Roma Traditions ~ 1 Day Cooking

Chef Eugenio takes you into his kitchen for a 1-day whirlwind cooking class featuring traditional Romana cooking!

Your morning class starts at 10:00 AM with a welcome, and brief historical and cultural introduction to the traditions of the Italian Romana kitchen. Chef Eugenio hails Italy as the “the great kitchen”, as he ensues historical and social evolutions of food, followed by instructions and the preparation of a traditional Roman Menu.

As featured in December 2011 – Click here to read more!

Traditional Roma Cooking

Your traditional Roma cooking class includes the preparation of antipasto, a first course typically of pasta or risotto, and a second course of meat or fish based on the season. The menus vary season to season to ensure the use of the best seasonal products for your dishes.

Menu may include such traditional dishes as:

Bucatini All’ Amatriciana ~ Bucatini are a long pasta, similar to spaghetti, but with a hole that runs the lenth of each strand. This traditional dish is said to come from Amatrice, a small town in Lazio, and has a base of guanciale and tomato, topped with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe ~ Spaghetti served in a creamy white sauce of sheep’s milk, Pecorino cheese, and black pepper. This is one of the few Italian dishes that calls for black pepper in abundance!

Pollo Alla Diavola o Alla Romana ~ roasted chicken served ‘devil-style’ or Roman-style

Porchetta ~ Roman-style roasted pork tenderloin

Carciofi alla Romana o alla Giudea ~ Roman-style or Jewish-style artichokes

Lunch follows on the foods prepared in class, with dessert included.

One Day Cooking Class & Testaccio Market Visit

Join Executive Chef Eugenio Rossi in Rome for this exclusive hands-on cooking class in an authentic Roman-style kitchen. Chef Rossi knows food and cooking and shares his secrets with you. He leads his classes with passion and love. Your fun filled day starts off with an early morning visit to the colorful outside marketplace in Rome. Chef Rossi personally picks you up at your hotel for this exclusive visit. Visit rows of stands selling prized vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, and cheese. Upon leaving the market, Chef Rossi, brings you to the kitchen for a full course cooking class.

Chef Rossi takes you up close to the classical cuisine of the Eternal City. A talented and highly celebrated chef, he shares his knowledge, technique and history on the making antipasto, pasta, main dishes and more. Learn the tastes and traditions with Italy’s most colorful and acclaimed chef in the heart of Rome.

Testaccio Market

Rome’s fresh-produce markets are treasured reminders of a more traditional way of life. There’s generally a dazzling array of fresh fruit and vegetables, often meat and fish stalls, the usual delicatessen fare and sometimes stalls selling clothing, shoes or bric-a-brac.

The Testaccio market on Piazza Testaccio, is the most Roman of all the city’s markets. It is noted for its excellent quality and good prices. The Testaccio market is where the baby chicory shoots, broad beans, Roman artichokes, and arrugula are both fare for the Roman dinner table and good reason to socialize in the morning by touch and taste. The late actor Marcello Mastroianni’s cousin’s stand sells fresh fish, with Marcello’s face on the sign.

Itinerary

• Early morning pick up from your hotel. Your morning starts off with a one hour tour of Rome’s historic and colorful marketplace, Testaccio.
• Return to the restaurant for a hands-on cooking class.
• Demonstrative preparation of two “first dishes” and two “second dishes” requested by the clients. Everyone eats the recipes prepared in class together and toasts with a good glass of regional wine.

One Day Pasta Class

Join Executive Chef Eugenio Rossi in Rome for an exclusive hands-on cooking class in his authentic Roman-style kitchen making fresh pasta. Learn the tastes and traditions with Italy’s most colorful and acclaimed chef in the heart of Rome. Chef Rossi, a talented and highly celebrated chef, knows his food and cooking, and shares his secrets with you. He leads his classes with passion and love. He takes you up close to the classical cuisine of the Eternal City, while transforming dough into infinite shapes and forms of pasta before your eyes. Chef Rossi’s pasta class shows you how to mix, blend, knead, twist, and roll a variety of fresh pastas. Not only will you learn how to make it, but you will learn the history and technique on making true Italian pasta.

The morning class starts at 9:30 am with a welcome and introduction. There is a brief historical and cultural introduction on the traditions of the Italian Mediterranean kitchen. Chef Rossi hails Italy as the “the great kitchen”, as he ensues historical and social evolutions of food, followed by instructions and the preparation of hand-made “pasta all’uovo”.

