Giorgio Eramo runs a fresh pasta restaurant near St Peter’s square - serving up cacio e pepe and other traditional pasta dishes.
“It’s terrible. It’s not cacio e pepe… What Good Food published, with butter and parmesan, is called ‘pasta Alfredo’. It’s another kind of pasta,” he said.
On his restaurant’s board of pastas, he offers cacio e pepe with lime - a variation. But he says that’s ok.
“It’s different, it’s for the summer, to make the pasta more fresh. But it doesn’t impact the tradition. It’s not like cream or butter. Lime is just a small change.”
While I do agree with the statement that there should not be any butter or Parmesan in cacio e pepe, the fact that this guy adds lime to his and saying it’s still cacio e pepe, just make it sound like as long as Italians do the change, it’s okay.
Otoh calling it “(thing) with lime” is more hobest than calling it “(thing)” and putting lime in yours.
Also, as he points out, the recipe given by bbc is an actual thing with a different name, which is a solid point. It’s like a spelling error into another word that makes sense in context is worse than one where you can still tell what the original wprd was intendd to be.
“The suggestion of adding some cream gave me goosebumps.”
That night they couldn’t sleep, they could only stare at the ceiling, picturing buckets of cream getting poured onto pure, innocent pasta.
Getting mad at the colonizers who took over every country renowned for its cuisine and proceeded to reboot their dishes with the shittiest, low-effort fakes they could think of. “Curry” that’s basically turmeric LaCroix, “sausage” that’s mostly filler (eg. sawdust, etc.), tea that’s more cream/sugar/old AF shake than not, et al… Of course they’re gonna add cream to your perfect, timeless simplicity of that traditional dish, friends. They’re fucking knobs about “food”, but wait until the Americans get it as a flavor of boxed mac & cheese. 🤌🏼
I know it seems weird, but I thought curry was actually invented by the Brits.
I am British, and an Indian friend who studied in the UK says he always finds it funny when British people talk about curry as if it’s a thing, like a defined meal or something. Apparently in India, it sort of just means “sauce”
That’s chicken tikka masala but you weren’t far off.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka_masala
The origins of the dish are debated, with many believing it was created by South Asian cooks in Britain.
The Americans have really good versions of the recipe, but they bill you to see it.
No, not kidding. Want the recipe? Pay up!!
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/14179-cacio-e-pepe-for-two
Free version shows you the technique, but no measurements. Toast the peppercorns and grind by hand. How much? Yeah good luck!
Mix some pasta water with the cheese to turn it into a sauce, again, how much water? How much cheese? Pay up for the recipe, bitches!
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/8536-how-to-make-cacio-e-pepe
Video version from a different site (but the founder of the previous site):
To be fair, America’s Test Kitchen is a treasure of cooking information, I really like their cookbooks because they explain “why” for their recipes from a technical standpoint, which helps to understand substitutions where necessary. Plus they explain all the testing they did on variations and results, which helps troubleshoot my own dishes. The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book may as well be named the Meat Bible (for the home cook).
The streaming TV channel is also good at giving you the exact measurements missing from the online stuff, absolutely agreed. They’re just super aggressive with the paywall.
Buy the cookbooks, ignore the subscription BS.
Blame the Germans, I got it from Aldi :p
Reminds me of when Gino D’acampo got angry about sour cream https://youtu.be/jFby3IEs9V0
“If my grandmother has wheels she would’ve been a bike!”
Not sour cream, salad cream. It’s kind of like mayonnaise.
Maybe the drama was the real secret ingredient in Good Food’s recipe?
