L’Amatriciana

Last week, a prominent local restaurant posted a picture of a plate of pasta on social media with the caption: Our bucatini is ready for a twirl! Served all’amatriciana with pancetta, roasted heirloom tomato, and 72-month Parmigiano Reggiano.

“Eh nooo! Ti prego…” Stefano said, clasping his hands together and moving them up and down in the universally recognized Italian hand gesture that expresses disagreement and disappointment.

To a Roman, a plate of bucatini all’Amatriciana made with pancetta and Parmigiano is an offense; it should only ever be made with guanciale and Pecorino romano.

Stefano mused on this aberration of one of his favorite pasta dishes. The restaurant’s founder and owner is a James Beard award-winning chef. He must know that amatriciana is made with guanciale and Pecorino romano. What was he thinking?

In the thirty-plus years I’ve been immersed in Italian culture, I’ve learned that Italians are quite rigid about their food rules—at least Romans are.

Cappuccino is enjoyed in the morning, never in the afternoon or evening. Certain sauces require specific pasta shapes—there is not much wiggle room for mixing and matching. Balsamic vinegar does not belong on a caprese. Garlic is used sparingly, meant to season, not to be eaten. The holy grail of Roman cooking is that the four quintessential pastas—la gricia, la carbonara, l’Amatriciana, and la cacio e pepe—are made only with guanciale and pecorino romano. Except for cacio e pepe, which has no guanciale at all.

Here in the US, we are constantly faced with variations on Italian cuisine that miss the mark. A local Italian wine bar serves prosciutto di Parma, but with horseradish on top. The variations on carbonara and cacio e pepe are too many to count. And the American love affair with garlic has truly gone too far—chunks of garlic on pizza, grocery store signage proudly proclaiming “garlic-lovers pasta salad,” and even garlic-flavored ice cream.

The problem, Stefano mused, is that our celebrity-chef-driven culture rewards innovation over tradition. Further, thanks to social media, everyone has heard of Amatriciana, carbonara, and cacio e pepe, but few have actually tasted those dishes prepared locally. This includes many chefs outside Italy who prepare their versions in restaurants across America. How can one pretend to be an authority on a dish so rooted in tradition without experiencing firsthand what it should taste like?

Sometimes, our non-Italian friends tell us that our opinions about Italian food are too purist – perhaps even judgy. We’ve seen comments on discussion boards for expats in Italy complaining about the lack of flexibility their Italian in-laws show around cooking and recipes, chuckling as we recognize the truth in them.

Fair enough. But in defense, we offer that certain recipes do not need changing—they are tried and true and perfect just as they are. In a constantly evolving, increasingly polarized world, these food traditions bring reassurance and a sense of solidarity. We can disagree about many things, but we can find common ground in the shared understanding that there is no whipped cream in tiramisù, only mascarpone, no heavy cream in carbonara, only eggs, and l’Amatriciana is only ever made with guanciale and Pecorino Romano. There is no need to invent the wheel. We are unashamedly Italian food purists.

Go ahead and experiment with new recipes. Just call it something else – l’Amatriciana Sbagliata, for example, sbagliata meaning “incorrect” but intentionally so, like the cocktail Negroni Sbagliato. Or, call it Bucatini al pomodoro with pancetta and Parmigiano.

“It probably tastes really good,” Stefano said. “It’s just not l’Amatriciana.”