Carbonara

As with many recipes, the origins of the dish and its name are obscure; most Italian sources trace its origin to the region of Lazio. The name first appears in print in a 1939 Dutch East Indies newspaper (De Koerier), which mentions a restaurant in the Trastevere region of Rome that was known for a dish by that name, but does not describe the dish itself. In 1950, the Italian newspaper said that American officers had been seeking out "spaghetti alla carbonara" in Trastevere restaurants for years, but similarly didn't describe it. The first attested recipe is in an illustrated cookbook published in Chicago in 1952 by Patricia Bronté. It should also be noted that a major Italian cookbook published in 1950, ''Il cucchiaio d'argento'', has no mention of this dish. In 1954, the first recipe for carbonara published in Italy appeared in magazine, although the recipe featured pancetta, garlic, and Gruyère cheese. The same year, carbonara was included in Elizabeth David's Italian Food, an English-language cookbook published in Great Britain. Etymology There are many theories for the origin of the name , which probably did not coincide with the creation of than the dish itself: • John F. Mariani writes that some people believe it was created as a tribute to the Carbonari () secret society prominent in the early, repressed stages of Italian unification () in the early 19th century. 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 . It is very similar to , a dish dressed with melted lard and a mixture of eggs and cheese, but not meat or pepper. WW2 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. According to the interviews and research into historical documents by Eleonora Cozzella, the dish was born out of a dish called "spaghetti breakfast" that would be requested by Allied personnel when they visit Italian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. 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, 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". ==Preparation==

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. 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, Various shapes of pasta can be used, almost always dried durum wheat pasta. ==Variations==

Guanciale is the most commonly used meat for the dish in Italy, but pancetta and ('smoked pancetta') are also used 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. The amount of eggs used also vary, but the intended result is a creamy sauce from mild heating. Some preparations have more sauce and therefore use tubular pasta, such as penne, which is better suited to holding sauce. Cream is not used in most Italian recipes, with some notable exceptions from the 20th century. as adding cream makes the dish more stable. Similarly, garlic is found in some recipes, but mostly outside Italy. Outside Italy, variations on carbonara may include green peas, broccoli, tenderstem broccoli, leeks, onions, other vegetables or mushrooms, and may substitute a meat such as ham or for the fattier guanciale or pancetta. ==Sauce ==

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. They may be thickened with cream and sometimes food starch, and often use bacon or cubed pancetta slices instead of guanciale. ==See also==