Rome is the capital of Italy and of the region. The Lazio region is rich with dishes famous and known all over the world. The great number of visitors that have been coming to the “Eternal City”, since Rome was founded, have made the cooked specialties of the area very popular and well-liked and a list of dishes made in Rome and the province, will follow. Porchetta, spit-roasted suckling pig, well spiced and cooked whole, once prepared only in the summer and now available all year around. Abbacchio  baby lamb cooked in various manners, always fragrant with rosemary, the most popular spice in the region. The baby lamb chops made scottadito, meaning that burns finger, are cooked in a hot-plate and turned with the fingers that occasionally get burnt.

Pollo  arrosto  o alla  diavola  is chicken cut in half cooked on the barbeque or grilled, usually topped with hot bricks, almost incandescent, and served topped with a sauce of lemon and abundant freshly ground black peppers. Gnocchi alla Romana are on all Roman tables every Thursday a tradition that goes back a long time. The dumplings, Roman style are made with boiled flour, cheese and eggs, they are shaped with ridges with the help of a fork. Then the gnocchi  are baked with plenty of butter and cheese until they are light golden in color.

If Thursday is gnocchi, Saturday is Trippa alla Romana, tripe cooked in a thick tomato sauce made with garlic and guanciale, cured hog’s jowls, odorous with mint and served with pecorino cheese. Coda  alla  Vaccinara  is oxtail in wine-tomato sauce; local grown delicacies are the cauliflower Romanesco, globe-shaped artichokes Romaneschi, the mushroom porcini, abundant in the countryside. Other celebrated dishes you can taste in Rome are the Saltimbocca,  Fettuccine Alfredo, noodles in butter sauce, the rigatoni  con  Pagliata, which is pasta with the interior of baby veal, the stuffed tomato with rice and cheese, and the very Roman Pasta  con  Ceci, elbow macaroni with chickpeas, rosemary, garlic and crushed fillets of anchovies, also made in Rome are the artichokes Judea style.

The region produces and exports Pecorino  Romano  cheese also soft and delicate cheeses are made: the caciotta  and the caciocavallo  are produced in large quantity.
A dessert famous in Rome is the maritozzo  a small shaped light yeast bread bun made with flour, butter, eggs little sugar and raisins, pine nuts, diced candied citron. Originally made for Lent, they are now mostly served for breakfast in Lazio and all over Italy. Zuppa  Inglese, pies, crostata, with fruits, and bigne’, cream puffs plain or with cream.

Most wines produced in this province are white. The Frascati  Wine” is a light wine that goes well with most Roman dishes. Similar wines, drier and of higher alcohol content are the Castelli Romani Wines and Colli  Albani  Wines. Cannellino is a low alcohol wine, sweet and lightly sparkling. Usually, a dinner is completed with Sambuca Romana con la mosca, an anisette drink with a bean of coffee (la mosca -the fly) in the glass.