Explained: How a pasta recipe has triggered a diplomatic row between UK and Italy
It all started with the wrong cheese and a rogue knob of butter.
One of the UK's most popular food websites 'Good Food' (formerly BBC Good Food) has had the unabashed gall to call Roman cacio e pepe 'a speedy lunch', made with four ingredients: "spaghetti, pepper, parmesan and butter."
Mamma mia!
Italians were outraged, and with good reason.
Firstly, anyone who has ever attempted to make cacio e pepe knows that the process is anything but speedy and that the prep requires patience and skill. Whisking the cheese and pasta water to create the perfect emulsion doesn't come easy. After all, there's a reason it's such a popular dish. If you want to judge an Italian restaurant, it's the go-to order. If they get cacio e pepe right, then they're legit. If they mess it up with parmesan, for instance, then you're in the company of heathens.
Secondly, the authentic Roman dish has just three ingredients: pasta (usually tonnarelli), black pepper, and pecorino Romano.
Parmesan is a cardinal sin here, and there's certainly no butter.
An innocent slip-up on behalf of the Brits? Maybe so. But then again there are rules, and no one messes with a traditional Italian pasta dish.
The Italian media didn't let this culinary betrayal slide, with the Rome-based Il Messaggero writing: 'Paraphrasing the famous British anthem 'God save the king', Rome restaurateurs are now saying: 'God save the cacio e pepe'.'
Then came the response of the president of Fiepet-Confesercenti (an association that represents Italian restaurants) in Rome and Lazio, Claudio Pica, who formally lodged a complaint. He has written to the media company Immediate Media, which publishes Good Food, and the British ambassador in Rome, Edward Llewellyn, for what he called an 'absurd mystification' of culinary tradition.
Facing uproar, the website appears to have updated its recipe, restoring the sacred three ingredients.
Phew... But not so fast. There is a tip online that suggests that struggling cooks can add double cream to help the sauce come together.
Will they never learn???
As a journalist from public television RAI stated: "They always tell us we're not as good as the BBC... and then they do this. This is a very serious mistake. The suggestion to add cream made me cringe."
No one tell them about how most Brits still make carbonara with cream. Otherwise, it could be war.
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