When In Rome

For me, visiting Rome is a bittersweet experience. The sweetness comes from knowing that virtually everything I taste will be intensely memorable, and the bitterness usually comes when I’m heading to the Leonardo da Vinci airport to return home. There is something magical about Italy and its people.

In Rome, I am fooled by simplicity all the time. How they elevate simple ingredients into something remarkable, without recourse to measuring cups or cookbooks. To be educated in the culinary arts takes practice and imitation, rather than bookish study. It’s a maddening hallmark of the culture. Italians, who are extraordinarily good at elevating simple tastes and textures into the realm of the extraordinary, will also go to great efforts to make the whole process look effortless. They even have their own word for it. Sprezzatura is derived from the verb meaning “to undervalue,” and the Italians come by it naturally.

Lately, I’ve been trying to conquer a few Italian staples to develop my own sense of sprezzatura. There are four main pasta dishes in Italy: Cacio e Pepe, Carbonara, Gricia, and Amatriciana. Their ingredients may be few, but knowing where to start though, is harder than it looks. Trendiness has recently led to a proliferation of recipes. However when it comes to cooking like an Italian, there may be no absolute truth, but there are well-defined limits. And Italians will fight to the death to prove their recipe is the best recipe — especially if it was prepared by their Nonna. Here in the South, we have very similar loyalty when it comes to our grandmothers.

Amatriciana, is a cured pork and tomato-based sauce that includes pecorino and sometimes onion and sometimes garlic and sometimes chile peppers and sometimes black pepper. Its origins are traditionally traced to Amatrice, a sleepy provincial town in the Sabine Hills northeast of Rome. It’s a staple on Roman menus and is most often eaten with long, hollow noodles called bucatini whose unruliness on the fork means the tomato-based sauce cries out for a napkin to be tucked into the collar. Tomatoes, which are bountiful, it turns out are one of the only things that Romans agree goes into an authentic amatriciana sauce.

My first attempt at this dish tasted like a mouthful of water from the Dead Sea. Because pecorino and cured pork are already salty enough, it’s important to control its content - in fact I no longer include it. The real star is Guanciale (gwaan·chaa·lei), but pancetta can be used in a pinch. But don’t ever, I mean ever, use bacon in its place unless it is unsmoked. Julius Caesar may gather his troops just to come back and haunt you. With a little white wine and lots of pecorino romano, you will have your family chanting Mangiamo before dinner is served. Once you learn the basics, I can guarantee you will never be swayed by an "Italian" restaurant chain commercial again.

With technique and confidence, my sauce skills are improving. I’ve come out on the winning side (most of the time) for my Cacio e Pepe and Amatriciana. Doing something difficult and making it look easy, is not so easy. It’s a true art. And this, I realize, is the most important lesson of all. To cook as they do in Rome — a place where they know the best recipe is no recipe at all — the only secret ingredient you really need is a pinch of your own sprezzatura. Even when you are not in Rome, do as the Romans do. Buona Fortuna!