Return to Rome

The Tiber River from Trastevere, Rome

It was the children's voices drifting up from the courtyard that roused us from sleep that first morning.  A surprisingly gentle awakening.  As the days passed, I came to think their restraint was borne out of a respectful neighbourliness on the part of the parents.  Or maybe we just got lucky.
All front doors, which led straight into the kitchens, faced the courtyard.  Delicious smells of cooking wafted in from those kitchens and the ground floor restaurant at various times of the day. Tiers of washing lines, linked to a pulley system, strung around the yard.  Always, somewhere, washing was hanging out to dry.  Back home in London, I couldn't help thinking, the view of other people's washing would have been regarded by many as an affront.

Lying in bed, the sweet smell of just-baked pastries filtered in through the gaps in the wooden shutters.  The sounds and smells of a community stirring.  I was in Rome.  Not the Rome I had seen two decades ago - the architecture and monuments of Centro Storico, though we did brave the crowds to feast our eyes for a few hours - but living, breathing Rome.  This was Testaccio, a good 30 minute walk from the Piazza Navonne.

Bread Roman style in a Testaccio kitchen

I'm not going to go into detail about this beguiling part of Rome because my friend who lives in Testaccio, Rachel Roddy, wrote a whole book - Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome - centred around la vita del quartiere (the life of the quarter).  Take that as your travel book  and you'll learn more about the area and Roman food than any guidebook will impart.  Here's a taster.

Where to go and what to do?  Let's start at Piazza Testaccio, described by Spotted by Locals as "As Roman as Rome gets".  There is nothing grand about this Piazza, though they do have their newly installed fountain of amphorae finally returned to its original home after being removed some years back.  I love this square because it truly is a meeting place for local people - and for us while we were there - and is at the heart of the community.  Yes, there are signs of gentrification, and also of the recent refugee arrivals, in Testaccio.  All life is here, as they say.

Filippo at his Fruttivendolo stall
on Mercato Testaccio

Just a 5 minute walk away from the Piazza is Mercato di Testaccio   On our visit, every day started with coffee and a little something here.  It's a functional market of neat, self-contained stalls well worth getting to know.  We were lucky to have Rachel as our guide each day but you might find this short video guide useful from the website of knowledgeable Rome-based writer Katie Parla.

Pizzette at Da Artenio
at Mercato Testaccio

As a visitor I particularly liked the stall Da Artenio for Roman 'Lariano' breads and addictive Pizzette con le Patate; Mordi e Vai for traditional Roman dishes like meatballs and oxtail served up in bread rolls; and the fruttivendolo where Filippo's stall is piled high with super-fresh fruit and vegetables, much of it grown on his own land.  Beautiful fine green beans, freshly pulled bulbous fennel, whopping bunches of sweet, juicy grapes and small, fragrant pale green pears were stars of his show last week.

Roman hospitality at Latteria Studio, Rome

Mercato Testaccio is one of the markets used by Latteria Studio for their Market to Table workshops.  Based just across the Tiber river from Testaccio, in Trastevere, this photography studio and kitchen is a beautiful relaxed creative space for artists, cooks, writers and food lovers.  The workshops are a collaboration between food stylist/owner Alice Kiandra Adams, chef Carla Tomasi and writer Rachel Roddy.  They run seasonally and strike me as the perfect introduction to the life of Rome - meet, chat, shop with locals, walk over to the studio/kitchen, cook and eat - what could be better.  I just had time to join in with the 'Market' side of last week's gathering over coffee in the Market before leaving the group to their shopping while I, reluctantly, headed for the airport.

Carla Tomasi's fabulous pasta
at Latteria Studio, Rome

I knew just what a 'Table' the participants were to experience. Having visited Latteria Studio earlier in the week I was given such a warm welcome, along with an exceptional lunch cooked by Carla using produce from her own garden. The Studio has the most wonderful light and props, if that's your thing.  It's an informal space and spending time there feels like being in the kitchen of a good friend.

