Shopping in the Campo di Fiori

This is a Roman public market today, specifically, the Campo di Fiori.   This is Rome's "gourmet" market, a lot like the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and is priced accordingly.  But the quality of the foods offered are amazing.

Of course there's lots and lots of produce, including both local and imported items.  As a tourist, you'll pay the price on the card, which is higher than what Romans pay.  If you speak Italian, you can get a price in-between the tourist price and the "local" price. 

We were lucky enough to be there a the right time to get wild Alpine strawberries.  These tiny strawberries are amazing concentrations of strawberry flavor, like someone distilled down the bulky California strawberries we're used to over here.  They're very fragile, though, and available for only about a week every year.

It was also the season for puntarella, a curly salad vegetable related to celery.  The Romans eat a lot of salad, most of it "insalata mista", which is a mix of frisee, radiccio, chicory, oak leaf, dandelion greens, and various lettuces depending on the vendor and the mix.  Generally it has a lot more "bitter greens" than Americans are used to, though.

So, we made a salad, of course.  Yum!  And it justified the pasta to come later.

What do you do if you don't have any curly vegetable?  Make your own, of course!  This fellow was hawking his veggie-curl cutter like any county-fair huckster.

One vendor sold truly incredibly large peppers.  

I mean, wow!  Peppers as big as my head.

In addition to fresh tomatoes, dried tomatoes are a staple and not a luxury in Rome.  The loose dried tomatoes at only 2.10 an etto (100 grams) were easily as good as the best sun-dried tomatoes I can buy in San Francisco.  I cooked about half of them and ate the rest straight out of the bag.

Of course, it wouldn't be Rome without pasta!  Pasta secco (dried) in this case, including a variey of shapes I'd never seen before.  We bought a bag of pasta shaped like little chef's hats.

And, of course, you need to pick up some olive oil, and vinegar, and cheese!  We bought a big wedge of 2-year-old Grana Padano from the nonna (grandmother) at the cheese booth.  Wow, I'm sorry I couldn't bring it back with me.  Darn the Department of Agriculture!

OK, now I'm hungry again.  Time to make some pasta ...