One of my good friends from college (whom we’ll call "Darlingtonia" after the botanical name of one of her favorite flowers) arrived in town yesterday and the occasion called for a fabulous meal. Darlingtonia is spending her last weeks before starting grad school on a grand Mediterranean tour, in which food tourism is as strong a motivating factor as sightseeing. She won’t have time to travel as far south as Rome on this trip, so instead, I brought Rome to Verona—fittingly, given the city's longstanding nickname of “Little Rome.”
We started with an antipasto that was not particularly Roman, but was particularly good: local melon with prosciutto di Parma, and a glass of Prosecco (which, as you may already know, is produced here in the Veneto). Simple, delicious, and very refreshing in this unbearable summer humidity:
Here’s the little neighborhood shop where I’ve been buying my salumi; we went there for the prosciutto.
Every time I go in I have to exercise extreme self-restraint not to buy some of everything in the store.
Pig is beautiful.
For the primo (pasta course), we had the long-awaited bucatini all’amatriciana. I had forgotten to pick up some hot pepper, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was still good. I made up for the absence of pepper with plenty of garlic, sautéed with the guanciale:
Then add tomato purée, a little black pepper, and toss it with the bucatini. A little cheese on top, naturally (traditionally Pecorino Romano, but Parmesan was what I had on hand):
The secondo (meat course) was another Roman classic, saltimbocca. The name translates roughly to “jump in your mouth”—it’s made from ingredients that, taken individually, are rather delicate, but collude in a finished dish that is quite robust.
Take very thin veal cutlets and layer them with sage and a slice of prosciutto:
For some reason, I remembered that saltimbocca included cheese (mozzarella), so I put some in, but now that I'm doing a little research online, it seems that this is not correct. I know I've eaten them with cheese before--maybe it's an Americanism.
roll them up and send them to the frying pan:
when they are done, eat them with relish.
A complete traditional meal would have included contorni (side dishes) of green vegetables and/or potatoes, but the dishes were already rich enough, so we just had a green salad.
Many thanks to Darlingtonia for sharing her pictures--some were taken with my camera, some with hers, but on the whole hers are much better. (My digital camera is seven years old, which to me seemed perfectly serviceable--I'm not really into technology--but I didn't realize it would be quite such a creaky antique when compared to the newer models. It offers a fraction of the megapixels of the newer models, eats AA batteries like there's no tomorrow, and my biggest memory card holds "only" 80 photos. Clearly I need to go shopping for a new camera when I get home!)
Coming soon: An excursion to a Renaissance palace; food tourism; and opera!
Later: A day in the life of a foreign language student; art history field trip; Venice!!!
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