December 2005
Rome '05
by Celia Cheng
Via del Monte dei Cenci 9
(Piazza delle Cinque Scole & Via Beatrice Cenci)
+39-06-6880-6629
To talk about Rome, or even the restaurants I ventured to there, is a little intimidating. Even though these are my personal experiences, I find it difficult to write about a place so rich in history, afraid that I might have the wrong facts or differ with others’ opinions. Alas, I can only be true to myself and humbly attempt to share with you my gastronomic Roman journey.
Situated in the Ghetto in the heart of the city, Piperno has been serving traditional Jewish-Italian fare since 1860. Our dinner consisted of every sort of fried food imaginable. Okay, I exaggerate, but it certainly felt like a big frying fest, starting with the signature carciofi alla giudia, a deep-fried artichoke (to be explained in detail in a second), to the fritto misto, including sweetbreads, artichoke, and salt cod, to our brilliant secondi of fried lamb’s brain. We did have two pastas in between the appetizers and the brain, which were wonderful too, but I really want to focus on the artichoke and brain, my two favorite dishes.
From Piperno’s logo (above) you can see that they are very proud of their specialty, carciofi alla guidia. From the early 20th century, they were the “home of the artichoke cooked the Jewish way.” A hundred years of expertise in mastering carciofi, now you can’t argue with that.
The carciofi alla giudia is beautiful. It is definitely intended to be savored visually as well as gastronomically. The Italian artichoke is graciously large and full headed. For the preparation of this dish, it is cleaned, and the hard inedible leaves removed. Then the artichoke is pressed into a beautiful large and flattened flower, something like a daisy but more imposing and elegant. After it’s flattened it’s soaked in water and lemon. This helps to soften its texture, and the lemon has an anti-oxidation effect so that the artichoke doesn’t turn black. Finally, it’s fried in oil at high temperature for approximately ten minutes, until it’s crispy on the outside and soft inside. It must be turned and fried evenly on both sides. The outcome is dauntingly large. I learned that when put in oil, it expands into an even larger flower. When I was served this famed dish, I was truly surprised at the enormous size of the deep-fried beauty — I had never seen or eaten an artichoke this large and gorgeous. Wow. I could really see and taste the achievement of the past hundred years’ of perfecting this dish.
Our final dish was cervello al burro, lamb’s brain cooked in butter. I’m sorry for those of you who don’t eat organs because you are really missing out on some amazing food experiences. Believe me, I was so stuffed at this point after two intense courses of deep-fried appetizers and two of pastas, but I simply could not stop eating this brain. The outside was crispy and the inside so tender, even softer than the sweedbread in the appetizer. It was an extremely rich dish to finish with, but I couldn’t resist the buttery taste. Unlike the fritto misto, which was cooked in a thick layer of batter, the brain had the thin texture of the crispy “skin” (I could hardly taste the egg, if it was used at all) and was almost grainy, perhaps from flour or a slight bit of breadcrumbs. Just delish!
Next time I go to Piperno I will try to even out the meal with a little less fried food, just to keep my cholesterol down. But as you know, that is always a struggle. Anything deep-fried seems to taste good, and especially when the restaurant is so good at preparing it. Just to drive it home one more time, they’ve been doing this for a long time.
