Notes on Rione Monti

I get off the bus outside the grandiose Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. A sign of the times is the army vehicle and heavily armed soldiers in camouflage (why? They're in the city.) beside the metal detector that guards the entrance to the basilica. It's Palm Sunday, an important date in the Christian calendar and the faithful are there, queueing up to enter the basilica. 

 I head across Via Cavour and onto Via Urbana which leads down into the heart of the ancient suburra. Back in Roman times the insulae would have dangled precariously over the alley. The stink of the masses would have been overpowering. The area had once been infamous for drugs, violence and prostitution.

Today it is the trendy heart of the city, a village in itself, devoted to boho chic with vintage and second hand clothes shops alongside genuine and less genuine trattorie and other eateries catering to the tourists. 

I pass the church of Santa Pudenziana - home of worship to Rome's extensive Phillipine community and the oldest place of Christian worship in Rome. It dates back to the 4th century.

 As it's Palm Sunday the church is busy. I head off the narrow road up a graffitti-lined staircase onto an attractive plant-filled alley which disappointingly leads onto a large road, one of Monti's principle thoroughfares, Via Panisperna.

Monti is Rome's first district -  central Rome is divided into 22 administrative districts known as 'rioni'. Most of Rome's rioni are included within the old city walls. Over the ages the borders of the rioni have fluctuated.

Monti (Hills) was so called because wthin its original borders it encompassed the Viminale, Esquiline, parts of the Quirinale and Caelian Hills. It extended as far as the Aurelian walls.
Today its 1,6 square kilometres no longer include the Quirinale and Caelian Hills.

 










At the end of Via Panisperna I turn onto Via dei Serpenti so-called it would seem because of a mosaic depicting the Madonna (?) with her foot on a snake. It is a road I know well. It is home to two excellent Indian restaurants: The Maharaja (a little pricey) and Mother India. 

I check out the Tuscan emporium (Podere Vecciano) I've heard so much about:all oils, jams and honeys with some pretty hand-painted ceramics. 

I then discover that my invisibility cloak is still working. It works particularly well in domestic appliance/computer supply shops.  Despite the fact that I'm the only customer in the shop the man behind the till (owner?) acts as if I'm not there. In his defence, I could say I was rather shabbily dressed: jeans, T-shirt and cardigan, so fairly obviously not the type of person who'd be going for over-price olive oil and vinegar.

I leave the shop, half regretting not having bought the attractive hand-painted bowl with owls and leaves on it.

At Piazza della Madonna dei Monti a procession is underway. Mass has just finished and a gaggle of nuns followed by the faithful are singing their way down the street for, as it turns out, a short distance, as they turn into the church of the Madonna dei Monti, the one with the snake squashing Madonna, on the street of the same name. 

I walk down the Via della Madonna dei Monti, all very picturesque and weave my way to the back of Augustus' forum. Monti is one of the larger districts and my feet are beginning to feel it.

Walking back up Via della Madonna dei Monti I come across a heart rending sight. Embedded in the cobbled road surface are some metal plaques, I bend down closer to read the inscriptions and realise that they are memorials to the people who once lived in the building I am now standing in front of. They lived there and in 1944 were deported to Auschwitz. They never came back. 

 Climbing up and down hills over cobbles and across large roads such as Via Cavour I end up on Via del Colosseo with the Colosseum a great big mass in my sights. I read this week that since 2015 a colony of hedgehogs have made their home there. 

I go past San Pietro in Vincoli, but the Palm Sunday crowd stops me from going in to see Michelangelo's Moses. I walk down the Scalinata dei Borgia (the Borgia steps) across Via Cavour and past Finnegan's Pub. There are many pubs in Rome where ex-pats gather to watch football and rugby matches on flat screen TVs while drinking their pints. 

 Last time I came here at Halloween the pub had been decorated for a party for the owners' children. There had been cotton cobwebs, plastic spiders, skulls, bats and ghosts dangling form every picture frame and mirror and the TVs had been switched off.

I arrive outside the metro stop of Cavour on Piazza della Suburra where an ancient plaque marks the spot.  'tis time to head home. My feet are killing me!

 

Spring on a plate

It may be true to say that I love artichokes. Growing up I didn't have them that often, but it was a rare treat when I did. Sometime in the late Spring large artichokes would turn up on sale in a few select shops. Occasionally, they would already have been prepared for consumption: decorated with a thin slice of lemon and a few sprigs of curly parsley.

