Italy goes crazy with Heinz’s latest launch: canned spaghetti carbonara.
Italians around the world are immersed in a new culinary crisis before the last blow against his “bella cucina”.
They have finally achieved it. They have put the carbonara in a can.
Heinzthe American manufacturer famous for its ketchup sauce, spaghetti, soups, baked beans and canned sausages, has launched the new product. Heinz spaghetti carbonara in a can will arrive in british supermarkets this month at a price of 2 pounds (2.37 euros).
The company describes the “pasta in creamy sauce with pancetta” as the “perfect solution for a quick and satisfying meal at home.” As expected, the news that one of Italy’s most revered national dishes has been canned for easy consumption – mostly by the British, probably – it has set Italy on fire.
Speaking to ‘The Times’, Alessandro Pipero, head chef at the Pipero restaurant in Rome, awarded a Michelin starstated that the new canned pasta is so obnoxious it’s equivalent to “cat food”.
However, the shock of Italians at what some consider a culinary crime is not new: just take a look at the social networks to see scores of Italians reacting with horror every time carbonara degrades.
The list of carbonara’s deadly culinary sins is endless. for any pure Italian, but it can be reduced to three classics: use a pork product other than guanciale – salted and peppered cheeks from a very particular breed of pigs -, add garlic and, the most terrible thing, add cream.
With its bacon and cream sauce, Heinz has broken at least two of these rules. And he has added a whole new transgression by canning the recipe.
A recipe… not so Italian
Any Italian chef worth his salt will tell you that carbonara only has five ingredients:pasta (usually spaghetti or, failing that, bucatini), guanciale, pecorino Romano cheese, egg yolks and black pepper.
But some believe that this is where Italians have to be realistic because, according to research, carbonara is not a sacred recipe engraved on stone tablets for centuries that cannot be done any other way.
As pointed out by professor of food history Alberto Grandicarbonara is less than a century old.
The most convincing explanation for the origin of carbonara is that an Italian army cook named Renato Gualandi made an amalgamation of several recipes in 1944 – specifically pasta gricia, which can be described as carbonara without eggs – to a group of American soldiers. He took advantage of their access to high-quality ingredients and, above all, powdered egg yolks.
Who invented carbonara?
The oldest carbonara recipe is not even Italian. belongs to a 1952 Chicago cookbook which includes bacon instead of the sacred guanciale.
However, Italians are quick to defend their famous dish saying that The true precursor of carbonara is ‘cacio e uova’a pasta made with melted lard, beaten raw eggs and cheese, documented in Ippolito Cavalcanti’s 1839 Neapolitan cookbook.
Furthermore, national media such as ‘La Stampa’ mention carbonara as early as 1950, often as a Roman dish popular among American soldiers.
ADVERTISINGBut, Is it really a problem that Heinz wants to put spaghetti carbonara in a can? It is clear that the new product is popular. According to the Heinz website, it is already sold out.
Furthermore, over the years, recipes have added and removed ingredients as they please. Some experts like Grandi believe that, What should be criticized is the Italian approach to its culinary heritage and cultural, very rigid and strict with the ingredients and cooking style of a dish.
If America wants to create an affordable, easy-to-eat version of spaghetti carbonara that doesn’t have to be true to its roots, who are the Italians to stop it? After all, Americans also contributed to its invention.
