and after a few feet we found ourselves at the back of the restaurant, in a small and dark backyard. Just at this moment an assistant inside yanked the door open. The man dragged a hatchless trash bin towards some other bins, which had already formed a group close to the yard wall.
»Leftovers!« Antonio said when we were by ourselves again. »The people ate what the cardinals left over. This is how the Roman cuisine emerged, from leftovers. Pagliata , coratella , trippa , all entrails. You can still find them on the menu of every Roman trattoria. Still it’s not just poor man’s food, it’s more like reduced food with traditional ingredients and without nick-nack.«
He no ticed how I frowned in my mind.
»Don’t worry, this is not trash, it’s so fresh it can’t get any fresher. The fine people who eat here are so supersaturated that they leave half of their dishes behind. So the good stuff ends up in the trash. This happens in all fine restaurants.«
Well, in that case ... We lunged at the unwanted like members of a prehistoric clan used to lunge at their foes. Our hind paws vaulted us right on top of the trash bins with their excessive tripes, half eaten and perfectly filleted fish, the lamb bowels consisting of heart, ris, milt and lungs. A side-glance was enough to make sure that Antonio had let gone of his noble table manners just like me and had transformed his snout into some kind of power shovel, which he used to plunge deeply into these paradisiacal dishes without hesitation. I didn’t work with less zeal. But while my tongue tried to celebrate this masterful wonder food, my greedy stomach unceasingly forced me to gulp it down at breakneck-speed. And to be quite honest, I didn’t even care who was going to win this battle. In short, I had never eaten this many delicacies in such a short time.
After about fifteen minutes our bellies had assumed the shape of bellows, which were bursting at the seams. Full and jaded, we sat down next to the trash bins, sucked on one or two bones and let our eyes wander about the by now star-strewn sky. In front of us the dark alley stretched like a never-ending tube with some bypassing people who from the distance looked like a pattern of dark and light to us. Soft Latin guitar sounds mixed with the clinking of glasses. Antonio burped happily. And as this stated my current condition just perfectly, I burped back.
»You saved me from starving, Antonio«, I said. »For that I will feel obliged till the end of my days. I just wonder why the fellows at Largo Argentino don’t take a similar approach and line up in the fine restaurants’ backyards.«
»Why, why – because they’re stupid! Although they live in a mega city where the word »food« is sort of a bad word considering its refinement, they have no freaking clue of where to find these treasures. They follow their conservative instinct of territorial persistence, stay at the ruin site and wait for charity.«
»Which is quite less than one can say for you.«
»Too right. Rome is my pleasure garden. There isn’t a spot I wouldn’t know, not a secret kept from me, and not a single delicacy, which I haven’t tried. I’m a wanderer and il cronista di Roma , I’m the whiskered Marcello Mastroianni. I am Rome! And you, Francis, you investigative tourist, I will take you by the paw and let you in on the sweet and bitter aspects of my beloved city.«
The tapered black face seemed euphoric, and the green eyes beamed as if they were two lights that were supplied with more power than they needed. Indeed, Antonio apparently was a stroke of luck to me because in this moloch I couldn’t have asked for a better guide. Especially as I had, without words and out of pure self-respect, promised to reveal this murder mystery, and therefore depended on a Rome insider.
Meanwhile I believed that there was a deep sad gulf between Antonio’s laud on his city and what I thought to be the circumstances in his biography. As it had
»Leftovers!« Antonio said when we were by ourselves again. »The people ate what the cardinals left over. This is how the Roman cuisine emerged, from leftovers. Pagliata , coratella , trippa , all entrails. You can still find them on the menu of every Roman trattoria. Still it’s not just poor man’s food, it’s more like reduced food with traditional ingredients and without nick-nack.«
He no ticed how I frowned in my mind.
»Don’t worry, this is not trash, it’s so fresh it can’t get any fresher. The fine people who eat here are so supersaturated that they leave half of their dishes behind. So the good stuff ends up in the trash. This happens in all fine restaurants.«
Well, in that case ... We lunged at the unwanted like members of a prehistoric clan used to lunge at their foes. Our hind paws vaulted us right on top of the trash bins with their excessive tripes, half eaten and perfectly filleted fish, the lamb bowels consisting of heart, ris, milt and lungs. A side-glance was enough to make sure that Antonio had let gone of his noble table manners just like me and had transformed his snout into some kind of power shovel, which he used to plunge deeply into these paradisiacal dishes without hesitation. I didn’t work with less zeal. But while my tongue tried to celebrate this masterful wonder food, my greedy stomach unceasingly forced me to gulp it down at breakneck-speed. And to be quite honest, I didn’t even care who was going to win this battle. In short, I had never eaten this many delicacies in such a short time.
After about fifteen minutes our bellies had assumed the shape of bellows, which were bursting at the seams. Full and jaded, we sat down next to the trash bins, sucked on one or two bones and let our eyes wander about the by now star-strewn sky. In front of us the dark alley stretched like a never-ending tube with some bypassing people who from the distance looked like a pattern of dark and light to us. Soft Latin guitar sounds mixed with the clinking of glasses. Antonio burped happily. And as this stated my current condition just perfectly, I burped back.
»You saved me from starving, Antonio«, I said. »For that I will feel obliged till the end of my days. I just wonder why the fellows at Largo Argentino don’t take a similar approach and line up in the fine restaurants’ backyards.«
»Why, why – because they’re stupid! Although they live in a mega city where the word »food« is sort of a bad word considering its refinement, they have no freaking clue of where to find these treasures. They follow their conservative instinct of territorial persistence, stay at the ruin site and wait for charity.«
»Which is quite less than one can say for you.«
»Too right. Rome is my pleasure garden. There isn’t a spot I wouldn’t know, not a secret kept from me, and not a single delicacy, which I haven’t tried. I’m a wanderer and il cronista di Roma , I’m the whiskered Marcello Mastroianni. I am Rome! And you, Francis, you investigative tourist, I will take you by the paw and let you in on the sweet and bitter aspects of my beloved city.«
The tapered black face seemed euphoric, and the green eyes beamed as if they were two lights that were supplied with more power than they needed. Indeed, Antonio apparently was a stroke of luck to me because in this moloch I couldn’t have asked for a better guide. Especially as I had, without words and out of pure self-respect, promised to reveal this murder mystery, and therefore depended on a Rome insider.
Meanwhile I believed that there was a deep sad gulf between Antonio’s laud on his city and what I thought to be the circumstances in his biography. As it had
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