We would sit down for dinner in front of the beautiful artichokes and peel off leaf after shiny leaf. They would be dipped into a sharp vinaigrette and we would bite off that half moon of edible flesh at the base of each leaf before discarding it into a bowl placed in the centre of the table. As the meal progressed the mountain of leaves took shape.

Of course, we were all intent on reaching the soft heart of the artichoke - a reward for all the work it had taken to get there. We would remove the inedible choke and carefully slice the heart and dip it into the vinaigrette relishing each delectable morsel.

So when I got to Rome and saw the artichokes on the market and in the grocery shops I was in for a disappointment. They were smaller and punnier looking than in my memory. The largest, the mammole, fat round globes looked half the size of my childhood artichokes. As for the violet, with their thin oval shape and their sharp spines, they looked too dangerous to touch.

The carciofini, mini artichokes, were a joke. What was there to even eat on them? Whatever could they be used for?

In Rome there are three dishes which feature the artichoke as the star: the 'carciofi alla giudia', the 'carciofi alla romana' and the 'vignarola alla Romana'.

The first involves bashing and deep frying the artichoke. As a typical Jewish dish it can be found all over the Roman ghetto.

I still remember the first time I tasted 'carciofi alla giudia' at a teachers' meeting in a school on Lungotevere Ripa.

I would teach early evening lessons there with one of the most beautiful views I've ever had in a school. The windows were set high above the roaring road that ran alongside the Tiber. Of an evening, I could look out across the river and glimpse  the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin with its distinctive bell tower and its Bocca della Verita (the mouth of truth) still open to all and free in those days. There were also some ancient Roman temples part of the Foro Boario. A little higher up the river if I was by the window I could spy the broken bridge (Ponte Rotto) with gulls perched on it and circling and crying above it. As the sun set pink over the city I couldn't imagine anywhere nicer to be.

Sadly, the school closed a year later. But my memory of the artichokes remained.

A mountain of artichokes at my local market

The battered globe with leaves invitingly parted, lightly salted and fried to a crisp were a sensory revelation. They needed no accompaniment they were perfect as such.

I discovered 'Carciofi alla Romana' at a trattoria behind the Colosseum. I should have trusted my imstincts and avoided it. No good can come of a trattoria catering almost solely to tourists.

In my defence, the place had been chosen by my dining companion. She had read a review in a popular guide book which lauded among other things its 'carciofi alla Romana'.

So I ordered them. An oil drenched braised artichoke stuffed with herbs arrived. My friend offered a "that doesn't look very nice," type comment, as I bit into the over-cooked bud. An assault of flavours hit my palate. It tasted strange and vaguely medicinal. I smelt something minty. Was this really the famed Carciofi alla Romana?

I drank from my white wine and noticed its taste had changed. I didn't know it then but it was the chemical constituent cynarine which is found in artichokes that was distorting my taste receptors.

When my desert, a soggy tiramisu soaked in a blue liquid arrived, I decided never ever to pay attention to restaurant recommendations from budget travel guide books again.

But even though it had been a far from perfect first try it had aroused my curiosity. The bizarre flavour had come from the combination of spearmint (mentuccia)  not in fact a genuine ingredient for this recipe with olive oil,rather than the more usual mint,parsley and garlic which are used to stuff the braised artichoke. 

I subsequently tried a much better, more genuine preparation containing the right herbs at a ristorante, (the event being a Christmas dinner) La Matriciana on Piazza dei Consuli  down in the concrete jungle of the Tuscolana. Here the artichokes glistened with a film of olive oil but were firm rather than pulpy and held their combined herbs well. It wasn't cloying or greasy.

Artichokes have proven health benefits:

they can cleanse the liver as well as help

lower cholesterol.

It also inspired me to give it a try: I would make my own 'carciofi alla Romana'.

What I hadn't realised was just how difficult artichokes are to clean with their hidden sharp edges and spines nor their tendancy to go brown due to the oxidising effect of the air.  Hence the use of a water bowl filled with lemon quarters or a drop of vinegar into which to pop the newly cleaned and ready for preparation artichokes.

I understood better why so many markets sold ready cleaned artichokes bobbing merrily in large plastic vats of water and lemon. I understood why the normally parsimonious Romans were happy to pay a little more to avoid the tedium of cleaning them.


