Staking out the brew

In a city as famous as Rome is for its coffee, is it possible – or even worth the trouble – to try and find the best coffee in the city?

There are some who over simplify the matter, and argue that all Italian coffee, by virtue of being Italian coffee, is essentially equal. Then there are those rarities who will try and stake out the nearest Starbucks in order to get their vanilla latte fix; these fall into the category of people who should not be allowed into the conversation. However, when pressed, most guidebooks and coffee experts in Rome will point to Sant'Eustachio, a small coffee bar located across the Piazza from the Church that bears the same name.

To be sure, the cappucino one is served on a Sunday morning is of a quality difficult to rival. The milk is foamed into a soft, perfect cream, and the espresso has just the right intensity of smoked bitterness. This, along with a clevor marketing scheme of stamping the Sant'Eustacio brand on its merchendise (an image known for its oddity rather than its history) makes Sant'Eustachio a favorite among any coffee enthusiast visiting Rome.

However, going to Sant'Eustachio´s on a quiet day during the week is a slightly different experience. The cappuccino's are as overpriced on a Tuesday as they are on a Sunday (a shocking 1.50 euro), and the quality is average (even unpleasently sub par, on at least one occasion). A disapointing discovery for a true coffee enthusiast; Sant'Eustachio, like many other establishments marked with a world-recognized brand, is a weekday sell-out, only putting its efforts into good coffee with the customer traffic is at its peak.

Where, then, does one find the best coffee in Rome?

What I have learned is that finding good coffee is like finding good wine. It is not simply the brand of coffee that is used. Up the road from my apartment is a small bar. There are about three barristas there, and the coffee brand is simple Miani. The quality of the cappuccino has little, in fact, to do with the coffee brand, however. It has to do with the temperature of the machines, the time of day, the weather. More importantly, it has to do with the person making the coffee. All three barristas make coffee that is quite good, but it is the quietest and moodiest of the three who makes coffee that is exceptional. It is a hearty coffee that is perfectly balanced with the foamed milk.

Like a good glass of wine, a good cup of coffee says a little about the history -- the time, the weather, the mood, the person -- of that moment in which the cup of coffee was made.

Customer Loyalty

The concept of customer loyalty in the United States is something that has been in slow and steady decline since the early 1900s as a result the Industrial Revolution and unchecked Capitalism. Today, produce is bought at the most conveniently located name-brand grocery store, where the price is right, the quality is tolerable, the selection is nearly infinite, and the absence of human interaction is actually one of the most preferable components. Shopping for groceries is as necessary and impersonal a task as is brushing one´s teeth.

When shopping for food in Italy, however, one is not simply buying necessities for living, but one is in fact entering into the community in a fundamental way. Here in the city of Rome, for instance, there are small outdoor markets scattered throughout the city. In my own neighborhood, every morning, I have the choice of almost a dozen fruit and vegetable vendors, and several options as to where I can by my meat, my fish, my prosciutto.

Yet, with all of these options available every day, Italians will always return to the same vendor. And it is not simply because that one vendor has the best products. If the vendor that one has gone to for years happens to be out of tomatos that day, the customer will not go to another stand that has not run out of tomatos (unless the need is quite desperate), but will instead willingly go without tomatos for that particular day.

It is a small sacrifice on the part of the customer, and consequently a small element of loyalty towards the community that is rarely conceived of in the States anymore. America has forgotten that to truly be a part of a community, human interraction should consist of more than simply the most necessary exchanges. The social quality of our human nature is not simply manifested by our need to surround ourselves with people, but through little acts of loyalty and sacrifice -- even for complete strangers. And it is in this way that Italy demonstrates its richness of culture: by its capacity to bring out the best in human interraction in a task as simple as shopping for vegetables.

The Art of Eating

One of the sacrifices that most any graduate student must make is the luxury of eating well. This is most tragically true of any American trying to pursue a professional career, with little but fast-food and cardboard vegetables to fill those precious 20 minute lunch breaks and the exhausted hour and a half between work and bed. For many Americans, food is little more than necessary. It is mundane. It is something to be fit in.

Coming to Rome two years ago, with a full schedule and little money to spend, I discovered quickly that the way in which food works intrinsically within the culture of Italy not only makes it easy to find meals that are both healthy and delicious, but that the culinary culture of Italy plays an integral role in human relationships and in improving the overall quality of one’s life. In the street markets, for instance, one finds the culture of a small farming town (even in the middle of the city), where vegetables are hand-selected personally for you, and where customer loyalty means something. Up the road from my house one finds a bar where the same old men can be found nearly every day at any hour. The three old butchers in my neighborhood are always in a bad mood, but after two years seem to have grown quietly fond of the pretty American students who, in stumbling Italian, try to explain that they would in fact very much like for the butcher to decapitate the chicken for them.

The gift of Rome (in culinary terms, at least) is that, with little time and money, it is possible to eat meals that are fresh, healthy, and splendid. But more than this, it is an opportunity to enter into the culture at its roots, to discover how the culture has developed over countless generations through the culinary arts. And here lies the task of this American student in Rome: to rediscover the art of living through the art of eating.