dee-Jackson/dp/192212933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389659611&sr=8-1&keywords=roman+daze

or at your local bookstore.  Check out and ‘like’ and ‘share’ my NEW FaceBook page too!

Top 10 reasons to be Italian (and live in Italy)

Hi everyone and apologies for the lack of posting over the past few months.  I injured my neck and shoulder (too much stting at my computer!) and needed to have a complete break from it.  Finally here it is, the last four reasons it is great to be Italian (and live in Italy).  Enjoy!

7.  There is a time for everything and everything has its time.

Italy has the same amount of time as everywhere else obviously, but somehow life seems to linger there and fit, in a more balanced way, to the 24 hours alloted to each day.  I never get the sense of being rushed in Italy, or expected to do too many things at once, or that I will miss out on something if I don’t.  In fact rushing (di fretta) is often used as a slight rebuke.  If someone says to you ‘Hai fretta’? (are you in a hurry?), it is usually not because they want to help you out, but because they want you to chill out and stop upsetting everyone around you.

There is a timetable in Italy for doing things, from eating and shopping to working, holidaying and resting, dictated by the seasons, connected to nature, and supported by ritual.  Many of the things I have already referred to – expectations that you will eat a long and proper lunch, resting,  only participating in activities that are right for the current season, celebrating as much as possible.  These all create the ability to live in the present, as well as expectation and hope for the seasons to come, which bring with them their own new activities, celebrations, food and rituals.  Somehow by spacing things out, taking time in between them, living in the present yet being secure in the knowledge of what is to come, and by repeating activities that are connected to the natural world around us, Italians have created more room in their lives than I ever feel I have anywhere else.

8. No one talks about work outside of work.

I could be cheeky and add that often no one talks about work while actually at work, but I do not want to perpetuate the perception (mostly because of the above points), that Italians are somehow lazy.  As I have said before, being one of the 8th most productive countries in the world, is not the achievement of the lazy.  But I find that in Italy you are not what you do.  There is always a question about work, between friends and at social gatherings, but the question is usually ‘Do you have work?’, not ‘What do you do for work?’.  If the answer to the first question is ‘yes’, the conversation usually stops there, as the most important part of work here is whether you have a job or not (and it always has been).

Italians talk about politics, food, love, holidays, art, love, food, music, philosophy, love, literature, food and sport much more than they talk about work.  I have known some of my Italian friends for years before I actually knew what they did for work.  In Italy it tends to be more relevant how else you spend your life.  Also because for the most of the decades since WW2, work has often been scarce.  People tend to take what they can get.  A person with a PHd in Chemistry might be working as an administrative clerk in an aid organisation, someone with a Masters degree in languages might be managing a video rental store, and a brilliant musician might be teaching Primary school.  It is generally accepted that any work is good work, and that who you are and your interests, may not be reflective of that work.  And that you are one of the extremely fortunate ones if it does.

Even at work, having a conversation that creates a relationship is far more important and effective in getting things done than merely discussing the tasks.  I once worked with a team of people that began each morning talking in detail about what they eaten the night before for dinner, where they had bought the ingredients and how they had prepared them.  Not only did I earn a wage and create an effective outcome with this team, but I learnt why my Melanzane alla Parmagiana was never as tasty as everyone elses, how to prepare Mozzarella in Carrozza (fried cheese sandwhiches), and where to find pumpkins.

9. You only eat what is in season.

Speaking of pumpkins, the first time I felt like making some pumpkin soup in Spring I couldn’t understand why the green grocer just laughed at me, or why he treated me as though I was slightly mad when I asked for strawberries in Autumn.  Where I grew up, everything was available all year round and nothing tasted like the season fruit and vegetables I began to eat in Rome.  The first time I ate a peach it tasted like it had flavouring added to it.  I had never eaten vine ripened fruit.  It is much easier to sit down to a meal of mostly vegetables, or to eat a dessert of only fruit if they taste the way they taste in Italy.

Eating what is only seasonally available means also that you look forward to eating certain things at certain times of the year, make the most of them, and enjoy saying goodbye to them as you anticipate the next season’s bounty.  It provides a structure for life when certain tastes, flavours and dishes only come around once a year and contributes to that sense of space and time that seems to occur in Italy.

10. Everyone in the world wants to be you.

If I had a dollar for every person I have heard say ‘I am Italian on the inside’ or ‘my soul is Italian‘, I would be rich.  Why is it that I can travel to over 45 countries and ALL of them have Spaghetti or Pizzza on offer?  Why is it that everyone who can afford one buys a Prada or an Armani something? Why do 48 million people visit Italy every year making it the 5th most visited country in the world? Why is owning a Ferrari on every male’s (and quite a lot of females) secret wish list?  Because the world wants to be you! 🙂 If we could bottle Italy and take it out on a grey, cold work day, when we are sitting at our desks eating heated up left overs out of a plastic container over our computer, or while we are congregating in a shopping mall full of machine-made things from millions of miles away rubbing shoulders with strangers who won’t make eye contact, or when we are walking at night across a vast and people less, council built, strip of community park or concrete play ground hurrying to get to our next appointment/activity, then life would be just that little bit better.  Don’t you think? 🙂

 

Don’t forget to check out my book Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all seasons on http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Daze-Bronte-Dee-Jackson/dp/192212933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389659611&sr=8-1&keywords=roman+daze

or at your local bookstore.  Check out and ‘like’ and ‘share’ my NEW FaceBook page too!

 

Top ten reasons to be Italian (and live in Italy) cont.

Today’s continuation of Top ten reasons to be Italian (and live it Italy).

