Carbonara

Carbonara ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}) is a pasta dish made with fatty cured pork, hard cheese, eggs, salt, and black pepper.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Carnacina">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gosetti" /> It is typical of the Lazio region of Italy. The dish took its modern form and name in the middle of the 20th century.<ref name="Alberini">Template:Cite book</ref>

The cheese used is usually {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. Some variations use Parmesan, Grana Padano, or a combination of cheeses.<ref name="Gosetti" /><ref name="buccini" /><ref name="luciano">Template:Cite news</ref> Spaghetti is the most common pasta, but bucatini or rigatoni are also used. While guanciale, a cured pork jowl, is traditional, some variations use pancetta,<ref name="Gosetti" /><ref name="Carnacina"/> and lardons of smoked bacon are a common substitute outside Italy.

Origin and history

As with many recipes, the origins of the dish and its name are obscure;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> most sources trace its origin to the region of Lazio.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Gosetti" /><ref name="Carnacina" />

Mentions in historical texts and media

The names {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} are unrecorded before the Second World War; notably, it is absent from Ada Boni's 1930 {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Literally).<ref name="buccini" /> The 1931 edition of the Guide of Italy of the TCI describes a pasta ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) dish from Cascia and Monteleone di Spoleto, in Umbria, whose sauce contains whipped eggs, sausage, and pork fat and lean, which could be considered as a precursor of carbonara, although it does not contain any cheese.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The name {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} first appears in print in 1950, when the Italian newspaper {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} described it as a Roman dish sought out by American officers after the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944.<ref name=Achivio50>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The dish is mentioned in an Italian movie from 1951,<ref>Template:YouTube</ref> while the first attested recipe is in an illustrated cookbook<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> published in Chicago in 1952 by Patricia Bronté.<ref name=cesari2>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="bres2012">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It should also be noted that a major Italian cookbook published in 1950, Il cucchiaio d'argento, has no mention of this dish.<ref name=Cozzella>Template:Multiref2</ref>

In 1954, the first recipe for carbonara published in Italy appeared in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} magazine, although the recipe featured pancetta, garlic, and Gruyère cheese.<ref name="lacucina">Template:Cite magazine</ref> The same year, carbonara was included in Elizabeth David's Italian Food, an English-language cookbook published in Great Britain.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Etymology

Template:Refimprove section There are many theories for the origin of the name {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, which is probably more recent than the dish itself.<ref name="buccini" /> There is no good evidence for any of them:

• Since the name is derived from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, some people believe the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers.<ref name="Gosetti" /> In parts of the United States, this etymology gave rise to the term coal miner's spaghetti.Template:Citation needed
• John F. Mariani writes that some people believe it was created as a tribute to the Carbonari (Template:Literally) secret society prominent in the early, repressed stages of Italian unification ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) in the early 19th century.<ref name="Mariani2000">Template:Cite book</ref>

Pre-WW2 theory of origin

The dish forms part of a family of dishes consisting of pasta with cured pork, cheese, and pepper, one of which is {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. It is very similar to {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, a dish dressed with melted lard and a mixture of eggs and cheese, but not meat or pepper.<ref name="buccini" /> {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is documented as far back as 1839 and, according to some researchers, anecdotal evidence indicates that some Italians born before World War II associate that name with the dish now known as "carbonara".<ref name="buccini" />

Gillian Riley comments that carbonara is likely an "urban dish" from Rome.<ref>"Myths" in Gillian Riley, The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, 2007, Template:ISBN, p. 342.</ref>

WWII theory of origin

A review of the history of carbonara's appearance in cookbooks and other forms of media (see above) supports a post-World War II origin of this dish after the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944.<ref name=Cozzella/> This is the opinion of Food writer Alan Davidson, food blogger and historian Luca Cesari, and historian Eleonora Cozzella. Multiple sources support that Allied personnel enjoyed the dish<ref name=Cozzella/> and played a role in its genesis by providing abundant ingredients such as bacon and cheese.<ref name=gambero/>

According to one particular narrative,<ref name="bres2012"/> a young Italian Army cook named Renato Gualandi created the dish in 1944, with other Italian cooks, as part of a dinner for the U.S. Army, because the Americans "had fabulous bacon, very good cream, some cheese and powdered egg yolks".<ref name=gambero>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

