Pasta

One of my favourite places in the world to visit is Rome. I go there often at Christmas, I love it in the spring, and I once lived the year round in this ever-changing, always delightful city. The Romans differ from the other citizens of Italy - and from other Mediterraneans - in that they are quicker-tempered, more colourful, and more interested in the passing pleasures and problems of the moment. To mingle with them in their noisy, crowded streets, eat with them in the tiny trattorie and bottiglieri they call their own, live with them for any period of time, know them and love them, is one of life’s purest pleasures. And much like the Romani themselves is the food they eat. Each market place and each restaurant presents a masterpiece of brilliantly coloured raw materials worthy of an Old Master ... platters of rosy-fleshed prosciutto, the specially cured raw ham of Parma, served in the sun with purple figs or the golden warmth of ripe melon; fat, pink scampi and deeper-toned salame from Milan, Genoa and Bologna, in marbled rose and white; butter-yellow cheeses; baskets of scarlet plum tomatoes and glossy aubergines; and the creamy white pasta - the very symbol of the versatility of Italian food - displayed in every length and thickness, in ribbons and coils and shapes and shells of all sizes. And every shape and size-even though it is made of the same basic dough - seems to have a different flavour. To my mind there are few experiences more rewarding in the world than sitting down to a plate piled high with steaming pasta, bathed in a richly red tomato sauce, the whole topped by a freshly grated mound of flavourful Parmesan.