…or nettles, are to be found all over the streets of Rome, coming up from any unattended space between stones, they sting (a fact I am sure every Roman child learns early on with a warning from a parent – since it is the first thing that all of my Italian friends say about them: ‘pizzica!’), are known as a sort of peasant food, can be brewed as tea, or cooked with pasta, making a cameo appearance in Pasolini’s ‘Teorema” when the maid refuses to eat anything else – and I am letting them have their way in my garden as they pop up here and there – a pretty green in a winter garden – since they are such a quintessentially Roman street food.