With a little practise I got there. I've never quite figured out how to stop them from capsizing in the pan, their bell heads spilling their contents in a less than tidy way into the surrounding water.  They never look quite as perfect as the ones sold in reaturants but I'm sure they're as tasty!

No other dish, however, conjures Spring to mind better than the 'Vignarola'. A vegetable stew made up of spring onions, artichokes, broad beans and fresh peas. Some recipes also throw in Roman lettuce to braise and the first seasonal asparagus.The presence of all these ingredients on the market are a sign that the warm Summer days are but a skip and a jump away.

                        A recipe for Spring on a plate

Vignarola alla Romana:

• Fresh (or frozen) peas 500gr,  podded and cleaned
• Fresh broad beans 500gr, podded and cleaned
• 1 head of Roman lettuce, sliced
• 100gr pancetta, cut into cubes
• 500gr artichokes (3 artichokes), cleaned and cut into quarters or sixths
• 250gr Spring onions, thinly sliced
• Olive oil
• Vegetable broth (this can be made from the pea, bean pods boiled with the green shoots of the spring onion) or water
• Pecorino cheese
• A sprig of mint
• salt and pepper

Fry together the spring onions and pancetta.Add the prepared artichokes with a little vegetable broth or water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add the peas and beans and some more broth. Cover and cook for a further 10 mins.Then add the sliced lettuce and cook till all the vegetables are ready.Season with salt, pepper, mint and pecorino cheese.

The origins of this dish are unclear. It may have been called Vignarola because the vegetables grew among the vines,;or it was a dish eaten by the peasants who cultivated the vines; or, more simply it was named after the people who sold them on the Roman markets, the vignaroli. Whatever the dishes origins, it was surely a rustic dish, a reminder of the bounty the earth can produce.

The Roman Ghetto

In the district of the Angel lies the old Jewish ghetto. I approached it from the Teatro Marcello side thus passing under the ancient Portico d'Ottavia which gives its name to the main thouroughfare of the ghetto. 

Once it was home to Rome's principal fish market under the portico and beside the church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, known as the oratory of the fishmongers (l'oratorio dei pescivendoli).  

Top of the Portico d'Ottavia

The original ghetto lay in the area limited by the contemporary Via del Portico d'Ottavia, Piazza delle Cinque Scole and the Tiber. It was formed on 12 July 1555 by the Pope Paul IV (of the Carafa family) and remained in place for almost 300 years when another Pope, Pio IX (of the Boncompagni family) opened its gates and allowed its people free access to the streets of Rome. For three centuries the enclosed area was unchanged apart for an increase in the number of gates from five to eight and in the number of windows.


Today the portico is enshrined in scaffolding, I skirt around it, into a tunnel and slip behind it into Via della Tribuna Campitelli and walk up towards Piazza Lovatelli, where a man is filling a bottle of water at a street fountain, and onto Via dei Funari. 

There I find myself in front of the Renaissance church of Santa Caterina dei Funari (string and rope makers), renowned for its travertine facade.  As every time I have been past this church it's closed. I have heard that the frescoes and paintings within are well worth seeing. Maybe another day?

Many years ago an eccentric artist used to exhibit his work on the steps that led up to the church: he used mainly acrylic paints, bright colours and canvasses canvassed from the streets. But the only trace I find of him today are some paint stains beside the entrance.

Church of Santa Caterina dei Funari

I continue, past Via dei Caetani where the body of the former Prime Minister and Christian Democrat leader, Aldo Moro, was found in a car. He had been kidnapped, held for 55 days and then murdered and left there by the Red Brigades.

 I arrive at the Piazza Mattei with its equisite 'Fountain of the Turtles' (Fontana delle Tartarughe).

 The Fountain was built by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The turtles were added later in 1658 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi. 

Like many Renaissance fountains it was designed to bring drinking water to the Roman population. It was, however, one of the few fountains in Rome not built for a pope but for a patron, Muzio Mattei. The fountain, deriving water from the Roman acqueduct of Acqua Vergine would have served the whole neighbourhood. 


Drinking its water today would more likely result in a bad stomach ache if not a visit to the nearest emergency room. A modest sized notice warns people not to drink the water.

I head down Via della Reginella and discover a shop specialised in pepperoncini (chilli peppers). It claims to sell 17 different types of pepperoncini.  

