The recipe for Vignarola Romana: a riot of spring flavors in the bucolic interpretation of Chef Arcangelo Dandini, philosopher of traditional Roman cuisine

The name evokes the image of vignaroli, the farmers who worked in the vineyards and who prepared this dish with fresh garden produce using vegetables that often grew on the edges of the vineyards. Once considered a poor man's dish, vignarola has now become an element of cultural and gastronomic rediscovery.

When spring knocks on Rome's doors, bringing with it a mild climate and a variety of colors, there is a dish that celebrates this season more than any other: vignarola. A simple but flavorful side dish, Vignarola is an ode to the first fruits of the garden, a perfect combination of fresh vegetables that blend together in a harmony of flavors, a true hymn to spring that contains the fresh and genuine flavors of the countryside as it awakens after the winter break. A simple but flavorful dish that has its roots in Roman culinary tradition.

Humble origins that date back to peasant tradition. The name itself evokes the image of the vignaroli, the farmers who worked in the vineyards and who prepared this dish with fresh produce from the garden using vegetables that often grew on the edges of the vineyards. Some point out that this dish was born in the Castelli Romani area, in particular in Velletri, where winemakers had been preparing it since time immemorial. Another theory holds that vignarola was a leftover dish, prepared with unsold vegetables by the "vignaroli" at the market. What is certain is that its history is very ancient and has been handed down from generation to generation. A journey through the flavors of the Roman countryside, a tribute to seasonality and tradition, a dish that, with its simplicity, tells the story of a people and its land.

For the record, there is also a Tuscan version of vignarola, called “garmugia lucchese”, which includes potatoes and a more full-bodied vegetable broth. But with all due respect to the gastronomy of Lucca, Vignarola remains a unique and unsurpassed dish.

Once considered a poor man's dish, vignarola has now become an element of cultural and gastronomic rediscovery. Many chefs reinterpret it in a modern way, adding innovative ingredients or presenting it as a refined side dish. Despite these variations, vignarola retains its rustic and authentic spirit.

In Rome and throughout Lazio you can find different versions of Vignarola in an authentically poor or refined version, but for those who want to immerse themselves in a world of flavors, aromas, memories, emotions, there is only one address: Via Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, where you can discover the magical world of Ristorante L'Arcangelo. It is the kingdom of Arcangelo Dandini, 63 years old, who brings together four generations of restaurateurs religiously faithful over the years to the flavors of the Lazio countryside but who at the end of the 80s had the intelligence and audacity to go and drink, up north, at the court of Aimo Moroni in Milan, historic grand master of traditional Italian cuisine, a forerunner of slow food, which he attested together with his wife Nadia especially in the XNUMXs also in many publications in which he invited rigorous respect for the organoleptic qualities of the raw material and research in the area of quality products to give value to the rich national food and wine heritage, considered at that time distant from haute cuisine, of a purely French nature. Concepts that today we find almost obsessively in the cuisine of Arcangelo Dandini who manages to find a perfect balance between past and future, and who perfectly interprets that return to the genuineness of flavors that after covid has become the hallmark of great Italian cuisine. A return that is respectful above all of nature and its seasons. In the recipe created for Mondo Food you will not find peas, which are a fundamental component of Vignarola because for the chef in March they have not yet reached the right ripeness. Let's be clear: Arcangelo Dandini is not only flair, great professionalism, great intuition, but above all a philosophical approach to food and its cultural heritage of which he is a great scholar, and sitting at his tables for a Vignarola, as for an Amatriciana with pasta made from water and flour or a Carbonara with Gragnano mezze zite or even a Veal tripe, mint and pecorino or the Straccetti di pezza, sautéed spring onion and grape must and finishing with sheep's ricotta, sour cherries and chocolate, is like immersing yourself in a bucolic setting from ancient times that celebrates the most authentic value of the spirit of the countryside, proposing it, without nostalgia, in the present. His Vignarola thus becomes his most eloquent life ticket: here not only an extraordinary dish that speaks of spring, it is a true poem.

The Vignarola recipe

Ingredients (for 4 people):

500g of Roman artichokes, lettuce or chicory, broad beans, asparagus, spring onion, peas (but in March he warns the chef with his characteristic rigor, it is still too early for peas)

250 g of stale homemade bread

100 g pecorino

100g of bacon

Two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Coarse salt to taste

Procedure:

Cook the vegetables separately, in a pot with plenty of salted water. For the leafy vegetables and asparagus, 3 minutes are enough, while 5 are needed for the broad beans, spring onion and artichokes. Drain and cool everything in a container with water and ice. In a very hot pan, brown the guanciale cut into strips. Then remove it from the pan and keep it warm. In the pan where the fat from the melted guanciale remained, toast the bread cut into cubes. Once ready, set the bread aside and in the same pan sauté the vegetables for about 1 minute. Place the vegetables on the plate, add the bread, guanciale and flaked pecorino. Season with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Et voilà, the vignarola is ready.