Peering in - The old Testaccio Slaughterhouse, Rome

Just alongside Mercato di Testaccio, is the old, and to my eye, architecturally impressive, 19th century Testaccio Slaughterhouse.  It covers a huge area and you can still see the sturdy outdoor holding pens, winching gear and cathedral-like slaughter areas.  Some of the buildings have been put to new uses by MACRO Testaccio for cultural and artistic events.  There are plans to do more in this unique historic space which abuts Monte Testaccio (or Monte dei Cocci) - Mount of Shards), the extraordinary hill of broken amphorae which dates back to the Roman Empire.  There is one gate accessing the area but sadly it's currently closed to the public.

Statue at Musei Capitolini: Centrale Montemartini

South of Testaccio on Via Ostiense (106) stands Musei Capitolini: Centrale Montemartini, a former thermal power station which now houses ancient sculpture and artefacts from some of Rome's archaeological excavations.

Mosaic fragment at Musei Capitolini: Centrale Montemartini

Much of the power station's equipment in still in situ and is interesting in its own right as well as providing a dramatic backdrop to the art - Tate Modern eat your heart out!

Beside the Tiber River, Leaving Testaccio

Our walk into the Centro Storic took us through Piazza Navone to the Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi  and especially for the three stunning Caravaggio paintings in the Contarelli Chapel.  Away from the crowds, we would have loved to visit the Museo della Civiltà Romana (Museum of Roman Culture) but be aware, it is currently closed for renovation.

What and where to eat lunch and dinner? Pasticceria Barberini, on Testaccio's Via Marmorata, became our regular place for second caffè and cornetto after market.  The bar is constantly busy and they make exquisite cakes to eat in or take away.  Right next door is Salumeria Volpetti packed to the rafters with great cheeses, cured meats, breads, olive oils etc.  I can vouch for the Porchetta which you can buy by the slice.  For lunch, dinner or just an aperativo, offshoot Volpetti Piu is just around the corner.  I understand the style here has recently changed and we happened to go in on the first night when the menu was still limited so I suggest you check reviews as they come out. We did have good natural wines here, excellent Pizza Bianca together with ham and cheeses from Volpetti but I believe they have more ambitious plans.

Salt Cod and potatoes at Litro Monteverde, Rome

Our best meal, other than at Latteria, was at Litro in Monteverde, a climb up from Trastevere (there is another, more central, branch).  We went for both lunch and dinner on our visit to Rome but the quieter lunch service was particularly good.  Delicious bruschette, a dish of salt cod and potatoes brought together with good olive oil, a lasagne of zucchini flowers and anchovies, a plate of Bieta cooked Roman style, a few glasses of Kata- Cantine Olivella and a lovely shot of Amaro were all memorable.  Litro is a staunch supporter of natural wine producers so were a natural choice for me and I wasn't disappointed.  My chef friend, Sam, pointed me in the direction of Litro and I'm so glad he did.  Coincidentally, Hande Leimer walked into Litro while we were having lunch.  As a certified sommelier, a member of the Associazione Italiana Sommelier (AIS) and founder of Vino Roma wine studio, she is a good judge of Italian wines and Litro, it turned out, is a firm favourite with her.

Lasagne of Zucchini flowers and anchovies
at Litro Monteverde, Rome

There were so many places to eat we didn't get to, including Roscioli in Centro Storico, and La Torricella in Testaccio.  It's good to have reasons to return.  Roman dishes to look out for are Moscardini (floured and fried tiny octopuses); Alici Fritti (fried anchovies); Gnocchi or spaghetti all Vongole (with clams); Polpette al Sugo (meatballs in tomato sauce); Lingua con Salsa Verde (tongue in green sauce); Pomodori al Riso (tomatoes stuffed with rice); Pasta e Ceci (pasta with chickpeas); and Affogato al Caffe (gelato drowned in coffee).  Also Torta di Ricotta (ricotta cake, though I doubt you'll find one as fine as this Carla Tomasi version which greeted us at Latteria Studio.