 I pause outside it, toying with the idea of going in. I spy flasks and phials filled with spicy oils and small jars containing powdered versions of the spices. It all looks geared towards the hordes of tourists that pass down here daily. So I head on down past different shops. 

Then, a plaque starkly reminds passers-by of their history. On the 16 October 1943, 1023 Roman jews were rounded up and deported to concentration camps. Very few returned. On 24 March 1944, 75 Jews taken from the ghetto were murdered at the Fosse Ardeatina on the (then) outskirts of Rome. 

I come out of the narrow alley onto the Portico d'Ottavia again. The restaurants are getting ready for lunch.

 Artichokes are everywhere. This is the home of Kosher cuisine and the famed carciofi alla giudea, bashed and deep fried Romanesco artichokes - an absolute must for any visitor to the ghetto. 

Equally prized are the 'baccala' (salted cod) dishes, traditionally served with chickpeas but also fried or in soups...

I walk past the famed 'Forno'  (baker's) but despite knowing that this is where I can get the best visciole (sour cherry) and ricotta pie in Rome I am not tempted. The pies in the window look burnt on top.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Later, as I pass by again I see a long queue snaking out of the shop onto the street. 

It's still a little early for lunch so I head towards Piazza delle Cinque Scole and its fountain with gorgons' heads on it. 

detail on Via del P. d'Ottavia

detail on Via del portico d'Ottavia.

From thence I go in search of Palazzo Cenci, once home of Beatrice Cenci. It's a frustrating search. I go up Monte dei Cenci past a small abandoned chuch then down onto Piazza dei Cenci and past Palazzetto Cenci followed by an Arco dei Cenci with its own bloody tale.  One thing is clear however, the Cenci were once here.

 
 It would seem that the unfortunate Beatrice Cenci would have lived in a building which backed onto the Monte dei Cenci. She was beheaded along with her mother on Ponte St Angelo for the murder of her father, Francesco Cenci, a violent, incestuous man. Her brother Giacomo was hung, drawn and quartered. The sentence passed by the Pope, an Aldobrandini, may have had more to do with acquiring the family wealth and property rather than exacting justice.

I've gone round in a circle, up and down then under the arch and back towards the gorgons' fountain. If I turn right I'll be on Lungotevere Cenci, I can see the cars racing by and the even row of trees that line the Tiber. 

To my right there is also a large ochre coloured building behind which is the heavily guarded synagogue and the Jewish museum. The synagogue was inaugurated in 1904. On 9th October 1982 five Palestinian terrorists  bombed the it.

I return to my starting point on the Via dell Portico d'Ottavia. The buzzing heart of the ghetto is now aflock with large tour groups. I can hear English spoken as a guide explains to her group the history of the road. Some French teenagers walk past, selfie sticks aloft. At the tables people are perusing menus. Waiters are trying to interest passers-by in their menus. 

The road is now a stretch of terraces on which people can dine. In between all the terraces there is a Kosher bakery and a Kosher deli as well as a shop that sells tourist tat and tack. 

 An area which once would have been starved seems now dedicated to feeding the populace.

 

Balcony life

The day I came to Italy in July 1998 was a scorcher. I got off the train from the airport at Ponte Lungo and dragged my suitcase to the flat I was going to stay in. 

It was so hot the air seemed to shimmer. The tarmac was melting and the wheels of my case left tracks behind them. 

The city appeared to be deserted. The windows were all shuttered. There wasn't a person in sight. All the shops were closed. A bus rattled past as I crossed the road, it had only two passengers on it, a sad trail of blue diesel exhaust smoke floated on the air in its wake. 

It was also a far cry from the Rome I had visited the year before. I had been staying in a hotel near the central station of Termini and had never strayed off the well beaten and crowded tourist path. I was now getting my first glimpse of the Rome the vast majority of Romans lived in.

Once I got to the flat, I threw open the window and heavy shutters of my room, and let the hot outdoor air enter the cool dark interior. I didn't get it then, it took a while. The city wasn't deserted but the people were ensconced in their shuttered dwellings as protection from the sun. The heavy shutters helped maintain indoor temperatures cooler than outdoors. In those days few were the flats that had air-conditioning units.

