Rome, Italy (Jewish Ghetto and Roman Food)

12 May 2024 - Rome, Italy (Jewish Ghetto and Roman Food)

We took a food tour of Roman eateries and also visited the Jewish Ghetto. We were stuffed by the time we visited the third stop of our food tour and passed on the pasta and coffee stops. But there is always room for gelato so we crossed the Tiber into the Trastevere neighborhood and sampled some great flavors.

On Mother’s Day, we wandered through the Jewish Ghetto area. VERY crowded, probably because it was a beautiful day, it was Mother’s Day, and there was a Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with thousands of participants walking in the area. We had a delicious meal, but it took over two hours to get our food.

The ghetto has history dating back hundreds of years, some good and a lot of terrible times. The area today was remodeled after the reunification of Italy and bears little resemblance to the ghetto of the medieval era. Today the ghetto is full of popular kosher restaurants and bakeries.

A view of St. Peter’s Basilica from the Tiber River.

The food tour was all about street food. People will wait in long lines to get a slice of their favorite pizza from Roscioli’s.

We sampled red pizza, white pizza, potato pizza (which wasn’t that tasty) and mozzarella pizza. The secret is in the dough.

Next up was suppli, fried rice balls. This one has a ball of mozzarella cheese in the middle. Very tasty.

Stopped at a cheese and cured meats shop which has been in the family for generations.

So many cheeses to choose from. We (I, since Russ is not that keen on cheese) sampled Parmesan, Romano and a fresh buffalo mozzarella. Also sampled olives and artichoke hearts.

Our last stop was for gelato. I tried hazelnut and pistachio. Russ had chocolate and one that looked like vanilla with little chocolate chips.

Standing on the oldest bridge in Rome looking into the heart of the Jewish Ghetto. This was a main passage for the residents to enter Rome during the day. Rules required they be back in the ghetto at a certain hour in the evening. They had to wear yellow scarves or yellow caps when they were in Rome.

This bend in the Tiber used to flood terribly. This was where the ghetto was established because the land was undesirable for development. Diseases were rampant.

An ancient Roman portico (named for Octavia, sister of Augustus), turned into a fish market in medieval times through 1800s, formed part of the ghetto walls. It was on this spot that the Nazis rounded up 2,000 of the 13,000 Jews locked into the ghetto and took them to concentration camps. Very few returned.

Example of the narrow paths in the ghetto.

The Turtle Fountain is late Renaissance and is considered one of the most beautiful in Rome. It is located almost on the edge of the ghetto gates. The turtles were added in 1650’s and some attribute them to Bernini. The fountain provided a safer source of water for ghetto dwellers than the river.

The beautiful synagogue, built in 1904 with the support of the entire Roman community. Then Mussolini happened.

Stolpersteine, stumbling stones, are placed in the pavement directly before a Holocaust victim’s last known, voluntary residence. Over 70,000 stones have been placed at places around the world. It is the world’s largest decentralized memorial. These are found in the main road in the Rome Jewish Ghetto.

bricks.

It took awhile, but we did get our delicious cod and patatine frittes.

A Jewish artichoke. Deep fried to within an inch of its life, it was pretty tasty (of course it did, it was fried!) Artichokes and cod are two traditional Jewish dishes in Rome.

Adjacent to the ghetto is an excavated Roman ruins site.

This is a predecessor to the Colosseum. This Teatro Di Marcello was used for concerts and plays. Built in 13 BC it was the largest and most important theater in Ancient Rome. The third level was removed and remodeled in the Middle Ages. Still wrapping my head around how old things are.