9

the people who had the job of skinning animals (the hides went
to riverside tanneries) and splitting carcasses into sides. They
either took the stuff home to their wives or to neighbourhood
eateries, where the cooks were expected to turn it into something
tasty. And this they did with remarkable inventiveness.
From her stall at the slaughterhouse gates, a certain
Oberdana, nicknamed the Queen of the Fifth Quarter and now
part of Testaccio folklore, cooked and sold padellotto, mixed
calf’s offal – heart, liver, sweetbreads, spleen, kidneys, intestines

• chopped and sautéed in white wine. Just a minute’s walk away,
  an osteria served all sorts of variations on the offal theme – and
  still does. The place is now a restaurant,
  Checchino dal 1887, established in that
  year by Lorenzo and Clorinda Mariani, the
  great-great-grandparents of the present owners.
  It started life as a simple wine shop – its cellars
  are hewn out of the rock beneath Monte
  Testaccio itself – but a kitchen was added
  in 1887 to cater for the new trade from the
  men building the slaughterhouse, and, three
  years later, from the workers bringing their
  offal. It was here that many of the definitive
  dishes of quinto quarto cooking were
  elaborated upon, maybe even invented.
  The upshot is that offal is a key ingredient
  of Roman cooking today. Arguably the most
  popular dish of all is coda alla vaccinara,
  oxtail butcher’s style, in which jointed oxtail
  is braised in white wine and tomatoes for
  hours until the meat falls away from the
  bone and the sauce is deliciously unctuous.
  A fundamental ingredient is celery of
  the campagna romana, the fertile Roman
  countryside, added in the final stages of
  cooking to take the edge off the richness. To
  give the dish extra lusciousness and colour, in
  some venues – like Agustarello, a Testaccio
  trattoria not far from the Tiber – they enhance
  it with pine nuts, raisins and grated chocolate,
  though such ingredients would have been well
  beyond the reach of locals in the old days.

The sauce is often served separately with pasta, and the

Osteria del Velodromo Vecchio, in the north-east Tuscolano

quarter, does a brilliant version with gnocchi. Other kitchens

have created new twists on the original recipe, hence dishes

such as ravioli stuffed with coda, terrine of coda and lasagne

with coda meatballs.

If coda alla vaccinara is approachable for any palate,

pajata is not for the squeamish,and requires some anatomical

explanation. The word is the Roman dialect name for the

abomasum, the fourth compartment of the stomach of a calf,

lamb or kid. Cut into strips and tied at the ends to retain the

chyme, the partly digested milk, it can be simply grilled – but

it’s more commonly stewed with tomato, chilli and white wine

to make a creamy ragù, usually served with rigatoni.

Other quinto quarto favourites include trippa alla Romana,

tripe cooked with tomato, pecorino and mentuccia, or pennyroyal

(a sort of wild mint); cotiche con i fagioli, a soup of pork rind and

beans; and coratella con i carciofi, finely chopped lamb’s heart,

lungs and liver stewed in wine and served with globe artichokes.

Fried slices of bull’s testicles, sweetbreads, again with artichokes,

and grilled or fried spleen, are also great delicacies.

These may be dishes born of necessity, but thanks to

the ingeniousness of the intrepid cooks and housewives of

19th-century Testaccio, they exude flavours that verge on the

luxurious. They obviously won’t chime with those

who share the contemporary revulsion towards offal,

but they do have a tale to tell and, self-confident and

unsentimental as they are, capture the Roman

character to perfection.

For the record, the old slaughterhouse was

closed in 1975 after almost a century of sterling

service, and its splendidly refurbished structure now

houses a branch of MACRO, the Museo d’Arte

Contemporanea Roma. Another reason to leave the

well-beaten tourist track and pay a visit to Testaccio.●

TOP 5 PLACES

IN ROME FOR

QUINTO QUARTO

COOKING

AGUSTARELLO

Trattoria

Via Giovanni Branca,

100, Testaccio,

+39 06 574 6585

ARMANDO AL PANTHEON

Modern-style osteria

Salita dei Crescenzi, 31,

Centre, +39 06 6880 3034

CHECCHINO DAL 1887

Restaurant

Via di Monte Testaccio, 30,

Testaccio, +39 06 574 3816

DA CESARE

Osteria

Via del Casaletto, 45,

Casaletto, +39 06 536 015

OSTERIA DEL VELODROMO

VECCHIO

Modern-style osteria

Via Genzano, 139/141,

Tuscolano, +39 06 788 6793

Central Italy

GOURMET TRAVELLER 111