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When the cacio e pepe arrived in a local trattoria, my friend Max tasted it and asked the waitress: “Is there cream in this?â€
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
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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.
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“‘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.’â€
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.â€
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.
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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.
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Come and taste for yourself!