The spectacle of Rome waking up at five in the morning, just as I drove toward Trastevere, was a beautiful thing. Dawn on a crystal clear winter day in the empty piazzas and lanes was almost intimate in its beauty; while people sweep up the leftover rubbish from the night’s celebrations, the fragrant aromas of espresso, cappuccino, and cornetti fill the air, mingling with the scent of freshly baked bread and pizza from the bakers’ ovens. The city awakens, stretching lazily and grumbling audibly, and starts its working day, clearly hoping that the day will be an easy one and that evening comes soon with its opportunity for rest. It’s no accident that a famous Roman proverb runs: Voja de’ lavorà sarteme addosso, ma famme lavorà meno che posso!—Desire to work, come leap into me, but let me work as little as possible!
I don’t know how many people have had an opportunity to see Rome at that time of day, but it’s an experience I’d highly recommend to anyone.
In Trastevere I would get something hot to eat after I completed my rounds of the newsstands. Once I was done with my work, it was six a.m. It was still completely dark, and the winter temperature rarely rose above forty degrees. (Back then, everyone rode scooters without helmets, so if I have a few screws loose in my head, it may very well be from the repeated chills I got during those winter drives.) Then I had to get back on my dark blue Piaggio Sì to head back to the university to attend lessons. And wouldn’t you know it, the university wasn’t far from the Stazione Termini, where I’d started my rounds at four in the morning.
Distracted and seduced once again by the beauty of Rome, that evening I hardly noticed that my legs had carried me right back around to Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. An instant later I was standing in the piazza, facing the marvelous church and its fountain. But now the piazza was empty, and there was no one by the fountain. Or rather, I should say, there was only a single elegant young woman absorbed in reading a book. She was long-limbed and had blond hair that made her look, indeed, German: Shit, that’s her! I thought. I wasn’t ready. I had forgotten that I’d have to spend the entire evening speaking English—though I wasn’t sure what I’d be talking about—and I still hadn’t even come up with a place to take her. I decided: Trastevere will save me! Since I was still early, I pretended to be a tourist myself. I went for another stroll through the surrounding area, hoping that Rome would enlighten me on the next move.
Still, the fact that the writer was there ahead of time seemed, if nothing else, like a good beginning.
I finished my stroll, walked back out onto the piazza from Via di San Francesco a Ripa, and once again found myself in front of the beautiful church and the fountain in the middle of the piazza, where Elizabeth was still sitting reading her book.
I walked toward the fountain. As I got closer, she looked up, met my eyes, and smiled. I remember reading her lips, at least the initial L of Luca. The time had come to unfurl my fantastic macaronic English. (Or in my case, maybe I should say “spaghettic” English . . .) Here goes: “Ciao, Elizabeth, nice to meet you!”
I was doing great—brilliant, nonchalant, and above all, unpredictable! I don’t dare to imagine the gaffes and errors of those first few minutes, but I do remember that I was slowly feeling more at my ease. Come to think of it, why should I ever have felt uncomfortable? She was the foreigner, the outsider, she would be in Rome for three months (why three months? who could say . . .), she’d find her tearooms, she’d locate the libraries and private clubs where she could find other intellectuals, she’d spend her days reading and writing. I was in the city I’d been born and raised in; tomorrow I’d go back to my office, resume my work, my usual life, with Giuliana, with my friends, my family, my music, and my beloved Lazio, here in my city. So what was it that was putting me on edge? The idea that Giuliana might be jealous? No, she knew about my dinner with Elizabeth, and anyway, dinner with an unknown American writer was nothing for her to worry about. My main worry was that I might disappoint Pat; if the writer went back to New York and told him, “Boy, Pat, your friend Luca is an asshole!,” it would have been embarrassing for me and for him. I also subconsciously wanted to give my good friend’s friend an enjoyable evening out, probably the only time she’d ever spend in my company in the most beautiful city on earth.
