On Thursday, February 12, 2015 at 2:12:46 PM UTC-8, Victor Sack wrote:
> Italian birthplace of amatriciana denounces chef's 'secret ingredient'
>
> Town of Amatrice, where pasta dish originates, accuses Carlo Cracco of
> lapse in judgment for adding sautéed garlic to recipe
>
> Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
> The Guardian
>
> Carlo Cracco has cooked alongside Alain Ducasse and earned two Michelin
> stars for his restaurant in Milan, where the city's elite feast on
> dishes such as lemon risotto with anchovies and cocoa, and marinated
> salmon with foie gras.
>
> But the chef's professional pedigree did not stop the local council in
> Amatrice, a town two hours from Rome, from publicly denouncing and
> ridiculing him.
>
> Cracco's sin? The chef confessed on national television that he used
> unpeeled, sautéed garlic as the "secret ingredient" in his amatriciana,
> one of Rome's staple pasta dishes.

This story made public radio, with an interview with famous Istrian-born
chef/TV cook Lidia Bastianich. She votes to respect the purity of the
original recipe, but confesses she adds crunchy onion to the dish when
she makes it at home.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-1...triciana-pasta

>
> The official Facebook account of the town of Amatrice, where the dish
> originates, accused Cracco of a lapse in judgment. "We are confident
> that this was a slip of the tongue by the celebrity chef, given his
> professional history," the council said in a statement.
>
> According to officials in Amatrice, there are six ingredients that make
> up a real amatriciana: guanciale (pork jowl), pecorino cheese, white
> wine, tomatoes from San Marzano, pepper and chilli.
>
> The town's deputy mayor, Piergiuseppe Monteforte, denied that officials
> were being too strict. "Use one ingredient for another, it changes not
> only the flavour of a dish but also the history of it," Monteforte told
> the Guardian. "If you use ingredients like garlic or onion in an
> amatriciana, it means you are ignoring a pastoral tradition that is
> almost 1,000 years old, passed down from generation to generation."

Yes, but somehow the Amatriciani adopted the New World's tomatoes and
chili peppers.

>
> Amatriciana originated in the green pastures on the hills overlooking
> Amatrice, when shepherds used to bring cheese and pieces of pork jowl
> with them during long stays away from home and cook them in an iron pan.
> They made fresh pasta using flour and water that was then wrapped around
> a piece of wire, forming a tubular shape that is still used today.
>
> This original dish is now known as white amatriciana. It was only at the
> end of the 1700s that tomato and chilli, two ingredients native to
> America and brought to Italy, were added to the dish to create the
> modern version.
>
> Grazia Lo Bianco, the owner of Matricianella, a small restaurant in
> central Rome that specialises in the dish, stood with the council's
> uncompromising stance. "The flavour of the pork cheek should be
> dominant," she explained.
>
> Some people added onion to their sauce, but that verged on the
> offensive, she said with a bemused look on her face. "If there are
> rules, they need to be respected, it's like any job."
>
> For Lo Bianco, the rules do not apply only to the sauce, but also to the
> correct pasta that one ought to use. Always, she said, it should be
> bucatini, the long tubular pasta that, when cooked properly and slightly
> al dente, can be unwieldy for a beginner accustomed to spaghetti or
> short pasta.
>

Bucatini is a pain to eat. Spaghetti is the thickest that I like.