An Italian Day Odyssey Leads to the Heart of Silvery Artichoke Fields

The April air was heavy with the scents of wisteria, newly cut meadows and clover when we started from Rome on a day’s outing, or gita, in search of artichokes and whatever else happened along the way. We were equipped with a bottle of Fiuggi water and no expectations.

The Appian Way led south from Rome through the little town of Albano, where, in a bakery on the main street, we bought the best housewife’s bread in Italy (pane casereccio-- always ask for it in restaurants) to stave off midmorning hunger.

At the town of Velletri, just seven miles southeast of Albano, we turned east and then south on the small road to Cori. In general, we stick to back roads because there is little traffic and there are people you will never meet in the cities: mozzarella makers, strawberry farmers, artichoke growers, olive oil pressers--people who make the world go round.

Driving through silvery green fields of carciofi (artichokes) on our six-hour loop about 65 miles south of Rome to the peaceful Abbey of Fossanova and back, it was easy to imagine how the exotic plant first attracted attention.

Legends abound. One has it that an Arab farmer, with the requisite beautiful daughter, owned a large field full of thistles. His donkey munched daily on the thistle flowers, which aroused curiosity in the daughter, who in turn took a taste and was intrigued by the nutty flavor.

She tried tossing the raw artichokes with salt and oil. She threw them on the grill. And, finally, she steamed them with herbs and took them to market and sold every one within minutes. The wise daughter then dressed up in her finest, visited the local prince with the best artichokes cooked with wine, garlic and mint, and won his heart in the proverbial way.

History tells us that to protect their supply of precious carciofi, wealthy Romans at the time of Christ forbade the masses to buy or eat artichokes. The Roman naturalist Pliny points out, with disdain for the class system prevalent at the time, that artichokes had been discovered by the masses and were still being consumed by them.

Perhaps some of the interest was prompted by the fact that artichokes are believed to be one of the more effective aphrodisiacs, right up there with oysters and caviar.

Today, carciofi alla Romana, tender baby artichokes cooked with white wine, garlic, olive oil and mint, adorn the antipaste tables of most good trattorie, a symbol of a reputable Roman table, perhaps.

To the traveler’s delight, the road between Lake Giulianello and the town of Cori is marked as a scenic route on most maps. On a clear day you can see all the way from Cori across the mysterious Pontine marshes southwest to the Mediterranean.

Cori, one of the oldest towns in Italy, is worth a quick stop for the view, to visit the Temple of Hercules and to see the town’s church, which is really built from two separate churches--one from the Middle Ages and one from the 15th Century.

We continued south from Cori to the village of Doganella and the first silvery fields of artichokes.

We were definitely on the right path. In turning east from Doganella, we came upon the magical gardens of Ninfa in all their morning glory. The Volci, a war-mongering tribe who often gave the Romans a good run for their money, built their cities on the Pontine Marshes, unaware that one day malaria would wipe them out. It is over these ruins that the magnificent gardens of Ninfa spread like a Renaissance tapestry.

The wealthy Caetani family wrote themselves into history by designing these intricate gardens, streams and meadows that would be open to the public on the first Saturday and Sunday of the month.

Visitors can wander for hours over carpets of camomile and clover, along paths lined with hundreds of kinds of flowers and shrubs, all labeled with their botanical names. As you walk across stone bridges over gently running brooks filled with watercress and ferns, you suddenly find yourself at the beginning of a maze of tall bamboo.

As is our habit, we broke away from the guided tour to explore the bamboo forest and the ruins of the village that protrude up through various parts of the garden, making up vivid tales of the Volci as we went and wondering what it must have been like to survive in those terrifying times. Perhaps the Volcian ruins at nearby Norba would tell us more about these feisty people.

We were suddenly starving. This happens at precise intervals in Italy: morning (the smells of cappuccino), midmorning (fresh mozzarella in food shop windows), lunchtime, teatime and dinner.

My mouth was watering so that I could scarcely speak as we stopped to ask a particularly well-fed farmer where to eat. He motioned up the mountain toward Norma and gave us directions to a trattoria just on the way to the ruins.

Looking up, we saw what appeared to be 30-foot-high cliffs made of huge rough-cut stones. Who had built them? How had they been constructed in a time when there were no cranes? These cyclopean walls still surround the unexcavated ruins of the Volci settlement. No one knows how they were built, and it is a mystery why this area has not been touched by archeologists.

