Maureen B. Fant

Thank you for coming. This site is supposedly about my writing, which is mostly about Roman food, but also such other topics as ancient women, Italy in general, and various other kinds of food. I also translate from Italian, edit, teach, and consult.

You can follow links to my blogs, or to the sites and books of my clever friends.

You can e-mail me a comment on restaurants, old or new. But bear in mind that I can't offer recommendations for individual needs. If you'd like to hire me to do some restaurant research for you or make reservations (using your name, not mine), send me an e-mail by clicking on the link on this page.

My friends tried for years to get me to do Roman food tours. And one's friends know best. As it turns out, I love meeting visitors who want to know more about Roman food.

They join my life for part of a day, and in a few hours I try to teach them everything it took me more than twenty to learn the hard way. We go to the Testaccio quarter, to the market and the Volpetti shop, where I've been going all these years (since way before it became fashionable), then take the bus back home to cook lunch in my apartment kitchen. I never plan a menu. Instead, I always hope people will find things at the market they've never tasted, or even seen, and will be curious enough to want to try them. I just steer, since I know what's in season and what can be accomplished in the time available.

The "lesson" that follows the shopping is thus an improvisational tour de force, not so much a class as a bunch of friends rolling up their sleeves and getting lunch together. But with me bossing everybody around. This makes for an intense encounter, during the course of which I berate them for mispronouncing bruschetta (it's broosketta, puh-leez), using a knife on their spaghetti (yes, some people still try), and finishing their frittata under the broiler (anybody heard of global warming?). We also have a lot of laughs, especially if we decide to try to cut artichokes Roman style. Over lunch, at our properly set dining table, we talk about how to choose a pasta and an olive oil and when to use balsamic vinegar and other topics of importance to eaters of Italian food. We also talk about Italian table manners and where to eat in Rome and can even make reservations. Sometimes Franco joins us for lunch.

I offer this intimate gastronomic adventure for one to six people. Traveling companions are welcome to drop in for lunch or a glass of wine as long as they stay out of the kitchen. If you're interested, send me an e-mail and I'll give you the dope and let you see some pictures.

My colleague Oretta Zanini De Vita and I can also do things for larger groups at an agriturismo near Rome or sometimes at her beautiful house in the Sabine country northeast of Rome. Oretta is also able to offer specific lessons to small groups, such as making fettuccine by hand (when she does it, it's like magic).

I can also offer private tutorials in Roman food ways (i.e., all theory, not cooking and eating, maybe a little drinking, though), classes/lectures in ancient and/or modern Roman food for students or other groups, and specific tours/tutorials for food professionals. If you tell me your needs or wants, I'll propose a program for you.

To explore the possibilities, contact me at info@maureenbfant.com
or visit ContextTravel or contact Jim Zurer at Zurer Travel or Carol Coviello-Malzone at Flavors of Rome.

Here are some generic links to on-line bookshops. For direct links to my books, go to Publications and click the title. For links to books by my friends and other books I want to recommend, go to Varia.

For my Amazon store (a new Amazon thing I am still getting the hang of), go to mbfantstore.