When in Rome

I just can't get enough of Italy, so this weekend I find myself in the eternal city of Rome. I've only been here a few hours, and already I'm in love. Besides the beautiful people, beautiful buildings and beautiful language, within an hour of arriving I fortuitously stumbled upon a by-the-slice pizza joint with no less than three vegan pizza options. Three. I had to pinch myself as I stared at the blatantly meat and cheese-free deep pan specimens, sitting there in broad daylight in the window of an otherwise unremarkable hole-in-wall pizza place. Three, out of a total of eight pizza choices. Then it dawned on me that it is really only the American version of pizza that has a mandatory layer of cheese. I suddenly felt very yankified in my assumptions; and felt even more so when I went inside and asked the well-set woman with a beautiful smile behind the counter to confirm that the crust did not contain any butter . She tisked at me before rejoining 'no no, signora, we only use olive oil!' (I almost leant across the counter to kiss her - must be the effect of being in Rome).

I ordered a slice, paid 1 euro (I almost kissed her again) and said grazie at least thirty times before leaving. I stood outside and ate it straight from the paper it was served on. A thousand Fiat Puntos and mopeds whizzed by, every second one exercising the Italian driving motto 'have horn, and am not afraid to use it'. But I was in another world; no knife, no fork, no cheese, no meat, and no special orders required. The option I selected had a basic tomato sauce topped with an assortment of vegetables and herbs, but most distinctly, it had whole cherry tomatoes baked into the crust. They were baked right in there! And they were like tiny explosions of sunshine in every bite. The base had that familiar pizza greasiness to it, but it was olive oil greasy, not cheese greasy. A much more sophisticated pizza experience; especially when I did the unthinkable and licked every one of my fingers to wrap it up.

Besides feeling a touch of shame for not being better acquainted with real Italian sustenance (this is, after all, half my pedigree, and besides, I recently read that the Italians have the lowest per capita meat consumption in Europe - and one of the longest life expectancies, in spite of their insistence on smoking and teetering around on suicidal stilettos), my first food experience in Rome has left me flushed with excitement at the dining possibilities this city could hold for me. I just might be able to exercise an Italian motto of my own over the next few days:

When in Rome...