Wedding/Italian Honeymoon anniversary this week, so

[elleng]

will be thinking about it ALL WEEK

When in Rome: How to Eat Like a Local in Italy's Capital

issecting the food culture of a city as ancient and eternal as Rome is like conducting an archaeological dig—only the site is still bustling with the daily rhythms of modern life.

“Very few cities have such distinct cuisines that stand so strongly on their own,” says Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer. “How many cities could support dozens of cookbooks dedicated to their local dishes alone? Rome is one of them.”

Rome’s storied, deeply rooted cuisine is fiercely protected by the city’s culinary traditionalists, who are wary of anything they deem “un-Roman.” At the same time, it draws waves of starry-eyed visitors on a mission to eat their way through the canon of classic dishes.

“You have these two monolithic entities that are exerting a major gravitational force on the food scene: One is the tourists, who want all the things they’ve read about, like pasta alla gricia, amatriciana, carbonara, and pizza al taglio, and the other is the traditionalists—and Italians are largely pretty conservative when it comes to food,” says Peter Barrett, a food writer and former Rome resident who we turned to for insight into the city's food scene. “So for the new generation of chefs, the challenge is threading the needle—pushing the envelope while still maintaining a deep respect for the ingredients and traditions.”

Luckily, a new wave of Roman chefs is striking that balance admirably—serving dishes that nod to tradition without being confined by it. They’re not throwing out the classics, but they’re refusing to stop there.

The result is that Rome—seat of emperors and popes, home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and shaped by generations of cooks, butchers, and bakers from across its layered history—remains one of the world’s great food cities, still thriving as a 21st-century crossroads of cultures.

And the ultimate beneficiary of all of this? You, the visitor to Rome, who can eat incredible meals, whether tried-and-true classics, pitch-perfect modern innovations, or both.

https://www.seriouseats.com/travel-guide-rome-italy-11700963?

[Morbius]

1. I love pasta alla gricia.

Guanciale is hard to find and ridiculously expensive so I make it with good old fashioned bacon. But I do use real pecorino Romano cheese and I make it in the true Roman style.