January 27, 2002 When In Rome By AMANDA HESSER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/magazine/27FOOD.html I held my grandmother's hand as the plane took off from New York. ''Your hands are cold!'' she said. ''These hands are made for pastry. Don't you like to fly? You must not. I do. I think it's fun!'' ''Grandmom,'' I said, ''you may be the only person in America who feels that way right now.'' After her first trip out of the country the year before, my grandmother said there was one more place she would like to go: Rome. For more than a decade, she had been the host at a fancy Italian-American restaurant in Pennsylvania. This was her chance to see, and taste, the real thing. My mother, my sister, Rhonda, and I had planned carefully, arranging a trip that was a mix of Roman ruins, the food market, churches and street life. I was in charge of making sure we ate well. Once there, we would meet Rhonda, her husband, Paul, and their 1 1/2-year-old son, Luke. I plotted a good trattoria each day for lunch. We decided, having Luke along, that lunch should be our big meal and that trattorias would be the most accommodating. It was an easy compromise. In most of Italy, and Rome in particular, that's where the best food is. Our first night, my mother, grandmother and I went to a restaurant called Perilli, in Testaccio, a neighborhood known for its butchers and for its restaurants, which serve classic Roman dishes like pajata (calves' intestines on pasta), involtini (stuffed rolled veal) and rabbit cacciatore. We arrived at 8, just as the restaurant was opening, and were immediately pegged as tourists. I stumbled through the menu, translating as best I could and distinguishing between the classic and new dishes. My mother pinched her face at the various offerings of liver, tripe and pork jowl and ordered penne all'arrabbiata, which has a simple, spicy tomato sauce. My grandmother, to my delight, ordered rigatoni con sugo di coda, or rigatoni with oxtail sauce. ''What would you like after?'' the waiter asked us. I explained to everyone that in Rome, people usually begin with pasta and then have meat or fish as a main course. ''Oh, no, that will be plenty,'' my grandmother said. ''Do they have salad?'' my mother asked. The waiter pressed his lips together. My grandmother nibbled her pasta as she always eats, nimbly, in small bites, with her eyes on her plate and her arms held closely, like a mouse, until there wasn't a speck of sauce left in the bowl. Then she lamented that there wasn't more meat in the sauce. The rigatoni had been coated in a rich, velvety jus with a single oxtail nestled among the noodles. ''They serve it that way,'' I said rather stiffly, ''because that kind of dish was something poor people ate. You only got a single oxtail, because meat was scarce. The pasta helped make a meal out of it.'' She shrugged. Things didn't improve much. Every morning at our hotel's pleasant but standard buffet breakfast, she would feast, and no gentle nudging would stop her. She might have a piece of lemon crostada or cereal, then move on to a plate of cured meats. There were good, crisp rosetta rolls, and she ate them too. By the time we reached our lunch destination, she was barely hungry. She would order soup, or a pasta, or perhaps a salad, a dish Romans consider no more than an accessory to the main course. As much as I tried to persuade her, she never dined in courses. And yet, even when she said she wasn't all that hungry, she would clean her plate. It is not that I wanted her to gorge herself like a goose destined for foie gras, but I felt she was missing the chance to understand how another culture eats. She would go home thinking Italians eat just the same as we pretend they do here. My grandmother did, however, choose well from menus. And so after a deliriously good meal of braised oxtails for me and rabbit cacciatore (braised, with a simple sauce of vinegar, cooking juices and rosemary) for her, I tried once more to explain how Italians dine. ''I wouldn't be able to finish it all,'' she said, after I made my case. ''You don't have to,'' I said. ''It's more about the variety and rhythm of the meal.'' ''Well, I just wasn't raised that way.'' ''I know,'' I said, ''but it's the difference between eating for sustenance and dining. People eat in restaurants because they have money to pay someone to make and serve their meals. So the food is not so scarce or precious. You should taste everything you want to taste. Plus the dollar is incredibly good right now.'' ''But all of the starving