continue… is the fact, unique in the history of cooking, that the Roman Jews can boast that the origin of every single dish in traditional Roman cuisine is theirs. Yes, my friends, the Roman cooking of international fame, is Jewish cooking, and what cooking! The fried cod fish filets, fried brains and artichokes, anchovies with endive, dried beef, and finally the magnificent Jewish artichokes! A very flavorful and simple cuisine, and fortunately, totally unlike the equally famous Askenazi specialties of northern Europe. I still recall with horror the ghefilte fish I ate in Paris around the time of Rosh Hashanah and subsequently digested in Rome, just before Hanukkah (anyone who can, or wants to understand, will).
Those who enjoy visiting the temples (and here the term is particularly apt) of good food, places where one can still enjoy ancient tastes in their original contexts, should take the next plane to Rome and tell the taxi driver at the airport to take them to the ghetto. There, they will find perhaps the only place left in the western world where one can still enjoy a unique social, cultural and ethnic atmosphere. The tiny shops of the Roman Jews, with their doors open to the street and the aromas of this centuries-old cuisine, the result of a small community which gave to Rome, the "cradle of civilization", a traditional cuisine for which it can justifiably boast. Shalom.

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