The New York Times
By Amanda Hesser
January 27, 2002 

...After her first trip out of the country the year before, my grandmother 
said there was one more place she would like to go: Rome. 

For more than a decade, she had been the host at a fancy Italian-
American restaurant in Pennsylvania. This was her chance to see, and 
taste, the real thing. My mother, my sister, Rhonda, and I had planned 
carefully, arranging a trip that was a mix of Roman ruins, the food market,
churches and street life. I was in charge of making sure we ate well. 

...I plotted a good trattoria each day for lunch. We decided, that lunch 
should be our big meal and that trattorias would be, the most 
accommodating. It was an easy compromise. In most of Italy, and Rome 
in particular, that's where the best food is. 

Our first night, my mother, grandmother and I went to a restaurant called 
Perilli, in Testaccio, a neighborhood known for its butchers and for its 
restaurants, which serve classic Roman dishes like pajata (calves' 
intestines on pasta), involtini (stuffed rolled veal) and rabbit cacciatore. 

We arrived at 8, just as the restaurant was opening, and were immediately 
pegged as tourists. I stumbled through the menu, translating as best I 
could and distinguishing between the classic and new dishes. My mother 
pinched her face at the various offerings of liver, tripe and pork jowl and 
ordered penne all'arrabbiata, which has a simple, spicy tomato sauce. My 
grandmother, to my delight, ordered rigatoni con sugo di coda, or rigatoni 
with oxtail sauce. 

''What would you like after?'' the waiter asked us. I explained to everyone 
that in Rome, people usually begin with pasta and then have meat or fish 
as a main course."Oh, no, that will be plenty,'' my grandmother said. ''Do
they have salad?'' my mother asked. The waiter pressed his lips together. 

My grandmother nibbled her pasta as she always eats, nimbly, in small 
bites, with her eyes on her plate and her arms held closely, like a mouse, 
until there wasn't a speck of sauce left in the bowl. Then she lamented 
that there wasn't more meat in the sauce. The rigatoni had been coated
in a rich, velvety jus with a single oxtail nestled among the noodles. 

''They serve it that way,'' I said rather stiffly, ''because that kind of 
dish was something poor people ate.You only got a single oxtail, because meat 
was scarce. The pasta helped make a meal out of it.'' She shrugged. 

Things didn't improve much. Every morning at our hotel's pleasant but 
standard buffet breakfast, she would feast, and no gentle nudging would 
stop her. She might have a piece of lemon crostada or cereal, then move 
on to a plate of cured meats. There were good, crisp rosetta rolls, and
she ate them too. 

By the time we reached our lunch destination, she was barely hungry. 
She would order soup, or a pasta, or perhaps a salad, a dish Romans 
consider no more than an accessory to the main course. As much as 
I tried to persuade her, she never dined in courses. And yet, even when 
she said she wasn't all that hungry, she would clean her plate. 

It is not that I wanted her to gorge herself like a goose destined for foie 
gras, but I felt she was missing the chance to understand how another 
culture eats. She would go home thinking Italians eat just the same as 
we pretend they do here. 

My grandmother did, however, choose well from menus. And so after a 
deliriously good meal of braised oxtails for me, and rabbit cacciatore 
(braised, with a simple sauce of vinegar, cooking juices and rosemary) 
for her, I tried once more to explain how Italians dine. 

''I wouldn't be able to finish it all,'' she said, after I made my case. 

''You don't have to,'' I said. ''It's more about the variety and rhythm of 
the meal.'' 

''Well, I just wasn't raised that way.'' 

''I know,'' I said, ''but it's the difference between eating for sustenance and 
dining. People eat in restaurants because they have money to pay 
someone to make and serve their meals. So the food is not so scarce 
or precious. You should taste everything you want to taste...'' 

...it occurred to me that if my grandmother couldn't appreciate dining, 
then she probably had no sense of what I did for a living or what my life 
was like. 

''When I was young,'' she said firmly, ''Pop and I, on our way to the market, 
would stop at the bar. If you bought a beer, you'd get a free sandwich. So 
he'd go in, order a beer and eat his sandwich. Then he'd order another 
beer and bring the sandwich out to me. That was lunch and that was 
dining out.'' 

My mother leapt in to mend the situation. ''It's all right, Judy,'' my 
grandmother said to her, ''she's young yet. She's got a lot to learn.'' 
I thought I might self-combust.

O.K., I thought, she had found a way to live that made her happy. 
But now I decided to pursue my own way. 

And so, I ordered braised lamb and roasted porcini. I devoured Roman 
artichokes (braised with pennyroyal) and leggy puntarelle, a chicory 
served with a garlicky anchovy dressing. I savored stracciatella, the 
egg-drop soup, which, as the name suggests, looks like ''rags,'' and 
bucatini all'amatriciana, a spaghetti-like pasta served with guanciale, 
tomato, cheese and onion. I drank wine at lunch and ate dessert alone. 
I loved Rome more than ever, and I wanted to swallow it up with me.