It’s difficult to sightsee when your stomach is rumbling. Along the road from Ninfa to Norma--the small town next to the ruins of Norba--delicious smells from the local trattorie wafted through our open windows. I imagined lively cooks putting little flattened chickens on the grill, seasoned with rosemary and basted with pungent olive oil or sausages flavored with anise and juniper, or long, skinny lamb chops, known in Italy as abbacchio alla scottadito, finger burners. And, of course, every trattoria would have the treasured carciofi cooked in olive oil or deep-fried with crispy leaves and served with wedges of Sicilian lemon.

We stopped at the peaceful ruins to avoid being the first diners at the trattoria (you lose face in Italy if you eat before 1 p.m.), and as we approached the edge of the site, found the whole immense valley we had traveled spread out to the sea.

The tombs rose in soft mounds as far as we could see, and were open and unmarked except for a soft edge of new grass around the holes. I dropped a rock in one and waited some seconds for the eerie splash when it finally hit. After that we kept our distance and explored the soft meadows for artifacts, marveling at the sweep of glittering artichoke fields and pastel farmhouses dotting the lush valley below.

Sheep with their new spring babies wandered through the ruins, stopping every now and then to gaze curiously at us and beg for bread. I always carry bread on an outing because my chosen trattoria may be farther away than expected, or even closed, and because once, at Hadrian’s Villa near Rome, I stood empty-handed at lunchtime in a gaggle of hungry, honking geese.

The restaurant near the ruins was overflowing with a boistrous wedding party. Everyone was animated and in high spirits from good food and the light, local wine that can only be found in Italy. Most house wine is only 10% or 11% alcohol and does not seem to have the heavy effect that stronger wines do. In short, one can drink a lot of it without feeling it.

We were quickly brought what the wedding guests were eating: bowls of penne al carciofo-- short pasta with a pale green sauce of cream, artichokes, nutmeg and Parmesan. This perfect plate of pasta was worth the whole trip.

After the pasta, a platter of flattened, deep-fried golden artichokes, carciofi alla Giudia (a Jewish recipe), appeared out of nowhere, and we managed to polish those off despite the first course. Our waiter, obviously pleased with our enthusiasm, suggested that we try artichokes alla griglia : tender young hearts turned slowly over the coals until done, then sprinkled with new olive oil and Parmesan. What could we say?

As the lively wedding couple danced by our table, we raised our glasses with a wish for a long and joyful life full of young artichokes and old wine. We then paid our $27 bill (including wine and service), leaving the change for the waiter, as is the Italian custom. Another custom, our own, is that after lunch anywhere, on any outing, it’s time for a nap. No museums, no churches, no ruins, unless it is a shady patch of sweet grass near an ancient mound on which to spread a quilt and dream of Volcians or the next trattoria.

A half-hour later we set off south from Norma for the tiny medieval town of Sermoneta, with its massive fortress where Lucrezia Borgia spent several nights. A large group of schoolchildren kept us entertained until the castle opened after lunch. In the country, everyone talks to everyone so they practiced their English and asked questions about Michael Jackson while we tried to find out why Lucrezia stopped here. Evidently she was just visiting friends; history is not always earthshaking events. You can see where she slept and you can play hide-and-seek in the myriad halls and secret passages of the spectacular Caetani family castle.

From Sermoneta, a scenic road leads you southeast to the Volcian village of Sezze, where a yearly passion play is given in the town’s famous outdoor theater.

We drove southeast from Sezze on the main road for about four miles, then turned east toward Priverno to see its lovely cathedral dating from 1283. Finally we descended into the lush valley of artichokes and olives on the last leg of our gita, to Fossanova and the exquisite abbey where Thomas Aquinas died in 1274.

Fossanova is well worth the trip, even if it is after lunch. The building changed hands from the Cistercian monks (AD 1145) to the Trappists in 1795. The Carthusians took over in 1826, and although there were once great archives and an extensive library, all was lost or moved to other colonies. The Abbey, however, remains magnificent and eternal, with its heavy walls the color of honey and terra-cotta pots of geraniums set upon the steps of the caretaker’s cottage.

Thomas Aquinas’ room is ghostly and barren. In the stillness, one does not dare to speak. A shaft of sunlight from a single window falls slanting across the austere cot, and his simple writing desk is empty except for the ghosts of his great unfinished three-part “Summa Theologica,” the sum of all learning. He had been summoned from Naples by Gregory X to the General Council of Lyon when he was suddenly taken ill and had to stop at Fossanova, a lonely yet lovely place to die.

The best way home is straight and fast on that part of the Appian Way called the fettuccia because it is like a ribbon leading back to Rome. After all, you will need a little afternoon nap to prepare you for the carciofi alla Giudia at dinner.