Back briefly from Rome after an eventful trip for the new Nic Costa in Italian, here's a quick look at something that gets mangled and misrepresented all around the world: Roman food. For some reason people always want to take me to 'Italian' restaurants wherever I am in the world. Some are good. Some not so. Few are remotely authentic.

Why? Simple. Real Roman food isn't the fancy stuff that's sold as such elsewhere. The core of traditional Roman food is simplicity - very good ingredients, served with a minimum of fuss and extras. Here is a very good example: the classic lamb dish <em>abbacchio scottadito</em> accompanied by a very common <em>contorno,</em> stir fried chicory.

<em>Scottadito</em> literally means 'burns your fingers'. The idea is that the meat is so good you'll want to eat it with your fingers before it cools down. Usually you do too. All you have here is excellent Roman lamb cutlet seasoned and griller. Chicory, <em>cicoria,</em> is a common green vegetable stir fried with oil and seasonings - usually a little <em>peperoncino</em> pepper. The two make a fantastic combination and couldn't be less complicated. I've never seen them done properly outside Rome.

Here are the two together.

<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-619" title="abbacchio" src="http://www.davidhewson.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/abbacchio-1024x768.jpg" alt="abbacchio" width="480" height="362" />

This was lunch yesterday as I killed time waiting for the plane. I was in one of my favourite restaurants, Al Pompiere in the ghetto. The food is reliable, if unspectacular, and the ambience quiet and unhurried -- a lovely dining room. A touch overpriced these days which may explain the empty tables at lunchtime, but a very pleasant break from the hurly burly of Rome nevertheless.