News from Italy
The journey of Carbonara, one of our pearls of taste
by Assunta, Queen of the Italian Table
From the earliest times, shepherds and coal burners, with their resourcefulness and ingenuity, have been crafting simple yet delicious meals with eggs, bacon, pecorino, and spaghetti. These humble, everyday ingredients are the foundation of Carbonara’s journey, a story as captivating as the dish itself.
Among the various rumours about the origin of Carbonara, one story stands out in the historical, sociological, and cultural context. It’s a tale of post-war Italy, where the culinary culture of the USA and the Italian culinary culture intertwined, giving birth to Carbonara. This blend of the typical American taste of eggs and bacon with pasta flavoured with cheese made it an instant success on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, marking a significant chapter in the history of Italian cuisine.
While we can’t physically travel back in time to discover the origin of a dish, we, as culinary enthusiasts, can embark on a journey through documentary books and movies. So, let’s begin our time travel to uncover the roots of Carbonara.
Francesco Palma, a Neapolitan, describes in “The Prince of Cooks” of 1881 the Maccheroni with cheese and eggs, combining cheese, eggs and lard in a macaroni dish.
Ada Boni published a recipe for Spaghetti with bacon in “The Little Talisman of Happiness” in 1949. This recipe, while not the traditional Carbonara we know today, was a significant step in the dish’s evolution. However, the recipe did not include eggs, a crucial ingredient in the modern Carbonara.
In the same year, we hear the name Carbonara in an Italian film: Totò’s film, Totò La Nuit: here, in front of Ave Ninchi, the famous face of Italian cuisine on television, a waiter passing by shouts the name of Carbonara di, who has just taken the order. This, so far, is the oldest frame on the pasta symbol of Roman cuisine.
Two people are sitting at a restaurant table in the heart of Rome, in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, with them serving the guests, the owner and the waiters of the restaurant. “Four amatriciana”, says one of these when reporting an order, which a colleague follows shortly after: “Coda alla vaccinara for two and spaghetti alla carbonara for three”. The protagonists in that inn, filmed by the director Giuseppe Amato in the 1949 film Yvonne la Nuit, are Nino (played by Totò, in one of his scarce dramatic roles) and Nerina Comi (played by Olga Villi), but leaving the world of cinema, what might seem like an entirely typical scene represents, for the history of cuisine, nothing less than “the first document in which the presence of pasta carbonara is attested.”
The culinary expert and critic Angelo Carrillo took the first reported mention of the famous dish back at least a year: “Already in 1949, spaghetti carbonara was, together with a series of other famous recipes such as the “amatriciana” and the coda alla vaccinara, on the menu of a famous trattoria in the heart of Rome.”
Before 1944, Carbonara was never mentioned and, due to its high protein content, it was not a typical Italian dish. The dish’s creation is rooted in history, as it is associated with the American soldiers’ famous ‘K rations’ (freeze-dried egg yolk, bacon and spaghetti). According to chef Gualandi’s reconstruction, this is where the recipe was born in 1944.
Imagine a corporate interview in a US movie, where an unusual question about Carbonara pops up. In the 1951 film “The Waitress Offers Beautiful Beings,” the employer, during an interview with the waitress Maria, played by Elsa Merlini, unexpectedly asks, “Excuse me for a minute, listen, but do you know how to make spaghetti carbonara?” To everyone’s surprise, the server does not know it (Amatriciana knows how to prepare spaghetti).
In the same year, a second quote appears in the book “Lunga vita di Trilussa” by Mario dell’Arco, underscoring the cultural significance of Carbonara: “It is difficult for our poet to attack spaghetti ‘alla carbonara’ or ‘alla cattier’…”
The first carbonara recipe seems to have been published in 1952 in the United States, a significant event that marked the global spread of the recipe, in a restaurant guide for a district of Chicago entitled “An extraordinary guide to what’s cooking on Chicago’s Near North Side” by Patricia Bronté. In the review of “Armando’s” restaurant, the author reports a rather precise recipe, and you can’t be wrong: it is the Carbonara that we all know.
The first Italian recipe (but not as we know it today) appeared in the magazine La Cucina Italiana in August 1954. It calls for spaghetti, eggs, bacon, gruyere, and garlic.
The recipe appeared in “La Cucina Italiana” in 1954. The following year, caCarbon published a recipe book for the first time, The Lady in the Kitchen by Felix Dessì. It was in a version more similar to today’s, with eggs, pepper, parmesan (but if you prefer spicy, a good pecorino can replace it), and bacon.
