Vittorio Emanuele Market

I got up reasonably early for a Saturday, about 8:30, with the intention of heading to the Vittorio Emanuele market, which is on the other side of town a little past Termini, which is known for it's large selection of more foreign foods. I was in search of cilantro to make guacamole with the avocados we picked from the tree in front of Domenico's house down in Calabria. I decided to run there, it's about three and a half miles from my apartment, and bring my metro pass so I could hop on the train home. I haven't been for a run in quite some time, as my knees started to bother me in the fall when I was running very regularly, but they held up just fine.

I left my apartment and ran through the Borgo, down Via della Conciliazione (still can't pronounce that) with St. Peter's at my back, fighting the tourist traffic walking in the opposite direction. I reached the Tiber and decided not to go down and run along it as they banks have still not been cleaned from the flooding in December and it is a bit of a cesspool full of mosquitoes. I passed in front of Villa Farnesina, known for Raphael's Galatea and frescoed loggia, crossed the river at the Isola Tiberina, ran behind the Teatro di Marcello, up the backside of the Capitoline Hill, through Michelangelo's Piazza Campidoglio, down the other side and along Via Fori Imperiali toward the Colosseum. Just past the Colosseum I ran up the hill into the Parco Oppio, home to Nero's Domus Aurea (Golden House), which is still closed for restorations after almost a year. I came out of the park and ran along Via Mecenate (meaning Maecenas - the great patron of Horace and Virgil) through Largo Leopardi, where there are the remains of the Auditorium of Maecenas. A block after that I reached Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.

The market is not actually in the piazza, as it used to be, but is now in a building a block off the north-east corner of the piazza, down Via Lamaorama. I entered the market, which was especially busy as it was a Saturday morning and did a little loop to scope things out before I made any decisions about what to buy. If Rome has a Chinatown, it is the neighborhood around Piazza Vittorio. I saw a handful of stores on my way into the market with names in Italian and Chinese posted on the exterior and in the market many of the stalls were manned by Chinese. The range of produce is much wider than anywhere I have seen so far in Rome.

Meats ranged from the typical cuts of pork, beef and various poultry, but there were a few things I had not see before. One vendor was selling whole ducks alongside calf livers. Another sold every single part of a pig imaginable, and some that could ruin your appetite in a hurry, including pigs' feet and tripe. One place even had cows' brains, which I have actually eaten (unknowingly), deliciously fried at Piperno in the Jewish Ghetto. I didn't see any horse meat, which I have seen at the market in Testaccio.

Every vegetable and spice you could ever want was readily available. I found cilantro with no problem at all. I also saw sugar cane, Chinese grapefruits, pomegranates and a type of squash/zucchini-esque looking thing (ampalaya di bangla) I did not recognize and cannot find a translation for (the picture at the beginning), if anyone knows what it is let me know.

The part that struck me most about the market was the selection of fish. Aside from the typical Mediterranean fare, sea bass, sea bream, turbot, mackerel, sole, squid, octopus, mussels, clams etc, they had Chinese carp (still breathing), catfish, lampreys, trout, and strangest of all, conch still in their shells. I will have to find a recipe for conch fritters and give those a try, I'm open for suggestions on that one.

The market may be a little bit of a hassle to get to, although it is on my metro line, but the prices are substantially lower than markets closer to the center. This morning I bought a box of strawberries, which I ate for breakfast, a piece of bread, a large bundle of cilantro, 5 limes and a bag of whole chili peppers and walked away with change from 5 euros. For the strawberries I paid 1.57 euro for a box that would cost 3.50 in Campo de' Fiori or about 3.00 in the market close to my house.