I was to learn that just as Northerners dislike the rain, Romans dislike the sun and the heat. Indeed, in the holiday month, August, many Romans choose to go on holiday to Scandinavian countries or England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, or if they can't afford to leave their own country they will head for the hills and the mountains of central Italy and the North. All that in a bid to get to some fresher air. 
  


And those who are sun-lovers will go down in droves to roast on the beaches of the South.

It was in those early months that I noticed that balconies were functional spaces, akin in some instances to a broom cupboard.  

In my first small flat on Ponte Lungo the balcony was tiny and overlooked a bus depot. It was home to the various brooms and cleaning products that the landlady had thoughtfully provided as well as a rope on which we could hang our clothes to dry.

On most mornings, my flatmate and I would get two of the kitchen chairs and sit out on the balcony. We sipped our hot coffees and gazed into the distant view over the bus depot of a church spire and clusters of TV antennae.

We even got watered on as our upstairs neighbour tended to her plants. Our cry of surprise startled her. She hadn't expected anyone to be there.
  
In the evenings we would enjoy a glass of chilled white wine as we chatted about the day. Rows upon rows of empty balconies stretched out around us. Some had clothes fluttering in the breeze, one had a family dog on it, other than that they were unused. 


Yet surely the balcony is another room to be enjoyed. My balcony is covered in plants: cacti, aloe vera, various herbs, cat grass, pepperoncino plants.... it's an ecosystem in its own right. A few bees flutter around and dive into the flowers.  I have a pigeon guest who likes to steal the cat food.  



 It's a little messy not like my neighbours' hyper-neat and weekly-cleaned balconies. There,  flowering plants are replaced every March, most having died due to abandonment over the Winter. There may be a some clean pots of ever greens. 

Once the local supermarkets stock the usual herbs: basil, oregano, parsley, thyme and rosemary, they may find themselves out on the balcony but not too near the edges for fear of the pigeons. The railings sparkle in the sun, they're so clean and the tiles are immaculate, the air is ripe with the smell of ammonia.

 On my less pristine 15 square metres of balcony I have a small table and two chairs so I can eat out there whenever the weather permits. 


I'm not the only one who does this. But none of my Italian neighbours do. 

In the really hot months, July and August I have my sun-lounger so I can enjoy the sun even more while keeping the flat shuttered and closed - as my flat is on the top floor this barely makes a difference.

 As the Winter falls away and Spring approaches it is once more time to plant some seeds, for the herbs and chilli peppers I like to grow, and start cutting away and clearing up the dead leaves that have accumulated over the colder months when the balcony is a little neglected. 


The animals start asking to go out again. The cat will scratch on the French window in the kitchen to be let out - no cat flap here - while the dog will more patiently stand by it and stare out as she waits for her human to open the door.

Give it a few more weeks and balcony life will be in full swing, the living-room forgotten until the following October.

In the 'hood.

"That Chinese soil is no good," Ali, the local florist points to my bag of cheap 'universal' soil. I've stopped by his stall to get some catgrass. 

"Why not?"

"It's Chinese. Chinese is bad."

I laugh. I've been using it for years and my plants are flourishing. And, as a quick perusal of the bag confirms when I return to my flat, the only thing Chinese about the soil is that I bought it in a so-called Chinese shop. The soil itself comes from a region near Lake Trasimeno, in Umbria, most definitely not from China.

The Chinese shop is not, as one might think, a shop that sells Chinese food and objects, but rather a shop of Chinese (though in Italy the term Chinese is an umbrella term for almost all Asian nationalities) ownership .It sells just about anything at cheap prices. Over the years, 'Chinese' shops have popped up all over the city much to the annoyance of the native owned shops who do not appreciate the competition. 

 The neighbourhood in which I've have been living for the past twelve years is decidely unfashionable.While it is, as the crow flies, a mere 3 kilometres from the ancient city walls just beyond the Baths of Caracalla, in atmosphere it is world's apart.

It's on the wrong side of the Cristoforo Colombo - a large and dangerous road that connects Rome to the coast at Ostia - and opposite the areas of Garbatella, home of the 'real' Roman, and San Paolo, characterised by the Basilica of St. Paul outside-the-walls. 

The only tourists here are those who are staying in the large hotel, opened seven years ago, which backs onto the condominium complex I live in. I see them at the local discount buying pasta, tomato 'passata' and chocolate to bring home, some may even stock up on dried herbs such as basil or origano or dried peperoncino.

