ITALY: DEEP-FRIED ARTICHOKES

 

Homemade Carciofi alla Giudia

Artichokes has always been one of my favorite foods, even when I was a little girl. Before coming to Italy, I would steam them, and then dip their leaves in butter. I still like eating them this way. But, in Italy, I discovered Carciofi alla giudia (translation: Jewish artichokes). This deep-fried artichoke dish originated hundreds of years ago in the Jewish community in Rome. They are crunchy, salty, and warm and I now never go to a Roman restaurant without ordering this dish. My husband also made carciofi alla giudia at home a couple of times. The ones he made, above, were as good as any I've tried in restaurants. But there's a certain type of Italian artichoke that is used for this dish called cimaroli, or violets, which are tender and without thorns. 

Below is a picture of my daughter, Julia, eating carciofi alla giudia, one of her favorite dishes, too, at a restaurant in Modena called Osteria Romana.  This was the last time she was in Modena before the lockdowns. 

Julia eating Carciofi alla Giudia at our favorite Roman restaurant in Modena

A book by an Italian author to go with Carciofi alla Giudia:

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

"Giovanna's pretty face has changed: it's turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovanna's search takes her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other. But neither city seems to offer her any answers. This powerful new novel set in divided Naples is a sinuglar portrait of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood." 

"Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist and the author of The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and the four novels known as the Neapolitan Quartet (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child). Ferrante is also the author of Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey, a children's picture book, The Beach at Night, and a collection of personal essays entitled: Incidental Inventions.