people in the world.'' ''You're not saving them by finishing your plate at a trattoria in Rome,'' I said sharply, regretting the words as they tumbled from my mouth. I had always talked back, and I was still doing it now. But I was wounded; it occurred to me that if my grandmother couldn't appreciate dining, then she probably had no sense of what I did for a living or what my life was like. ''When I was young,'' she said firmly, ''Pop and I, on our way to the market, would stop at the bar. If you bought a beer, you'd get a free sandwich. So he'd go in, order a beer and eat his sandwich. Then he'd order another beer and bring the sandwich out to me. That was lunch and that was dining out.'' My mother leapt in to mend the situation. ''It's all right, Judy,'' my grandmother said to her, ''she's young yet. She's got a lot to learn.'' I thought I might self-combust. O.K., I thought, she had found a way to live that made her happy. But now I decided to pursue my own way. And so, I ordered braised lamb and roasted porcini. I devoured Roman artichokes (braised with pennyroyal) and leggy puntarelle, a chicory served with a garlicky anchovy dressing. I savored stracciatella, the egg-drop soup, which, as the name suggests, looks like ''rags,'' and bucatini all'amatriciana, a spaghetti-like pasta served with guanciale, tomato, cheese and onion. I drank wine at lunch and ate dessert alone. I loved Rome more than ever, and I wanted to swallow it up with me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECIPES Coda Alla Vaccinara (Oxtail Braised With Tomato and Celery) 1/4 pound pancetta, cut into 1/4-inch dice 1 carrot, peeled, finely diced 1 small onion, peeled, finely diced 4 inner stalks celery, 1 finely diced, 3 sliced into 3-inch-long pieces Extra-virgin olive oil 3 pounds oxtail (trimmed weight), severed at each joint into pieces about 3 inches long Sea salt or kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste 2 cups white wine 3 sprigs fresh marjoram or 1 1/2 teaspoon dried leaves 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 (28-ounce) can peeled Italian tomatoes, drained. 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a deep, heavy casserole or pot that can fit all the oxtails in one layer, combine pancetta, carrot, onion and diced celery and enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan (about 3 tablespoons). 2. Place pan over medium heat and cook until pancetta renders its fat, about 15 minutes. Season oxtails on all sides with salt and pepper, add to the casserole and brown well on all sides, turning them only after they've browned. Using tongs, remove oxtails from pan and place in a bowl. Set aside. 3. Add the tomato paste to the vegetables in the casserole and cook, stirring, until paste caramelizes, about 2 minutes. Stir in wine and mix. Heat to boiling and cook 3 minutes. Add marjoram, cloves and cinnamon and then tomatoes, squishing them between your fingers as they fall into the pan. 4. Return oxtails to pan. Liquid must be as high as one-third of the ingredients. If not, add a little water. Bring the liquid to a boil, cover pan and place in oven. Braise for 1 1/2 hours, turning the oxtails now and then. 5. Add the remaining celery, then continue cooking until the meat is tender and falling off the bone, about 30 to 60 minutes longer. 6. Remove the pan from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve on a large platter or in shallow bowls, making sure everyone gets a bit of the pulpy sauce and celery. Yield: 6 servings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Puntarelle With Anchovy Dressing 4 handfuls frisee, torn into small pieces (a good substitute for puntarelle, which is rare) 1 head Belgian endive, cut into long strips 1 clove garlic 4 plump anchovy fillets, rinsed 2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar Extra-virgin olive oil Freshly ground black pepper. 1. Fill a large bowl with water and ice. Add the frisee and endive and chill for 30 minutes or so. 2. In a mortar and pestle, mash together the garlic and anchovies until a smooth paste forms. Stir in the vinegar. 3. When ready to serve, drain and dry the greens and place in a large bowl. Pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil over the greens and season with pepper. Toss until lightly coated. Divide among four shallow bowls. Serve each with a spoonful of the anchovy mixture dolloped on top, or simply leave the mixture in the spoon set on top of the salad. Each person should mix his or her own salad, using a fork and spoon. Yield: 4 servings.