Every now and then a weird little synchronicity emerges.
I’ve been thinking about Armando, pasta alla gricia, and Rome in general lately. Not just because of your post, Joe, but because my wife and I like to travel to Rome this time of year - our wedding anniversary - and unfortunately have had to put it off until next Fall. I was also wondering about our advice to you, whether these simple little variations on simple, age-old dishes would be interesting to anyone but the most obsessive, and quite possibly even boring to many. I very nearly posted a list of the piatti canonici - basically, “Roman daily specials” - and though I still think it’s a worthy way of experiencing the best of culinary Rome, I wonder how many people would seek out riso e indivia in brodo on Mondays, pasta e ceci on Tuesdays, etc. And then I thought, its’ not really necessary as by and large the menus at the classic spots still basically conform to the canon.
So it was refreshing to read Frank Bruni’s column in today’s Times. He’s now on the Op-Ed page, so there’s (gasp) “politics”. But I read it more as a cultural piece:
ROME — I consider myself an adventurer, especially on the culinary front. I have consumed livers, kidneys and brains. I have eaten an Amazonian herb that numbs your tongue, which sort of nullifies the point of eating, and I have tried shrimp that were still alive — still wriggling — until the downward chomp of my incisors.
But on a recent visit here, I had pasta alla gricia on the first night, then pasta alla gricia on the second night, then pasta alla gricia on the third and fourth. There’s only one possible explanation, which is of course [politics]
Before I elaborate on that, I should explain pasta alla gricia. It doesn’t enjoy the fame outside of Italy that it deserves. It’s essentially pasta alla carbonara minus the egg: less gooeyness, less guilt. “Lighter than carbonara” is how I often describe it, although [politics]
It can be made with bucatini. It can be made with rigatoni. It could probably be made with shoelaces and still be worth ordering. It’s proof, like many Italian delicacies, that the communion of fat (it’s studded with crispy bits of pork cheek) and salt (it’s deluged with pecorino cheese) is the most reliable ticket to heaven. And it was one of my go-to dishes when I lived here many years ago.
But four dinners in a row? That was unheard-of. It made me realize how much I relish constancy now. And it got me to thinking about how underrated sameness is.
Over the past 25 years, Italy has changed prime ministers 13 times. It has swung this way and that. At this point it’s more or less dangling … There’s no clear national purpose, no steady national trajectory, no sturdy sense of control. Italians wait, somewhat helplessly, to see what happens next.
But their rituals, their families and their food — these are governable and protectable across time. They’re the engines of stability. They’re the agents of solace. Italians cling to them more fiercely, and with greater pride, than we Americans embrace our kin and our ways.
I used to view this with a mixture of admiration and ridicule. When I lived in Rome, I often groused about how many restaurants had almost identical menus and how inviolable the rules and rhythm of Italian meals could be. Cappuccino at breakfast but never after dinner. Beer with pizza but not with pasta.
On return trips to the Eternal City, I occasionally rolled my eyes at the changelessness of it all. Here a carbonara, there a gricia, everywhere a cacio e pepe. Italians, I decided, wanted for imagination. They lacked daring.
Maybe so. But this time around I felt only respect and gratitude for what they do have: the discernment to recognize a sweet spot — or rather, a fatty, salty one — when they find it and the wisdom not to abandon it on the unsupported chance that there’s better around the bend.