The national recipe was published in Luigi Carnacina’s cookbook “La Grande Cucina” in 1960. For the first time, pork cheek was introduced, replacing bacon and cream, often present in the recipe until the end of the year. ‘80 with even large quantities (as in the 1989 version by Gualtiero Marchesi, who recommends a quarter litre on 400 g of spaghetti). In its first forty years of life, in addition to cream, other ingredients found their place in the recipe, such as wine, garlic, onion, parsley, bell pepper, pepper and chilli pepper, demonstrating an extreme composition variability. In the versions of carbonara in the 90s, all these ingredients will be eliminated, allowing the slow but constant affirmation of the three classic ingredients that everyone knows today: egg (with an apparent prevalence of the yolk), pecorino and bacon, with the addition of more or less abundant pepper.
Renato Gualandi: A young chef of Bolognese origins
It was only after the arrival of the Anglo-American troops in Rome that Carbonara indeed established itself, when the egg and bacon-based preparation supplied to the American army ended up on a plate of pasta and was mixed with Parmigiano (or Pecorino) and there the name – the hypotheses of the origin are genuinely many and different – Carbonara.
The hypotheses are different, but the story of Renato Gualandi seemed to prevail over all of them. This young chef of Bolognese origins was hired on 22 September 1944 to prepare lunch during the meeting between the English Eighth Army and the American Fifth Army in the newly liberated Riccione. Making a virtue of necessity, he unknowingly created a dish destined to become famous worldwide: “Americans had fantastic bacon, delicious cream, cheese and egg yolk powder. I put everything together and served this pasta to the generals and officers for dinner. At the last moment, I decided to add some black pepper, which released an excellent flavour. I cooked enough ‘bavette’, and the pasta won them over.” Subsequently, Gualandi said that some time ago, he became a chef for the allied troops in Rome from September 44 to April 45. This period was enough to spread the fame of Carbonara in the capital. Carbonara’s story of being invented in Carbonara in 1944 by a Bolognese chef using American army rations has generated several doubts, mainly because in his recent biography, he doesn’t talk about all this at all.
Here, however, it is helpful to consider the statements of the culinary expert and critic Angelo Carrillo together with the historical development:
Before 1944, Carbonara was not a dish known in Italy. It was the high protein content of the ‘K rations’ (freeze-dried egg yolk, bacon, and spaghetti) of the American soldiers that made it a part of the Italian food culture. Renato Gualandi is credited with creating the recipe for Carbonara in 1944, based on these rations, according to his own account.
Is the history of Carbonara important, or is it the exquisite taste that truly embodies the essence of Italian cuisine?
Of course, it tastes…
It’s so delicious! Enjoy your meal…
Spaghetti Carbonara recipe
Ingredients
Spaghetti 320
Bacon 300 g
Yolks 5
Egg 1
Pecorino Romano 50 g
Black pepper g.b.
* Cut Bacon into slices and then into strips about 1cm thick.
* Pour the bacon pieces into a non-stick pan and brown them for about 10 minutes over medium-high heat. Be cautious not to overcook them, as this can lead to a strong aroma that may overpower the dish.
* Meanwhile, put the spaghetti in boiling water and cook until ‘al dente’, which means it should be cooked through but still firm to the bite.
* Pour the egg yolks and egg into a bowl.
* Add the Pecorino and season with black pepper.
* Mix everything with a hand whisk until you obtain a smooth cream.
* Meanwhile, the Bacon will be cooked; turn off the heat and use a spoon to remove it from the pan, leaving the cooking juices inside.
* Transfer the Bacon to a small bowl and set it aside. Could you add a ladle of pasta water to the pan, along with the bacon fat?
* Drain the pasta al dente directly into the pan with the cooking juices.
* Sauté it briefly to flavour it.
* Remove the pan from the heat and swiftly pour in the egg and Pecorino mixture. Combining them quickly is crucial to prevent the eggs from turning into an omelette.
* If needed, you can add a little pasta cooking water to make it creamy. Add the Bacon, mix one last time, and serve the spaghetti carbonara immediately. This dish is best enjoyed fresh, so be ready to serve it as soon as it’s prepared.
Advise
The Bacon must not be browned too much; otherwise, it could release a bitter taste. Furthermore, adding the Bacon only at the end is a good idea to maintain its crunchiness.
To avoid the ‘omelette effect’, add the egg yolk mixture only with the heat off when the eggs cook into a scrambled egg-like texture. Creaming is necessary; you must mix until the cream has thickened. You can adjust the consistency by adding pasta cooking water.