4.  You get to eat the BEST and BIGGEST Easter Eggs ever!

 

Easter is taken seriously in Italy, and nowhere more so than with the giving and receiving of Easter Eggs.  They are the most colorful, ornate and decorated eggs I have ever seen!

 

 

5.  You get to lay down in the middle of the day.

Yes the siesta is alive and well.  And before you scoff just remember that Italy is one of the G8 countries which means it is one of the 8 most productive countries in the world.  (Confirming research that shows sleep and work/life balance actually contributes to sustainable effort) .  At 1.00pm until 4.00pm each day all shops and professional services (lawyers, dentists, doctors, accountants) shut their doors to partake in an appropriate lunch (Top 10 reason no.1) and then snooze, rest, sleep it off before starting the second half of the working day from 4.00pm til 8.00 (this doesn’t apply to office workers who have to power on with only a lunch and a walk followed by a stiff coffee to keep them going).  I particularly love this quiet part of the day where my suburb shuts down and a peaceful silence descends.

 

 

 

 

 

6.  You get to have two birthdays.

I love birthdays and was determined to make a big fuss over my husband’s birthday when we were first going out.  Imagine my surprise when four months earlier than his birthday, his parents, siblings, niece and nephew, God-mother, friends and colleagues all began calling early in the morning to wish him a ‘Happy Onomastico‘ (Happy Name-Day), delivering gifts and asking him ‘what was he was doing for his onomastico?’

It is a tradition in Italy to be named after a Saint or after a family member (who was originally named after a Saint) and each Saint has a special day of the year named after them.  San Vincenzo is April 5th and all those guys who are named Vincenzo celebrate their Onomastico on that day.  Same with San Francesco(a), San Guiseppe, Sant’ Alfredo, San Valentino etc.

There are cards, cake, presents, celebrations.  How is that not like a birthday?

Next time, the last four top reasons to be Italian.

Don’t forget to check out my book Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all seasons on http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Daze-Bronte-Dee-Jackson/dp/192212933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389659611&sr=8-1&keywords=roman+daze

or at your local bookstore.  Check out and ‘like’ and ‘share’ my NEW FaceBook page too!

Top ten reasons to be Italian! (and live in Italy)

1.  You get to savour lunch!

I have noticed the lunch hour, and even the concept of lunch, is dying out in many post industrial countries.  Not so in Italy, the inventor of the Slow Food movement.   In Italy lunch begins at 1.00pm.  Not 12.30 or 1.10 but 1.00pm.  No one questions you or where you are going at that hour.  Everyone knows.  It’s lunch time.  Lunch occurs mostly sitting down, mostly with company but not looked on strangely if it is taken alone.  It involves at least two courses, is followed by a coffee (cafe/short black) and a gentle walk.  It never occurs while walking or working.  If a good, nuturing and sustaining lunch is what you desire then pretend to be Italian for a day and take it!

2.  You can eat pasta every day.

Not just for special occasions or only after you have laboured by making it fresh yourself, pasta is a staple and comes in a myriad of forms.  Pasta is eaten ‘al dente‘ (chewy) so that the flavour and texture can be truly appreciated, and is paired with seasonal produce and is therefore constantly changing.  It is part of every Italians’ diet and now even gluten free pasta is offered at most restaurants (by asking for it as it won’t appear on the menu).  Pasta is not only matched with seasonal ingredients (herbs, vegetables, fish and meat), the shapes, sizes and texture (ribbed or non ribbed) of the pasta are matched with particular sauces and ingredients to bring out the taste and texture of ingredients e.g. ribbed pasta with tomato based sauces  The thickness of spaghetti is also chosen depending on what it is served with.  Tip: never serve size no. 3 with seafood!

Rigatoni cacio e pepe –  one of my favourite typical Roman pasta dishes.  Sheeps cheese and pepper.  Sounds simple, is delicious.  Note it is served with ribbed pasta so that the cheese coats the pasta as you eat it – yum!

My mother-in-law Francesca’s Timbalo (baked pasta dish – every mother does one).  Francesca’s has fried pork meatballs in it and is sealed with fried eggplant.  The pasta inside this dish is usually penne, unribbed because the mixture is already dense and doesn’t need to stick to it.

 

3.  You get to experience four complete seasons, consecutively and well spaced (but don’t forget to follow the seasonal ‘rules’).

Each season is quite distinct in its weather, food, activities and lifestyle.  As everyone is impacted by the seasons at the same time it creates a sense of community – everyone is eating, doing and talking about the same things at the same time.  Where you will be going for your summer holidays, when the seasons last vegetables are available, how you will be celebrating this seasons’ saints days, what you will be eating for lunch that day are all acceptable conversations with complete strangers at the bus stop or with neighbours in your apartment block.  The first sunny day is not a reason to go to the beach unless it is after June 21st (the official beginning of summer) and if the heat continues into September it is still not a reason to wear your summer clothes as I recently experienced.  While walking in my local neighbourhood wearing my summer clothes (as it was 27 degrees), I overheard a person commenting to her companion how ridiculous I looked wearing them when it was now September and therefore clearly Autumn!

If you’re not sure what to do in each season or how to behave, head to the Trevi fountain and look up.  The four statues at the top represent each of the four seasons in Italy and how they are personalised!

Next week: more reasons to be Italian.

If you love this blog don’t forget to check out my book Roman Daze – La Dolce Vita for all seasons on http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Daze-Bronte-Dee-Jackson/dp/192212933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389659611&sr=8-1&keywords=roman+daze

or at your local bookstore.  A synthesis and first chapter is available on this blog by clicking on the ‘My book’ page.  If you have already read it please ‘like’ my FaceBook page, subscribe to this blog, write a review on Amazon, and tell your friends!