Mercato Campagna Amica al Circo Massimo
In the nearly two years we’ve done TraveLazio, we’ve given you day trip suggestions to about 45 destinations in Rome’s Lazio region. Things to Do. Where to eat. How to get there. If you’re limited on time, you can get a taste of every corner of Lazio right here in Rome under one roof. Literally, you’d get a taste of every corner.
The Mercato Campagna Amica al Circo Massimo, or Circo Massimo Farmers Market, has fresh, natural food from farms and factories all over the region. Every Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., farmers and business owners flood into Rome offering everything from produce to fish to truffles.
Campagna Amica is in a big round building shaped like a circus tent with turquoise, yellow and white window panes lining the walls. It is located so close to the southwest corner of Circus Maximus, that if the market was open 2,000 years ago, customers could hear the horses tear around the chariot track. Actually, the market opened in 2009. During medieval times, it was a Jewish fish market and in an ode to its past, the market today has fishmongers who sell fresh fish to the public.
It takes a lot of dedication to sell their wares here. One man at the vegetable stand from Velletri, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Rome, said he gets up at 2 a.m. to get everything ready for his day in the market. It’s worth it. Customers flock from all over Rome, knowing that only the best get invited to Campagna Amica. Coldiretti, the agricultural association common all over Europe, visits every inquiring business to verify the quality.
Curling off Circus Maximus and onto the narrow Via San Teodoro, named for the church across the street, we walked into Campagna Amica and were overwhelmed by the kaleidoscope of Italian cuisine. It was the best of the best.
There was the Velletri vegetable stand with bright purple eggplants, fat, red peppers. The fishmonger from Terracina on the Tyrrhenian Sea held up a cefalo, a stocky, gray mullet caught just the day before. The man said he sells 90 percent of his fish stock over the weekend, with the rest going to restaurants.
I could hang out all morning at the bread stand. This one comes from Rome on Via della Magliana near Villa Pamphili, the big park near my home. Big, fat loaves of grano saraceno and multicereale and farro. We bought some fresh, handmade ravioli filled with?
Then there’s the cheese stand from Segni southeast of Rome. The shelves were lined with vacuum-sealed white cheeses from stracciatella to goat cheese.
I’m not a fan of tartufi. Called “truffles” in English, they are highly pungent mushrooms dug up by specially trained pigs every fall. But the truffles stand from Campoli Appennino in the Apennine Mountains has every kind imaginable. Honey truffles. Truffle cream. Truffle sauce. However, they don’t carry the highly prized white truffles. No wonder. They sell it in their store in Campoli Appennino every fall for €2,000-€3,000 a kilo.
Instead, I left with a bottle of extra virgin olive oil from Colantoni in Poggio Nativo. Price €13.50 for three-quarters liter.