We started strolling with no particular destination. Of course, we talked about Pat to start with, and as we continued talking, I could feel that I was finally beginning to relax a little. Elizabeth kept on smiling at me, the same gentle, sweet smile with which she had met my questioning gaze for the first time just a few minutes ago. She spoke with a calm, musical voice. There was an unaffected simplicity to her that won me over. To be honest, she wasn’t really fitting in with my prejudices concerning blond, long-limbed American writers. Moreover, Elizabeth didn’t seem to care in the slightest about my spaghettic English; quite the contrary, she was studying Italian and seemed to have learned a fair amount. She wasn’t shy about showing what she’d learned.
Even though I wasn’t sure about where we’d wind up, I suggested, in keeping with my plan, “Elizabeth, would you like to go sit down in a bar in Trastevere? We can have a beer and then go somewhere for dinner.”
She replied promptly, with her trusting, spontaneous smile: “Sure, that’d be great!”
I was saved. The danger of five o’clock tea, even if it was already after seven, was banished once and for all—and it was about to be replaced by something much cooler and more familiar: a beer.
A friend of mine operated a pub in the Via della Fonte d’Olio, which runs right into the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. I suggested to Elizabeth that we drop in. As we walked, I explained to Elizabeth why this street is called Via della Fonte d’Olio. Actually, I was inflicting upon her a form of torture that I had endured as a child from my parents. Probably every Roman child of my generation spent many of the Sundays in their childhood on “excursions,” as my parents called them, touring the wonders of the city. At that age, I couldn’t care less about them. The Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, the ancient Appian Way were, to me, just a bunch of old junk someone had put there for who knows what reason. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just let me go play soccer in the streets of my neighborhood, or sit at home watching Laurel and Hardy on TV. Instead, for some reason unclear to me, they had insisted on dragging me from one monument to another, in a steady procession of churches and basilicas. These tours were unfailingly accompanied by my father’s didactic voice, thrilled with the opportunity to impose upon me and my brother—both of us wearing the most put-upon and bored expressions we could muster—ancient stories, legends, traditions, and anecdotes concerning every square foot of the Eternal City.
Turns out, years later, many of those “excursions” had left their mark, in my heart and in my memory. And so, reaching back into the confused jumble of recollections, mixing in a notion or two I had gleaned—and not yet forgotten—from my high school classes in art history, I did my best to explain to Elizabeth that, on the spot where the church now stands, roughly two thousand years ago (to be precise, in 38 BC) there bubbled up from the soil a pool of some kind of oil. There are Romans who still hope it might prove to have been petroleum. In any case, the oil flowed uninterruptedly for a full day. The event was judged to have been miraculous, and so the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere was built on the exact spot where the spring of oil, or fonte d’olio (fons olei in Latin), had emerged. So it turns out that the sacrifice of a few boyhood Sundays might finally prove useful . . .
When we got to the bar, the warm September sunshine convinced us to take a table outside. I was eagerly anticipating my cold, golden, richly deserved beer, but it was with a certain apprehension that I wondered what she would order. I really didn’t know if she was a teetotaler. For all I knew, she was about to instruct the waiter in how she liked her carrot-kiwi juice pressed, pulverized, and centrifuged. She instantly set me at ease by ordering a cold, golden, richly deserved beer.
But as we continued our conversation,
increasingly comfortable with one another’s company, I had not lost sight of my hidden sadistic plan. Next step: the food test!
Just then, I saw my friend returning to her pub, emerging from a narrow lane, carrying her dinner in one hand: an aluminum pan that was emitting a heavenly fragrance. The scent almost made me fall off my chair: spezzatino al sugo—a delicious lamb and tomato stew. Not only would I need to find a restaurant to carry out my plan, but I needed to find a restaurant because I was starving! For such an inviting spezzatino al sugo I might well be willing to break any number of tax laws. It took me roughly ten seconds to gather all the information I required: my friend told me where she’d purchased her carryout dinner, exactly how far it was and how to get there, and the menu from A to Z. The trattoria was around the corner; it was family run—no, make that Roman family run—with a distinctly local menu, and very few tables. Luckily, it was still early, so there was no need to make a reservation. Perfect.
