May in Rome means a familiar litany of ingredients that it would be difficult to tire of. Within an hour of arriving we are sitting at a formica table in the street, outside an underwhelmingly nondescript café and very soon thereafter at least a dozen small deep fried artichokes are presented to us, followed by a large plate of spaghetti with clams. In the evening, more clams and the juiciest, sweetest melon to accompany prosciutto and more pasta, this time in a sauce made with fresh anchovies and cherry tomatoes. More artichokes on day two, and in the evening, we enjoy baby lamb under the trees outside Checcino dal 1887 in the shadow of the hill on Testaccio, with the odd Vespa buzzing past and strolling gangs of youths looking for action in the clubs that seem to get going around midnight.

With the lamb we are given cicoria. I thought I knew a bit about chicory. Let’s not go into the whole endive/chicory business again: it’s bad enough disentangling the French and English contradictions in these words and in Rome, chicory is a whole different article. At this time of year, it is usually cicoria catalogna, a somewhat straggly, mostly green cluster of leaves that one might mistake for spring greens. The leaves are slightly crinkly, but not as exaggerated as the French curly endive, or as barbed as dandelion leaves and nothing like the big white stalks and lush vegetation of puntarella, the really weird and uniquely Roman form of cicoria that one gets later in the season. Cicoria is just cicoria and it is quite extraordinary how many uses the Italians seem to find for it.