Rome is full of characteristic, proud, and distinct neighborhoods. One of the oldest is Testaccio, once the warehouse district of ancient Rome. It’s built around a literal mountain of ancient pottery shards. Like any neighborhood, it has a main piazza…a humble park…and street art — like this tip of the hat to Rome’s legendary founder, the she-wolf.

We’re joining a food tour, at the historic slaughterhouse, to get to know this neighborhood and its market.

Luca: Hello everybody, good morning and welcome to Testaccio Rome, my name is Luca and I’m going to be showing you around this beautiful neighborhood that is strongly connected to food and it goes back all the way to ancient Rome. This area is known in Rome as il cuore di Roma, which means “the heart of Rome.” So welcome to one of my favorite street markets in Rome, the Mercato di Testaccio. This place hosts more than 100 stalls. It is all about family businesses. When you come here, you get to know everybody and everybody gets to know your tastes…what you like, what you don’t like.

Look at all these colors! We have a vegetable stall that has been here since 1939. Ciao, Francesca, Buongiorno. And that’s Paola. Family business. Now we like to eat what’s in season, so let me show you a bit of things that are in season right now. Look, how beautiful is this? It’s called romanesco, the Roman cauliflower. This is like a work of art. What else we got? The zucchini flowers. You know, the Roman zucchini. It’s basically you take the flower and you stuff it with mozzarella, anchovies, and it’s battered and deep fried. I’m going to show you the king of Roman vegetables over there. The carciofo, the artichoke. And this is as Roman as it gets. Over here we have lots and lots of tomatoes. Pomodori, as we say in Italian. And, you have different shapes, different colors. We’re going to get some tomatoes. Paolo’s chopping them up, and we’re going to make some nice bruschetta.

So this is a store run by Sara. Ciao, Sara. Buongiorno. She is going to dress it with some olive oil. She already toasted the bread for us. We’re going to rub some garlic on it. This is very healthy. It also keeps vampires away. Yes. Yeah. All right. And now the best part. Let’s make bruschetta. Brus…chetta. Not “brusshetta.” One of the simplest things. And one of the most tasty things you can possibly try. Oh, get the juice.
Rick: Oh, baby, look at that.
Luca: Now, with these same tomatoes, we’re going to make something else. We’re going to make a salad.

Luca: So, everybody, this is Enzo.
Rick: Enzo.
Luca: And Enzo is going to prepare the caprese salad. He’s already sliced up some buffalo mozzarella. Because the best type of caprese is made with buffalo mozzarella. When I say buffalo, before you cringe, it’s the water buffalo, which is a type of cow. Nothing wrong with regular mozzarella. It’s tasty. But this is better. Grazie, Enzo.
Rick: So essentially three or four ingredients.
Luca: Again, it’s all about simplicity. So you have to use very few ingredients, fresh and local.
Rick: Oh, I like it.
Luca: How do you feel about having some Roman street food? We’re going to have the best, the most popular. It’s a fried risotto ball. It’s called suppli, which kind of means “surprise” because you don’t know what’s in it. No. You know, I tell you… Ciao, Roberto, this is Roberto. He just make them. He make everything here. So what they do is they… First they make risotto, they cook the toasted rice directly to the sauce. They wrap it around fresh mozzarella. What you got right there in the heart. And then it’s rolled in breadcrumbs and it’s deep fried. Now right there you have the telephone cords and it’s a good sign. It means that it hasn’t been sitting out. It’s fresh. They just made it. That’s a long-distance call.
Rick: Wow. Delicioso.
Luca: And it’s when you’re really incredibly satisfied, you go, “Wow. Momma mia!”

Luca: All right. The next Roman delicacy we’re going to try is called porchetta. It’s something that’s spread across central Italy. But you want to eat it here. All right. I can see you’re salivating already. Ciao, Ludovica. Buongiorno. This is Ludovica. This is porchetta. This is the king. It’s deboned pork loin stuffed with herbs and spices, slowly roasted for eight hours. And it’s usually eaten as a sandwich. This is the most typical Roman sandwich. We’re going to have it with pizza bianca. Pizza bianca is basically flatbreads. The outside gets crispy in the last 20 minutes when they crank up the heat.
Rick: So it’s quite simple.
Luca: Very simple. But it still takes time. Pizza bianca and porchetta. When you bite the crackling, you totally feel it, yeah.
Rick: You got the…
Luca: The best part.
Rick: The pork skin crackling and the pizza bianco.
Luca: Pizza bianca.
Rick: Mmm. Delicioso.