Ricotta Cake by Carla Tomasi

But what about the gelato you ask?  OK, go to Fata Morgana in Trastevere.  It was pretty good but then I can get very good ice cream back home so I confess I wasn't wowed by it.

The old Testaccio Slaughterhouse, Rome

Climbing the stairs on the last evening in our little Testaccio flat we took our time, enjoying the aroma of roasted sweet peppers drifting up from the courtyard and the chatter of neighbours.  We unpegged our now dry towels and pondered how to approach our London neighbours with the idea for a communal clothes line!

Useful guides to Rome:
Katie Parla
Rustica Retro
Spotted by Locals - Rome

Five Quarters - Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome by Rachel Roddy

Five Quarters - Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome
by Rachel Roddy

I've watched Rachel Roddy's writing develop from her Rachel Eats blog, which she started in 2008, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on her first book.  As always,  I endeavour to be objective in my review and I loved the writing which feels so familiar.

Five Quarters may seem a strange title but it's easily explained.  The number five recurs as the book goes along but Quinto Quarto (the Fifth Quarter) is the name of the distinctive style of cooking created by the workers at the Testaccio slaughterhouse towards the end of the 19th century.  Wages were partly paid in-kind with offal.  This being a quarter of the animals weight, it was known as the 'fifth quarter'.  The slaughterhouse is long gone and, no, this is not a book about offal, but it is firmly rooted in the Testaccio quarter of the city of Rome which this Englishwoman calls home.

The "notes" referred to in the sub-title are as delicious as the "recipes".  Arriving in Rome, almost by accident, the tourist decided to stay a while in a tiny flat above a bakery, next to the "coarse and chaotic" old food market.  As she began to get under the skin of this "straightforward, traditional, ordinary" part of Rome, a sense of guilt that she was part of the gentrification taking place in the area led her to resolve to buy local and truly embrace the life of this quarter and its "fierce sense of community".  A daily presence at the next-door market with its families of traders, negotiating the "clusters of chattering signore" in the streets she drinks coffee in the same bar every morning.  And then she fell in love with Vincenzo, a Sicilian with beautiful, strong hands.  A golden-haired baby boy, Luca, arrived in 2012, anchoring her ever more strongly as she became truly a Testaccio local.

This is not a book about 'my beautiful life in Rome'.  The reality is, life is as messy as the food market at the heart of the book.  Certainly it's about hauling bags of produce home to cook in a tiny apartment kitchen. It's also about the life of Testaccio, particularly the market, and the people who make it possible to live in the chaos of a city. There's the Sartor family butchery, Mauro the fishmonger, Gianluca and Giancarlo the fruit and veg sellers, Augusto at Trattoria La Torricella and the numerous independent shop-owners of the quarter.  Friends, neighbours, acquaintances, and even strangers are ever-willing to offer advice. It's about forgetting what you thought you knew about 'Italian' food and watching, listening, questioning and cooking dishes again and again to re-learn how to cook it, here, in this extraordinary place.  For nine years she gradually gathered understanding along with ingredients.  She began to notice the differences, and the similarities, with English food; particularly with the simply prepared food of her roots in Northern England - slow braising of cheaper cuts of meat, the use of offal and the love of jam tarts and of spiced fruit cakes.

Cooked and photographed in real time, the recipes are based on a year in this "Kitchen in Rome". Pleasingly, there are five chapters, just as there should be five course to an Italian meal.  Each chapter is enticingly seasoned with helpful advice, observation and anecdote and spiced with a little Roman history.  There's also a generous sprinkling of good sense.  Advice and useful information, which can only come from someone who has cooked the same recipes over and over again, comes thick and fast yet it feels like a two-way conversation.  It's far from 'preachy' or 'know-it-all' but is generous and sharing.

