Dreaming of Roman Artichokes

It's late at night, well for me anyway, since I'm in the throes of Sicilian jetlag. I'm still awake, not because I'm determined to resist the waves of fatigue and to plow on into the night, like my travel buddy/ricotta chomping counterpart, who has adopted the "devil may care" attitude of a well worn traveler, but because I'm surfing the Chowhound board. Now, if you actually know me personally (and that's for all two of you who still visit my blog regularly), there's no chance in the inferno that you would not know about this site. For those still in the dark: Chowhound.com is the mostly informative, often piquant webblog where self proclaimed foodies go to rant, pay respects, and reap nuggets of gourmet wisdom in the form of reviews of restaurants from around the globe.

I used the blog to research where to eat while we were in Italy. We had two days in Rome and I arrived with a fifteen page stack of selected trattoria/ristorante/enoteca/gelateria/caffe reviews of the city's culinary gems, many of which promised only the most incredible of the edible, e.g. "the holy grail of espresso at Tasso d'Oro in front of the pantheon," or "don't die before having gelato from san crispino near the Trevi fountain." (I never did get to suck that gelato from the cone, but that's another story involving a Bernini fountain under renovation, and 20 near identical gelaterias off the central square with somewhat sketchy scoopers.) I found that in preparing for the trip, I tended to skip over the sections in the Lonely Planet that had anything to do with "Sights," "Shopping," "Transportation," "Hotels," or "History" and cut straight to the restaurants. During the course of my "research" I discovered many foodblogs devoted to all the chow of Italy. In Italy, I realized that several of these blogs were horribly out of date--most surprisingly of all, that of the supposed Holy Grail of Italian American food himself, Mario Batali, who pointed us to several horrid tourist traps--but in the process, I got a handle on some of the lingo, including regional specialties. I learned about Italian truffles from the Piemonte region, which are only in season in September and are sniffed out by trained pigs. There are big festivals devoted to these jaunts, catering mostly to the wealthy tourists who come to take a lap around the old pigsfield. Black ones are expensive, but even more rare and sought after is the tartufo bianco, the white diamond of funghi, which cost several hundred Euros an ounce.

But I am falling out of step with our season even now--when we went to Italy, I had the great fortune of it being my most preferred season: early March, a time when Italy is green, tender baby lambs leap onto your plates fully roasted, and most importantly, there are the carciofi da pinzamonio, artichokes so tender that you can eat them completely raw. Rome is a famous center for these artichokes and when we were there, I ate them every day. My favorite was "Jewish artichokes" i.e. carciofi alla guidecca, where the chokes are fried in a light batter and you eat the whole thing, leaves and all, while it is still piping hot. There were also steamed artichokes, artichokes marinated in fresh olive oil and garlic, artichokes stuffed with ricotta cheese, artichokes served in mouthwatering insalatas of potatoes, red peppers and fresh anchovies with a rich coating of olive oil.

Maybe it's because I've vowed to turn up the dieting a notch since I got back from our two week binge and so I'm just extra hungry, but I've been on Chowhound for the last two hours revisiting our meals through old posts that I've already read and printed out and carried around Rome, and kicking myself for all the delicacies I missed. For example, despite the clammerings of my noble partner, I did not make a picnic of Salami and fresh cheeses and eat it in the park of the Borghese gallery. I did not eat the porchetta, a whole roast pig with garlic and herbs, or the offale, lamb, cow, and pig guts, that I had promised myself I would be adventurous enough to at least chew on. This lament is all just a ruse though. Mostly, I am mourning the loss of the most amazing meal that I have ever eaten, which was at Il Duomo in Ragusa. I realize now that this blog has all been a preamble to description of what might possibly be the most scrumptious repast of my life, but now it really is too late to start writing about it. Luckily, I have photos that document the gloriousness of it, and I can only pray that perception of them will inspire memory, if ever so faint, in my tastebuds. More to come. . .