‶Jewish-style artichokes″ is what the Romans call this most Roman of fried dishes. The vegetable—really the flower of a thistle—is transfigured by its dual bath in hot olive oil. The ‶Jewish″ part of the name is a tip-off that it's a fried dish, as Jews introduced deep-frying to Italian cuisine during their confinement in the Roman ghetto in the 16th–19th centuries. The photo above shows a classic example from Da Teo (facebook.com/Trattoria.da.TEO/), a trattoría in the Trastevere neighborhood that recently reopened with social distancing. A few years back, we rented an apartment just down the street and ate there as often as we could. We almost always started with the artichokes as an appetizer. What we didn't appreciate at the time was that the giant...Read More