History of Pasta

Pasta has been an Italian tradition for hundreds of years. To passionate Italians, pasta is poetry. They’re so devoted to their national dish, there’s even a pasta museum in Pontedassio, Italy, filled with antique pasta-making implements and dried specimens of pasta dating back 100 years.

Italiano, Marco Polo, has been given credit for introducing pasta to Italy. However, there’s evidence that the ancient Etruscans in Italy were eating pasta at least 1600 years before Marco Polo was born. Not to mention the Chinese, who were eating a noodles in 3000 BC. The Ancient Greeks and Romans had discovered the simple delights of pasta long before Marco Polo. In fact, Greek mythology suggests that the Greek God ‘Vulcan’ invented a device that made “strings of pasta dough”.

Two types of home-made sauces are included. Everyone enjoys the dishes prepared in class together and toasts with a glass of regional wine.

Whatever its origin, there is no doubt that it’s the Italians who perfected the art of pasta making.

Pastas

From spaghetti to maccheroni, pastas are infinite. Italy’s pasta list includes:

• sedani-a long tube shape
• route-little wheels
• mezze penne-small tubes cut on an angle
• cannelloni-large tubes and filled with cheese
• orecchiette-small little ear-like shapes
• maccheroncini-small narrow tubes
• malloreddus-rolled little shells
• farfalle-butterfly shapes
• bucatini-thick spaghetti
• caserecci-narrow thin folded-over twists
• cavatelli-thin narrow boat-like shapes
• garganelli-coils
• conchiglie-small snail-like shaped shells
• fusilli-short twisted strips
• ditaloni-fat tubes
• conchiglioni-large shells – great for stuffing
• trofie-thin twists, pipe-curved plump tubes
• pappardelle-long wide strips
• linguine-thin strips
• pizzoccheri-short cut strips
• reginette-ridged edge wide strips
• vermicelli-rounded spaghetti-like
• bavette-flat thin strips

And there are more!

One Day Pizza Class

Join Executive Chef Eugenio Rossi in Rome for an exclusive hands-on cooking class in his authentic Roman-style kitchen making pizza. He will teach you the history, technique, and skills to making pizza. Learn the tastes and traditions of authentic pizza with Italy’s most colorful and acclaimed chef in the heart of Rome.

Chef Rossi, a talented and highly celebrated chef, knows his food and cooking, and shares his secrets with you. He leads his classes with passion and love. He takes you up close to the classical cuisine of the Eternal City, while transforming dough into a delicate golden crust topped with Italy’s finest tomatoes, Mozzarella and more. You too can become a Pizzaioli, pizza maker, for a day.

Pizza School

Chef Rossi’s pizza class shows you how to mix, knead, and roll dough into an award tasting creation. Pizza, also Italy’s most celebrated food, is served with tomatoes, fish, vegetables, and even an egg in the middle.

The morning class starts at 9:30 am with a welcome and introduction. There is a brief historical and cultural introduction on the traditions of the Italian Mediterranean kitchen and the history of pizza. Chef Rossi hails Italy as the “the great kitchen”, as he ensues historical and social evolutions of food, followed by instructions and the preparation of authentic Italian pizza. Join Chef Rossi for this intense pizza cooking class as he takes you through the technical steps to making perfect Italian pizza. Everyone eats the recipes prepared in class together and toasts with a good glass of regional wine.

The History of Pizza Margherita

The story of how pizza became more than a peasant’s is quite a story. In 1889 Queen Margherita accompanied her husband, Umberto I of Savoia, on an inspection of his Italian Kingdom. During her trips around the kingdom she saw many peasants and poor people eating a flat bread which they called “pizza”. While in Naples, the curious queen summoned her guards and asked them to bring her a piece of this flat bread. The queen liked what she ate and would eat this flat bread every time she went out of her palace.

The queen was extremely popular with the masses and had developed a great liking for their pizza. This taste was considered somewhat undesirable in court circles.

One day in June, on the Queen’s insistence, Raffaele Esposito was summoned from his pizzeria to the palace to bake a selection of Pizzas for the Queen. Raffaele, in order to honor the Queen’s desire for his pizzas, created a special pizza with tomato, mozzarella, and basil (the colors of the Italian flag – red/white/green). The pizza was a great hit with the Queen, and Esposito was summoned to create this specialty pizza regularly. When the news got out that the Queen’s favorite was tomato, mozzarella & basil, she not only became an even greater hit with the public, but also started a trend for the “Pizza Margherita”. To date, the Pizza Margherita is Italy’s most popular.