It s small, hot, and crowded, filled with locals, construction workers, and me, and we re all being treated like wayward, half-starved sons. The place lacks charm but the food bursts with flavor. When a waiter notices how poorly I performed on my agnolotti , he asks if I m okay. Welcome to Rome, where the local cooking has changed less in the last generation than in any other major western European city, and where anyone who cares to can track it down. Roman cuisine, an amalgam of regional and local influences, is so hard to define that it s said by many food writers to be non-existent.
Roman food is honest because the ingredients are unsurpassed.
But there s more to it than that. Roman food is the food of peasants and workers, not royalty and bourgeoisie, and it remains so even though few of the people who eat it perform any manual labor. The blessing is that you don t have to barge into someone s kitchen to sample it simply find those restaurants that have made it their own. It consists of fried food, simply prepared meats, grilled or roasted vegetables, unusual pasta dishes that are neither northern or southern, even fresh fruit eaten from a bowl of ice water. In short, it s utterly enjoyable.