When the cacio e pepe arrived in a local trattoria, my friend Max tasted it and asked the waitress: “Is there cream in this?”
When the waitress said that there was, Max said: “Take it away, please!” And they did, with little or no demur.
Max, like many Italians, is passionate about food. He’s also a stickler for traditional recipes and methods. cacio e pepe, for example, should include just three ingredients: cacio, a sheep’s cheese from Rome, pepper and pasta (usually spaghetti). No oil, no butter, no cream.
I suspect he’s right about cacio e pepe, where the addition of cream not only changes the original delicious taste, but also suggests that the sauce been pre-prepared and ‘freshened up’ with cream.
A similar culinary controversy is currently cooking over another Roman dish, spaghetti alla carbonara and changes to its traditional recipe
The English newspaper The Times tells the story: “When the owners of Rome’s La Fraschetta di Fiumicino restaurant filmed themselves cooking a huge pan of extra-creamy carbonara in front of the Colosseum, handing plates of the yellowish concoction to passers-by, one Michelin-starred chef was not impressed.
“‘Romans are losing awareness of their own cuisine,’ Luciano Monosilio, known as ‘the king of carbonara’ said. ‘The problem is continuously promoting the same dish.’”
Carbonara is one Rome’s ‘signature dishes,’ made from egg yolks, grated pecorino cheese and crispy-fried cured pig’s cheek. Monosilio invented a richer, creamier version, carbocrema , a dozen or so years ago. It was widely imitated and now, says The Times: “he admits that that Rome’s once multifaceted cuisine is being homogenised by a city-wide craze for his brainchild.”
Carbonara certainly looms large on the menus of many of the capital’s 20,000 restaurants and this trend has been criticised for helping to promote a decline of traditionally prepared Italian dishes to pander to tourists’ expectations.
My food-purist friend Max would agree, but I think that recipes, like language, should evolve, and I like my carbonara creamy. At the Watermill we serve many traditional dishes, as well as our own unique ‘takes’ on them.
Our criterion is that we use fresh local ingredients, and don’t mess about with them too much. The results are delicious and the discussions around the dining table, enthusiastic.
Come and taste for yourself!