According to the interviews and research into historical documents by Eleonora Cozzella, the dish was born out of a dish called "spaghetti breakfast" that would be requested by Allied personnel when they visit Italian cookeries: a kind of bacon and eggs served on top of spaghetti.<ref name=Cozzella/> British historian Luca Cesari concurs by saying that bacon and eggs as a combination is more familiar to the American and British than it is to the Italians of the time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=cesari1>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=davidson>Template:Cite book</ref>

Evolution after creation

As mentioned above, carbonara was first described in a 1952 cookbook about food being made in Chicago. Cesari writes that the recipe was probably brought to the United States by an American serviceman who had passed through Rome during the Italian campaign or by an Italian American who had encountered it in Rome,<ref name=cesari2/> making carbonara a dish that closely links Italy and the United States.<ref name=cesari2/> Italian academic Alberto Grandi has said that carbonara's first attested recipe is American, citing Cesari, a claim that has been criticized in Italy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The version of the dish found in the 1954 La Cucina Italiana slowly evolved into the "canonical" carbonara of today. Pecorino and guanciale slowly made their way into carbonara recipes in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Recipes from that time still featured cream: in fact, the widespread removal of cream only happened in the 1990s. Grandi and Cesari comment that the removal of ingredients appear to be motivated by a wish to have the dish fit better with the "idyllic Italian stereotype of the rustic kitchen".<ref name=taberna>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} – A fact-check of several claims by Grandi using sources such as Cesari and Cozzella, both also cited in this article.</ref>

Preparation

File:Spaghetti alla Carbonara (cropped).jpg

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The pasta is cooked in boiling water salted only moderately, due to the saltiness of the cured meat and the hard cheese. The meat is briefly fried in a pan in its own fat.<ref name="buccini">Template:Cite book</ref> A mixture of raw eggs (or yolks), grated cheese, and a liberal amount of ground black pepper is combined with the hot pasta either in the pasta pot or in a serving dish or bain-marie,<ref name="luciano" /> but away from direct heat, to avoid curdling the egg.<ref name="Carnacina"/> The fried meat is then added and the mixture is tossed, creating a rich, creamy sauce with bits of meat spread throughout.<ref name="Gosetti">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Alberini" /><ref name="buccini" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Various shapes of pasta can be used, almost always dried durum wheat pasta.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Variations

Guanciale is the most commonly used meat for the dish in Italy, but pancetta and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ('smoked pancetta') are also used<ref name="crr">Template:Cite book republication of La Buona Vera Cucina Italiana, 1966.</ref><ref name="ncp">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="buccini" /> and, in English-speaking countries, bacon is often used as a substitute.<ref name="flc"/> The usual cheese is {{#invoke:Lang|lang}};<ref name="Gosetti" /> occasionally Parmesan, Grana Padano, or a combination of hard cheeses are used.<ref name="luciano"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Recipes differ as to which part of the egg is used—some use the whole egg, some others only the yolk, and still others a mixture.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The amount of eggs used also vary, but the intended result is a creamy sauce from mild heating.<ref name="buccini" /> For vegetarians or those observing Jewish kosher laws, there are also recipes that utilize mushrooms and vegetables instead of meat.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Some preparations have more sauce and therefore use tubular pasta, such as penne, which is better suited to holding sauce.<ref name="buccini" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Cream is not used in most Italian recipes,<ref name="accademia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="marchesi">Template:Cite book</ref> with some notable exceptions from the 20th century.<ref name="ncp"/><ref name="crr"/><ref name="buccini" /> However, it is often employed in other countries,<ref name="flc">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="OnCooking">Template:Cite book</ref> as adding cream makes the dish more stable.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} </ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Similarly, garlic is found in some recipes, but mostly outside Italy.<ref name="buccini" /><ref name="oliver">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Outside Italy, variations on carbonara may include green peas, broccoli, tenderstem broccoli, leeks, onions,<ref>Beltramme, Ilaria. Magna Roma - 110 ricette per cucinare a casa i piatti della tradizione romana, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, 2011, p. 73. Template:ISBN.</ref> other vegetables or mushrooms,<ref name="OnCooking"/> and may substitute a meat such as ham or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} for the fattier guanciale or pancetta.

Sauce

Template:Refimprove section A product described as carbonara sauce is sold as a ready-to-eat convenience food in grocery stores in many countries. Unlike the original preparation, which is inseparable from its dish as its creamy texture is created on the pasta itself, the ultra-processed versions of carbonara are prepared sauces to be applied onto separately cooked pasta.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They may be thickened with cream and sometimes food starch, and often use bacon or cubed pancetta slices instead of guanciale.Template:Citation needed

See also

• Roman cuisine
• List of pasta
• List of pasta dishes

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book