Some months back I got a new recipe for spaghetti carbonara. It was by Jamie Oliver who, typically, made it seem easy. Not only simple, but also flexible. He did recommend using guanciale , pork cheek, but also said that pancetta would do. I have neither — so fatty, streaky bacon substitutes. Which is what I’ve been using, often, because it’s the flavour of the year.
So earlier this month, when we went to Italy, I not only ate their carbonara, I bought some guanciale. We ended our trip in Rome, where a minute’s walk from our B&B was a salumeria antica . It had a huge stock of fine Italian foods, so I bought stuff I was running low on: fresh green olives in brine and sun-dried tomatoes — huge ones. And I bought things I wanted: salami with fennel, salame finocchio, kilos of pecorino cheese, some Parmigiano, and some, not enough, guanciale.
And I ate their pasta alla gricia, which to my taste, is the best pasta ever devised. I have to confess I’m not in the market for tomato sauce, either on pizza or in pasta. Nor for those with cream. So alla gricia, a bit like carbonara minus the egg, with its liberal dash of pepper, the fragrant, fatty pork, and the crisp, savoury pecorino cheese, ticks all the boxes. The strips of guanciale are cut unevenly, so sometimes you get a long, wide chunk, all the better to taste the goodness of fatty pork.
Green olive groves
After a night at an airport hotel, we drove to Puglia, in the heel of the boot that is Italy. The drive was long and golden — golden-brown fields, post-harvest, bordered by greyish white stone walls. And relentlessly blue skies. The only green was the miles upon miles of olive groves, a silvery grey green, punctuated by trulli, the ancient conical stone structures that, myth has it, were constructed in medieval times to evade civic taxes.
Orecchiette with chickpeas. Photo: Getty Images/ iStock
The first night I knew exactly what I wanted for dinner because I had heard of orecchiette, the ‘tiny ear-shaped’ pasta. Typically it is cooked with turnip greens or rabe, broccoli stems and leaves. Turnips were out of season, so broccoli it was. The selection of vegetables underlined the rural focus on local, seasonal produce. Another day we had orecchiette again — this time with tomatoes, garlic and ceci , chickpeas. Orecchiette are perfectly shaped for the little chunks of greens or chickpeas to nestle into their curves, so we got interesting mouthfuls, each with different textures.
Bombette Photo: Getty Images/ iStock
Puglia is also known for bombette. These are cooked and sold in rosticcerias , shop-cum-restaurants, where a customer first goes to the back of the shop, selects his meat, and then it’s grilled and served.
The street outside smells like an Indian barbecue joint but the meat is different. There were various kinds of offal, but we chose cubes of beef, pork and sausage. Some of them stuffed with other meats, and some with local cheese. The meat was grilled to a deliciously charred brown outside and tender within.
Citrus trees and grottos
We took a boat trip up and down the Amalfi coast, and as much as the spectacular, rocky coastline bordering an impossible blue ocean and sprinkled with grottos and citrus trees and Sophia Loren’s house, the villages were beautiful. Little white or sometimes colourful towns came down the hill to shingle beaches, and we stopped at several, Amalfi, Cetara, Salerno. For coffee and a sandwich at Cetara, known for its anchovies. Delicious!
Italians make the best sandwiches. This had hard, crusty-chewy fresh bread, dark salami, mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, some tomatoes semi secche , olives and pimentos. I bought anchovy essence, colatura, because I was fearful of buying anchovies in oil and have them leak into my luggage. The colatura could have leaked equally, but I wasn’t thinking straight. Anyway, the salumeria in Rome from which I bought the other stuff vacuum-sealed the bottle.
The other villages we stopped at had each their own speciality, but then the entire country is a speciality heaven. In Amalfi we stopped for afternoon coffee at a pasticceria that was so elegant its flatware came wrapped and tied in white-on-white linen.
Multi-coloured tomatoes
We drove long hours on small, sometimes pitted regional roads and then on their beautiful autostrade. Amazingly, the highway pit stops, Autogrilles, serve fabulous food. Of course, there’s pizze and panini and pasta and calzone and hot grilled meats and antipasti. But what made me pause and exclaim was their salads.
Just short of Rome, we stopped at Teano and although I love maida, I pounced on a freshly-cut salad of multi-coloured tomatoes. Red, yellow, orange and black, they had been merely halved and heaped in a bowl kept chilled on a bed of ice. All I did was pour on a small flood of olive oil and sprinkle salt. They were firm, juicy and fragrant. I came home and tried to ‘replicate’ it. But our stodgy, mealy tomatoes made me weep.
We ended our trip in Rome because that’s where the airport was. And here I discovered the eternal beauty of the city and, perhaps more important, the recipes for four of Rome’s classic pasta dishes: carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana and gricia. These are most common primi piatti of Rome, where Pecorino Romano is favoured over Parmigiano-Reggiano and guanciale over pancetta .
The number of ingredients in each recipe is very small, so adding anything — even garlic, cream or herbs — alters the fundamental recipe, and although the innovation might make delicious pasta, its original name should not be used. With an egg, it’s carbonara; without the guanciale but with more cheese, black pepper and pasta water, it’s cacio e pepe; with sliced onion and tomato it’s amatriciana.
PASTA ALLA GRICIA
Serves 4-6
250g guanciale (or streaky bacon)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups grated Pecorino Romano
500g dried spaghetti or any dried pasta
Black peppercorns, to be grated
Boil a large pot of water. Add a little salt, because the pork and cheese are both highly salted. Slice the guanciale in the shape that you wish to complement the pasta. In a cold frying pan pour the oil and place the guanciale . Over medium heat allow the fat to melt, be rendered and mingle with the oil. Do not let it brown and crisp. When the guanciale has softened, add a small splash of water from the pasta pot. Keep the guanciale moist by occasionally sprinkling with some of the pasta water. When the pasta is cooked al dente, take out and reserve a cup of its water. Drain out the rest and add the pasta to the guanciale . Mix vigorously. Add some of the reserved water, about a couple of tablespoons. Remove the pan from the heat and add the pecorino cheese. Grind some black pepper, toss well and serve hot.
From the once-forbidden joy of eating eggs to the ingratitude of guests, the writer reflects on every association with food. vasundharachauhan9@gmail.com