Now and again I have come across them in my local tabaccaio buying bus tickets and attempting to get information out of the owner Marco. He can't speak English and sullenly answers in Italian which the tourists can't understand.

"It's not as if I could speak Italian if I went to their countries," I've heard him grumble time and again. Fortunately, his impressively tatooed daughter, Chiara, knows enough English to communicate. Likewise, most of the staff in my local discount can say their numbers in English.

But what makes my area unpopular is that it bears the moniker - 'Tor.' For many people this puts it in the same class as such peripheral zones as Tor Bella Monaca and Tor di Quinto, sadly famed for their weekly drug busts.

When I moved here my ex-landlord laughed, "Eh! If you can't afford it you have to go to the periphery," he said, his large rotund belly shaking with mirth. Futile were my attempts to explain that I was still well within the city limits.

My Tor, that is Tor Marancia, was built up in the 1950s - a large part of the original dwellings were 'case popolari' funded by the state to provide housing for the poor, and they have remained so to this day. 

On my road, on one side there are large expensive condominium blocks whereas on the other there is a chain of 'case popolari' apartment blocks.They may also explain why there are two discount supermarkets on my road.

 In fact, there are seven supermarkets (one of which is an organic supermarket from the chain 'Naturasi') within a kilometre and a half radius of where I live. It was like arriving in supermarket land when I moved here from the quieter and more up class neighbourhood of Monteverde.

Up until about five years ago there were no smaller grocery shops but in the last five years Bangladeshi and Pakistani owned shops have opened offering just a little bit more variety such as plantain, sweet potatoes and coriander,  than the usual eggplants and zucchini found in all Italian supermarkets year round.  

Every morning, bright and early, I walk my dog around the neighbourhood. We often go past Ali's flower stall next to the Pizza al Taglio(pizza by the slice) which is always packed to the rafters at lunchtime, and past a beauty shop until we reach a small park encircled by roads. There is a play area for children and a fenced in play area for dogs. Flocks of large grey green parrots feast on the grass and on the leaves. .

Before going into the doggy playground I check that a large male dog is not there. He tends to go for mine. He isn't. I go in and let my dog run free. Some men from the local tennis club throw in some used tennis balls and the dogs jump excitedly as the tennis balls bounce around them.

On Mondays and Fridays, the road that runs alongside the doggy playground is busier than usual. On a parking lot between the Cristofo Colombo and the park, three rows of stalls have been set up for the local market. 

Three of them sell fruit and vegetables from the South of Lazio, one also has bread and large balls of mozarella cheese swimming in their milky brine. There are stalls which sell clothes with prominent labels stating 'Italian design' all the better to hide their actual, 'Made in China' or 'Made in Taiwan' status.

If anyone needs pots and pans, spare parts for their 'Foletto' vaccuum cleaners sold door-to-door, bed and bathroom linen, cushions, pictures, herbs and diverse plants, beads and other paraphernalia for do-it-yourself jewellery as well as clusters of garlic that could ward off the most fool-hardy of vampires alongside fragrant sachets of dried lavender which the vendor insists are from Provence in France, this is the place to come to.

There is a larger daily market just up the hill at Montagnola which is specialised in food stuff, with excellent fish and meat stalls.

 
Once my dog has enjoyed her romp, it is time to head home. Sometimes we head down the graffitti-decorated road which passes by the old 'Fiera di Roma.' Most of the facilities are now disused, though a part houses a 'Police Car Museum'.

Or we go down a residential road on which there is the areas principal fornaio (baker's) who sells rolls, bread, pizza slices and rather dry plum cakes (none of which contain any plums - it's just a name).

This road comes out onto my road just opposite a complex of buildings, all 'case popolari', which have been taking part in a street art project entitled 'Big City Life.'

In February 2015, the first of these facade-high designs went up. Each facade was painted in bright colours and various ways by different artists.

Today, a small number of visitors can be found walking among the buildings, admiring (or not) and photographing the facades.

 At the foot of this complex, there is a small shop, my last stop before I complete the loop home.




I see a mountain of fresh artichokes of the type called mammole. The owner notes my interest, "they are from Sardinia. They are the best not like those Sicilian artichokes."

"Aren't the Sicilian ones any good?"

He looks disgusted, "tough. No flavour." He is Sardinian.

Cooking pasta

"Is it true.." here the young woman hesitated, then continued, "Is it true that in England to check if the pasta is cooked you throw it against the wall?"

