Lazio - a new Italy with an old tradition

In Rome and Lazio, the food is served in taverns with robust flavors. In the traditional Lazio cuisine, every ingredient, vegetable, meat, can be mixed up and create new receipts. Today, popular cuisine is experiencing a revival, becoming refined in the process, despite its country roots and reputation for hearty food.

Bruscheta has its roots here in Lazio, a slice of toasted bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil. As per the Italian pasta, the best known regional recipe is bucatini all'amatriciana. Bucatini, a type of thick hollow spaghetti, is served with a sauce of bacon, tomatoes, chilli and white wine, and pecorino romano cheese. Another famous dish is gnocchi alla romana, which tradition dictates should be eaten on Thursdays, although the explanation for this is unknown. Do not forget the spaghetti alla carbonara: spaghetti served in a sauce of raw eggs, bacon, pepper and pecorino cheese.

But they have also strong meat dishes served with vegetables like abbacchio (based on lamb and mixed up with pan fried with garlic, rosemary, anchovies, chilli and white wine. The pork is cooked in may ways with vegetables, but the most impressive is porchetta, pig flavored with wild fennel and fatty bacon, liver and heart. Beef dishes include coda alla vaccinara, cooked in a rich ragù and flavored with celery, sultanas, pine nuts and dark chocolate and the list of Italian meat plates can continue with trippa alla trasteverina, tripe stewed in an earthenware dish with lardons, and saltimbocca alla romana, slices of veal
rolled up with a slice of ham and flavored with sage leaves, cooked in butter and served piping hot.

Mammola is a famous vegetable dish of Lazio, as well as carciofi alla giudia, a dish whose Jewish origin is evident in its name. It is based on artichokes stewed in abundant olive oil. Lazio is also home to extremely tasty cheeses, such as pecorino and ricotta. Ricotta is also used in some of the region's traditional cakes such as the crostata di ricotta (ricotta tart), made with short crust pastry and a mix of ricotta, sugar, eggs, orange zest, sultanas, candied citron peel and cinnamon. There are also frappe, which are special sweets for carnival time, fried in oil. Another favourite are maritozzi, sweet rolls containing raisins, pine nuts and candied peel.

And if you are passionated for the Italian wines, you should try The Castelli Romani wine trail which passes through renown places like: Frascati, Albano, Velletri and Castelgandolfo.The most famous wines of Lazio are starting with the dry white Frascati and continue with Marino, Colli Albani and Colli Lanuvini. Other areas famous for their wine production are Viterbo and Frosinone. Montefascone, near lake Bolsena, is the city of origin of the white wine Est.