Foreign Food and Roman Specialties

Normally when I'm in Italy I don't eat much food that isn't Italian. I go out with my girls and we have Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Mexican food in the days before I leave so I can minimize the cravings once I'm here.  In the US, on a regular basis I eat foods from around the world. One of the nice things about NJ is that I've grown up with such a fantastic exposure to foods from different cultures.
I love food and I love trying all sorts of flavor combinations.
When in Italy, however, I generally stick to Italian food. There are a couple of distinct reasons for this. The first reason is simple. There are a majority of Italian restaurants. The kind of variety that exists in the North East specifically NYC and my area of North Bergen, does not exist around the globe. I hazard that it doesn't exist all over the United States either. Certain areas have a larger influx of immigrants and therefore have a larger availability of different cultural cuisine. Italy is no different in that sense.  Certain cities in Italy do have more availability of different types of food. For example Rome and even Florence have more Chinese, Japanese and Mexican available than in other parts of the country. They have larger populations of immigrants and tourists passing through and therefore have more availability of different foods. Rome is surprisingly filled with a lot of options for foreign food. That being said, there is still a majority of Italian restaurants even here.  Italians, I have found, tend to eat more Italian food. It is a deep part of their culture, unlike when you talk about food in the USA, which has less tradition and therefore more variety.  
Another reason that I don't often eat foreign foods while in Italy is because what does exist here does not taste like what we find in the US. It has been Italianized, just as most food in the states has been Americanized.  Because I grew up in New Jersey I like most of the Americanized versions better. Also, because many of my friends are of different nationalities I was fortunate enough to be able to try homemade Korean, Chinese, Japanese and various other cuisines.  Homemade is very different than what you find in any restaurant.
The other reason that I don't often eat foreign food in Italy is simply because I love trying new kinds of Italian food. there are countless regional specialties that we as Americans have never tried. We don't even know that they exist.
Most of the Italian food in the states has been Americanized and also comes from certain southern regions. We know some specific dishes from Naples, Sicily and Rome, but they are versions of those original dishes.  However, those are only 3 of 20 regions. each region has it's own speciaties and the majority have not made it stateside.
For example, Lazio, the region where Rome is located, has a ton of specialties that I didn't even know existed. All I had heard about was Spaghetti alla Carbona.  Who could forget the creamy egg based sauce rich with bacon? In Rome, they don't use bacon (bacon as we know it does not quite exist in Italy) but pancetta (pig's belly) or guanciale (pig's cheek).  Both are similar to bacon but are perhaps a little leaner.  However, there are lots of plates we rarely, if ever, see in the states

• Spaghetti al "Cacio e Pepe" - one of the most simple yet delicious dishes made with Pecorino "cacio", pepper and either olive oil or lard
• Bucatini alla Matriciana - this spaghetti like pasta has a hole through the middle and is served with a red sauce made with lard, bacon, onions, tomatoes, wine and Pecorino cheese 
• Tonnarelli alla Gricia - tonnarelli are a thicker kind of spaghetti and really compliment the hardiness of some of the Italian sauces, alla gricia is like the matriciana except it has no tomato base 
• Gnocchi alla Romana - these gnocchi are much larger than what we are used to in the states and are baked with butter, cheese and nutmeg
• Carciofi alla Giudia - fried artichokes, soft and tender on the inside and crispy on the outside, you can eat the entire thing and you should!!
• Carciofi alla Romana - baked with mint and garlic
• Suppli - are fried and breaded balls of rice in Bolognese sauce filled with mozzarella cheese (they have a Sicilian counterpart called arancini)
• Fiori di Zucca - deep fried Zucchini flower filled with mozzarella and anchovies, they are literally bursting with flavor
• Cicoria - 
• Porchetta - suckling pig roasted with laurel herb, garlic and black pepper, delicious on sandwiches and often found in markets
• Veal Saltimbocca (veal scallopine with ham and sage) - saltimbocca literally means "jump in your mouth" which is what should happen if it's prepared well, it is thinly sliced veal topped with ham and sage cooked in whit wine, butter and seasonings.
• Coda alla Vaccinara (Roman Oxtail Stew) - oxtail stew is one of the traditional preparations of sweetmeats in Rome, the offals are slowly cooked with vegetables, red wine, garlic and spices

I haven't tried all of it yet, but I'm certainly going to.  I have lots of time here in Rome, so I'm going to make the most of it, and my stomach will love me for it. Then, when I get a bit homesick or long for exotic flavors I'll try some of the foreign cuisine available to me here, or I'll just wait till I'm back stateside for Christmas.