I asked Elizabeth if she wanted to go eat there. I sensed she too might have noticed the remarkable perfume of the tomato lamb stew, and she agreed immediately. We drank off the last of our beers, and I happily treated her—after all, she’d spared me the nightmare of five o’clock tea, at whatever hour of the day. Then we headed off for dinner together.
When we got to the trattoria, I wondered why I’d never noticed it before. It had a glass front door and a large plate-glass window, through which you could see the lone dining room. Inside, a dozen or so tables were crowded together, with red and white checkered paper table coverings. Most of the tables were already occupied by people digging into steaming bowls and dishes of food. Outside, the gray metal roll-down shutters looked as if the place had originally been a garage.
Inside, the sound level was typical of a Roman-family-run trattoria. Over the loud conversations of the customers, fueled by the house wine, you could hear the voice of the matron of the house, loudly proclaiming the dishes of the day. I stood there speechless: only divine providence could have brought me to a place like this!
We walked in and took our seats at the little table; the owner immediately brought us a basket of bread and a liter of the house red. I asked him for a menu, and I’ll never forget the look of complicit understanding he gave me when he heard Elizabeth speaking English. The leer that spread across his face meant, roughly: Ah, I see what you’re up to! I’ll take care of things, and you see if this little American girl doesn’t have an enjoyable evening tonight! He stopped just short of a broad, lubricious wink. I felt like answering him in the same thick Roman dialect he’d wordlessly addressed to me: “A’ bello, nun c’hai capito gnente! Comunque grazie lo stesso!”—Listen, my friend, you’ve got it all wrong, but thanks just the same!—but it would have been too complicated to translate for Elizabeth. So I just grinned back at the restaurateur, with an entirely different meaning behind my smile.
The selection wasn’t extensive, but it was certainly appetizing. For the primo, while he held our ravenous hunger at bay with a tomato bruschetta, I suggested Elizabeth choose either a spaghetti alla carbonara, bucatini all’amatriciana, or penne all’arrabbiata. Since the high point of that evening’s fare was going to be the entrée, or secondo, I thought the penne all’arrabbiata might be the most digestible of the pasta dishes. After all, penne all’arrabbiata is nothing more than penne—in my opinion, penne should always be ridged, never smooth, so that the sauce clings to them—sautéed in a frying pan in a sauce made of diced tomatoes, olive oil, and garlic, and cooked until it’s golden, but never dark, brown, and last of all, with lots and lots of chili peppers. The chili peppers are a crucial ingredient—after all, arrabbiata means “angry” or “furious,” and it’s the chili peppers that give this dish its famous temper. When they serve it, I explained to Elizabeth, you can grate either Parmesan or Romano cheese over it.
Done and done: we both ordered penne all’arrabbiata. In a matter of minutes, two bowls piled high with penne all’arrabbiata were set before us. Elizabeth grated a healthy layer of cheese over hers; I ate mine plain.
Now, I must confess. The one thing I don’t eat is cacio sui maccheroni—cheese on macaroni. In Italian this phrase is similar to the American “peas and carrots.” Nothing goes together as perfectly as grated cheese and macaroni with a tomato sauce. But I don’t like it. I like the various sauces on my various pastas to taste . . . various! Perish the thought that all sauces should taste the same—like cheese.
Once we had gobbled down our penne, a wonderful and very inviting layer of sauce remained in our bowls. I couldn’t let the waiter carry that delicious treat away, so I suggested to my dinner guest that we do something that some etiquette mavens might look down upon, but which is the only reasonable solution in certain situations: the scarpetta, or wiping up sauce with a torn-off crust of bread. As I say, some find it rude, but I think it’s a crime to let a waiter take your plate without wiping it clean of delicious sauce—and eating the bread you use to do it. So, to keep from feeling embarrassed, I decided I’d have to persuade Elizabeth to do the same thing. To my great surprise, she gladly agreed, and began busily wiping up sauce with scraps of bread.