Linguine con zucchine (Linguine with courgettes, eggs and parmesan)
cooked from Five Quarters - Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome

The Italian names for the dishes in the book are far more poetic, but here I use English titles for brevity.  Chapter 1 - Antipasti - starts, as the Romans frequently do, with Broad Beans and Pecorino, simply a pile of young fresh beans to be podded at the table alongside a chunk of, preferably, sharp sheep's milk cheese.  There's Deep Fried Artichokes, Ricotta and Spinach Fritters and Panzanella.  Octopus and potato salad features with instructions for how to cook your octopus - and how, based on much advice, trial and error, not to cook your octopus!

Chapter 2 covers Soup & Pasta.  We learn that the soup, or minestre can be simple or complex and is one of the few foods that Romans do not have a definitive recipe for, rather minestre is a dish you make your own; "the embodiment of childhood nourishment and comfort".   Here is Fettucine with rich meat sauce, Spaghetti with clams and how to make Potato dumplings (Gnocchi).

A chapter on Meat & Fish reminds that "Good Roman cooking, like any good, popular cooking, is homely and rooted in tradition..... makes virtue out of necessity and makes things taste as good as they possibly can".  Making a little go a long way, particularly when it comes to meat, is a Northern England virtue as well as a Roman one.  There's Meatballs in tomato sauce or Roman-style tripe. Fish is introduced by a story familiar to most of us, the quest for a good fishmonger.  There's a Pot of mussels, Salt cod with tomatoes, raisins and pine nuts, and a Roman Jewish dish of Miriam's bream baked with potatoes.

Chapter 4 is the Vegetable course.  Mostly treated as a separate course in Rome, though, served in larger portions, they can also take the place of the meat or fish course.  Many of the dishes can be prepared ahead, and some benefit from doing so, and with the addition of bread, eggs or cheese, they become a meal in themselves.  If I'd had this book a few weeks ago I would not have been confused by the large, hairy green Italian leaves at my London market that turned out to be borage - so different from our English borage which we tend to value more for its electric blue flowers.  It's in this chapter that Rachel's favourite English writers continue to influence her cooking in Rome, but when it's the likes of Jane Grigson and Simon Hopkinson, it's no wonder.  There are recipes for Greens with garlic and chilli, adaptable to whatever greens you can get; Eggs in sauce, Roman-style artichokes; and Fennel baked with Parmesan.

To finish with there's Dolci.  Often it's seasonal fruit.  Wedges of pellucid, ruby-red,  watermelon; Pale green figs with, "if you're lucky, a teardrop of nectar at the tip of the stalk"; fragrant cantaloupe melons; apricots, peaches, nespole or cherries and plums.  Here you'll find a recipe for Spiced quinces in syrup, wobbly Panna Cotta; slushy, coarse-textured Granita di melone; Kitty's vanilla ice-cream scented with citrus; and Cherry jam tart.  If you're hungry for more, there are delicious crisp little Ring biscuits with wine and fennel seeds and Angel Wings and much, much more.

Pangiallo (Spiced fruit cake with saffron)
cooked from Five Quarters - Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome

I have already cooked four recipes from this book.  There is, mercifully, no striving for novelty in them.  If you are looking for innovation, you are missing the point of the book.  Instead, expect tried and tested dishes, recipes that really work and dishes that are delicious to eat.  You'll learn a lot along the way and enjoy a damn fine read.  This is a book which will stay in my kitchen.

Most of the photography in the book is by the author.  This reinforces its authenticity as the cooking and photography was done in real time - shop, cook, eat.  The images are also very, very good and additional photography by Nicholas Seaton beautifully captures the atmosphere of the Testaccio quarter and its inhabitants.

2015 is already proving to be a very good year for food writing, and this book is right up there with the best.  Now, I'm off to make Linguine con zucchine again, just to make sure I really have unlearned what I thought I knew, and because it's a delicious recipe.


Five Quarters - Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome by Rachel Roddy

Book courtesy of Salt Yard Books

UPDATE January 2016: 
Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome is published in Canada and the USA in early 2016 with a name change to My Kitchen in Rome: Recipes and notes on Italian Cooking.
In the UK, this book has just been announced as Winner of the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2015 in the food category.