Table of Contents

Chapter 1
The Roman Terrarium
Chapter 2
Quid Tum—Then What?
Chapter 3
Cooking from Books
Chapter 4
Mobility: The Ins and Outs
Chapter 5
Al Mercato—At the Marketplace
Chapter 6
Er da Magna'—Food: The Cucina Romanesca
Chapter 7
Eating and Drinking Out

About the Author

Karima Moyer-Nocchi was born and raised in the US, immigrating to the Italy in 1990. She is a professor at the University of Siena in the Modern Languages department and lectures in Food Studies at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata and the University of Oklahoma, Arezzo. Her first book, Chewing the Fat – An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita, an exposé about the mythologies regarding Italian food traditions was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. In the works is a cookbook of “assimilation cuisine,” exploring her personal culinary experiences as a permanent immigrant resident in Italy. She  currently resides in Umbria.
Giancarlo Rolandi is a native Roman, Vice President of Slow Food Rome, and lectures in culinary history at the University of Rome. He is the director of the award-winning film Così mangiavano, and author of Hostaria cinema.

Reviews

Only a handful of cities worldwide can lay claim to a food tradition as long as Rome’s. Yet as Karima Moyer elegantly demonstrates, while the table may have been near-eternal, the vagaries of politics and war, religious belief and migration brought one change after another to the food on that table. Like the city itself, the food is a patchwork that combines the startlingly new with pasts both gladly abandoned and fondly remembered. Fascinating.
*Rachel Laudan, author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History*

Taking the stance that writing on Rome is often “prey to sentiment and idealization,” the author adopts a studied approach, including thorough chapters on the area’s terrain, historic marketplaces and osterias, and the development of foodstuffs and eating traditions alongside the rise and fall of the Empire. . . . Rome enthusiasts will revel in this well-researched retrospective of a dynamic, ever-evolving city.”
*Publishers Weekly*

While everyone knows that Rome’s food is appealing, few know just how interesting it is - but now they can. Karima Moyer-Nocchi’s tour de force places Roman cuisine firmly in the city’s complex history. She shows that change as much as tradition underlies Roman food, and that immigrants as much as natives have shaped what has been eaten by the humble and the grand alike. A must-read for those interested in the food of Italy and the history of food generally.
*Andrew McGowan, Dean of the Berkley Divinity School, Yale University, author of Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals*