Coda alla Vaccinara

This is poor food. I mean this as the highest compliment Italian cooking can receive. The vaccinari, the slaughterhouse workers of Rome's Testaccio district, received the quinto quarto as partial payment for their labor: the fifth quarter of the animal, everything the wealthy did not want. Head, tripe, feet, tail. From this they made dishes that nobility would later beg to eat.

Coda alla vaccinara requires nothing expensive and everything patient. The oxtail gives its collagen to the braising liquid over hours, creating a sauce that clings and coats. The surprise is the celery, and there must be a great deal of it. This is not garnish. The celery is the point, braised until it melts against the meat. Pine nuts and raisins add the sweet-savory notes that Romans have favored since ancient times.

The cocoa powder will seem strange until you taste what it does. It deepens the color and adds a bitter complexity that balances the richness without any trace of chocolate flavor. The Romans understood this centuries ago. Trust them.