Cuisine

Roman

Cucina romana

The Roman pasta set is a small family that shares pecorino, pepper and rendered pork jowl, then argues about everything else. Carbonara is egg, pecorino, guanciale and black pepper emulsified off the heat. Cacio e pepe is even smaller: pasta water, sheep's cheese and enough pepper to taste like a seasoning, not a speck. There is no cream in either dish if you are cooking in the Roman sense. The sauce should look sparse in the pan and cling once it hits the plate. Guanciale is not interchangeable with smoked bacon without changing the dish.

This is pastoral Lazio cooking that moved into urban trattorie: sheep cheese from the hills, cured jowl, dried pasta that could be stored. Amatriciana and gricia sit in the same family, tomato appearing in one and not the other. Carbonara as a named restaurant dish is mid-twentieth-century, whatever origin stories get attached to it. The cooking is not a miniature of national Italian food. It is a city kitchen with a short pantry and strong opinions about which fat belongs in the pan.

Few ingredients, high heat control. Render guanciale slowly enough to keep the fat sweet and the edges crisp. Take the pan off the flame before the egg meets it or you scramble the sauce. Pecorino should taste of sheep, salty and sharp; a mild grating cheese will not emulsify the same way. Cacio e pepe fails when the water is too thin or the cheese is added as a cold lump.