We were more or less halfway through our first meal, and thanks to the warm September evening, but especially to the furious temper of the penne, the house wine, and the fact that Elizabeth was clearly willing to eat anything with gusto, I was finally feeling completely relaxed.
Just then, Rome gave us a gift, one of those vignettes that only this city seems able to produce. A couple of tables away, two middle-aged gentlemen began quarreling, their voices growing ever louder; before long, the quarrel had deteriorated from an animated disagreement to a furious spat. They were both red-cheeked, a clear indication of their drunkenness, and inevitably the whole restaurant turned to stare at them: the tourists frightened and apprehensive, the Romans preparing to savor the spectacle. We all know how readily we exaggerate in Rome . . . The two leapt to their feet apparently on the verge of trading punches, heaping the finest insults and opprobrium on each other in the rich Roman tradition, bringing into the discussion mothers and sisters and ancestors and so on, willy-nilly, denigrations by the handful. Poor Elizabeth seemed physically afraid that blood was about to be spilled; I knew they’d never actually let it go that far. The two men were lunging at one another, drawing menacingly close but never actually grazing each other, never touching; they shouted out to those present, for the love of God, to separate them, to do something to stop them before they murdered each other, there and then, in cold blood! But the finale was already scripted: out of nowhere four huge men appeared and restrained the two drunks in their quarrel, calming them down as if they were babies. They poured them each a glass of red, urged them to shake hands and make peace, and then ushered them out of the restaurant into the street. The last we saw, the two were walking away into the night, arm in arm.
Elizabeth was still a little upset. I cheered her up with three words: “Benvenuta a Roma!” Welcome to Rome!
It wouldn’t be long now until we were ready to eat the real pièce de résistance—the pezzo forte—of that meal: the secondo. Since this was a family-run trattoria, Elizabeth could never refuse to taste a historic delicacy of the Roman culinary tradition. Among the various treats on the menu, one in particular caught my eye, one of the most delicious dishes on earth: coda alla vaccinara.
Coda alla vaccinara is a dish that developed in the Rione Regola, a part of Rome where tanners lived, who were known in Roman dialect as vaccinari. Like any traditional recipe, there is no official version. In fact, any Roman will tell you that the only genuine coda alla vaccinara is the one his grandmother makes, and that she alone possesses the authentic, top secret, and inimitable recipe for it. Usually, the recipe in question runs a little something like this: brown a chopped beef tail (or tail of veal) in a soffritto—or sauté—of garlic, onion, chopped lard, carrot, and celery to flavor it, then add a glass of wine and diced peeled tomatoes. Cook it for an hour or so, add water to co
ver, and leave cooking on the stove for another three hours; some will swear four hours is better. The important thing is that when it’s done, the tail should be very tender.
There are those who claim that the real secret is to use the same amount of celery by weight as beef tail. What I say is that the only way to eat it so you enjoy it is with your hands, and that is absolutely not a secret.
I was already musing about what would happen next: either Elizabeth would courteously ignore my suggestion, or equally courteously she’d push away the steaming bowl of beef tail (no, you couldn’t really say this is food for intellectuals or writers . . .). Anyway, the final blow would come when she saw me eating with both hands.
But instead Elizabeth astonished me once again, happily agreeing to sample a bowl of coda alla vaccinara, accompanied by a side dish of chicory sautéed with garlic and chili peppers. What made me happiest, though, was that after she devoured this unfamiliar and deeply Roman dish, with an enjoyment that I read in her glance, she immediately put into practice her latest lesson: scarpetta with the sauce of coda alla vaccinara!
My plan was failing miserably. My new friend was not only not a prim, dull writer, and decidedly no vegetarian teetotaler; she was also funny and likable, and she knew how to put you at your ease. Most important—she would eat and drink anything at all! There must be a solution. My brain frantically reviewed the most horrible frattaglie I could summon up for our next dinner, but it was a thought I quickly put to rest. She didn’t deserve it. Quite the opposite: Elizabeth had brilliantly passed the exam with flying colors. There was only thing she deserved: a prize. Time for limoncello.
Un Amico Italiano Page 12