I had heard of this practise before but decided to dismiss it as an urban myth. Surely it couldn't be true!

The idea was that if the pasta stuck to the wall, long strands of spaghetti being the preferred type for this culinary test, the pasta was done.  

Pasta is a serious topic. Many are the horror stories connected to overdone, overcooked pasta. 

This always begs the question: why do Italians always insist on eating Italian food abroad if they know that it is going to be sub-standard?

"When I was with my host family in Brighton I prepared the spaghetti for them," says Giulia. 

Marcello nods and tells us how when he was in America he was served re-heated pasta. A collective shudder runs through the room. "I had to teach my hostess how to cook pasta," he finishes off. 

Another tale of disaster followed, this time the souvenir of an  exchange holiday in France."They just threw the spaghetti into a pan of cold water. Cold water!! And then left it there for twenty minutes. I couldn't eat it,"

"It was all glued together. Inedible," came another testimony, from a summer spent studying English in Oxford.  

These were serious offences against food. No other nation could cook pasta correctly.

But, I wondered, why was this? Was it chronic misinformation the world over? I had read that on 'Barilla' pasta packets sold in America the advised cooking time was longer than on those sold in Italy. Americans believed that 'al dente' pasta was harmful for digestion so aimed for overcooked, 'scotta'.

Yet cooking pasta is not a complex task. There are some simple rules to follow.

1. Don't over-crowd the pasta. Aim for lots of water. The rule of thumb is 1 litre for every 100grs of pasta. You need a large pan. The pasta needs space to roll around and buck in the boiling water.

2. Use salt.

 I used to add a drop of olive oil to the water. An Italian friend saw me do this. She let out a horrified screech, "ma che fai!" (What are you doing?) I explained that the oil prevented the pasta from sticking together. She gave me a 'these foreigners are nuts' kind of look and gently said that if I used enough water the pasta couldn't stick. And besides, it was a waste of good oil. And, what would I do with the water afterwards? 

It was my turn to give her an agonised look. The water? Again, patiently, she explained that the water could be used for doing the washing up.

3. Don't use too much salt. Pasta dough is unsalted so it needs the salt in the cooking water to give it some flavour.

Now here there are differing points of view as to when to throw in the salt. I always put it in at the beginning as, from a chemical point of view, it helps the water reach boiling point a little faster. But, many cooks suggest throwing in the salt just as the water reaches boiling point and stirring it in, just before chucking in the pasta.

Salt crystals

4. Cook just under a minute of the recommended time on the pack. Thus, when you toss it in the sauce you have prepared it won't overcook and become that dreaded 'scotta'. Pasta must be 'al dente' - firm when you bite it. I once met an Italian who liked his pasta so 'al dente' it was chewy.

Remember that fresh pasta, as opposed to dried pasta,takes so little time to cook that turn away for a second and you are doomed.

 
5. Save a cupful of starchy, salty cooking water for a glossy finish on the sauce. You toss the cooked and drained pasta into the sauce, if it needs loosening add some of the cooking water. Some recipes such as 'cacio pepe' (pecorino cheese and pepper) rely on this addition of water to bring the dish together.

6. When you drain the pasta don't rinse it in cold water.

The other thing to bear in mind is that specific dishes need the right pasta. Hence, the good old 'spag bol' revered by so many is not Italian. The 'ragu alla bolognese' should be eaten with tagliatelle or fettucine - flatter and wider types of pasta than spaghetti to which the sauce can adhere better.

It doesn't stop there:  bucatini all'amatriciana, rigatoni con la pajata  (a Roman dish of milk fed veal intestines in a tomato sauce), penne all'arrabbiata (angry pens, a hot pepperoncino sauce characterises this dish), tonarelli cacio pepe, farfalle (butterflies) with a tomato or cream based sauce. pizzocheri-a buckwheat pasta from Northern Italy with cabbage, orecchiette (little ears from Puglia) alle cime di rapa (tender stem broccoli), strozzapretti (strangled priests) con porcini, small pasta shapes such as stelline or the Sardinian fregola in a minestrone or a broth..... 

There are an estimated 350 different types of pasta with just as many sauces and accompaniments. Using pasta in all its different ways is fun, just make sure it isn't 'scotta'.

bucatini with a simple tomato sauce and basil