Carbonara: Origins and Anecdotes of the Beloved Italian Pasta Dish (2024)

There may be no more beloved Italian dish than carbonara: hot pasta tossed with a creamy sauce of raw beaten eggs, accentuated with crisp bits of guanciale, and finished with a shower of grated aged Pecorino Romano cheese plus freshly ground black pepper. While it is also made with fettuccine, linguine, or bucatini, spaghetti remains the canonical carbonara pasta shape, and the classic recipe contains no butter, cream, or garlic.

Carbonara: History

Carbonara is most associated with Rome and the Lazio region, but as with so many Italian dishes, in Italy, its origin provokes much speculation and debate. Some connect it to pasta cacio e uova, a Neapolitan dish of pasta tossed with melted lard, beaten raw eggs, and cheese, as documented in Ippolito Cavalcanti's 1839 Neapolitan cookbook. Because the name comes from the word carbonaro, “coal burner,” some believe the dish was created as a hearty easy-to-make meal by men working outdoors for long periods. Others trace it to the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944, with American GIs bringing their daily ration of eggs and bacon to local restaurants to add to the limited Italian menu. Supporting this story is the first written reference to the dish in newspaper La Stampa in 1950, describing it as a dish prized by American servicemen. Shortly after, carbonara also appears in Elizabeth David’s classic 1954 book Italian Food.

Carbonara: Modern Variations

Carbonara remains a wildly popular dish not just throughout Italy but around the world and is subject to continuous tweaks by both chefs and home cooks. Notes Luca Di Leo, Global Vice President of Corporate Communications for Barilla, “One of the great traits of pasta is its extraordinary versatility. You can combine it with pretty much anything. Carbonara is a traditional recipe, but we should remain open to interpretations that allow us to tell a global story of diversity. Being such a fantastic condiment, carbonara lets you create different variations to the original recipe. A vegetarian person could have fun experimenting with a roasted artichoke instead of bacon, while a seafood enthusiast may opt for sautéed shrimp. A meat lover might even try to pair it with leftover barbecue, with the added bonus of fighting food waste! You can also make a great variation of carbonara with spices different from black pepper. In a nutshell: carbonara is a truly global recipe which, like all kinds of pasta, can help bring people together.”

Carbonara di mare, “seafood carbonara,” is an Italian beach favorite. For instance, in place of cured pork, three-star Michelin chef Mauro Uliassi substitutes virtually anything from the sea—bottarga, smoked trout, small raw clams, and even canned tuna. Norbert Niederkofler, another three Michelin star chef famed for his “Cook the Mountain” philosophy, has created Tyrolean Carbonara, a reinterpretation that features Italian Alpine ingredients including leeks, Malga cheese, dehydrated speck powder, and spelt flour fusilli. No beaten eggs appear in this version – instead, he places one whole yolk on top of each bowl of hot seasoned fusilli.

Although Italians embrace many variations, there appear to be limits. A national culinary crisis arose when the French attempted to reinvent this beloved dish as a quick “one-pot” meal. This culinary affront, dubbed “Carbonaragate”, sparked international debate and indeed outrage, among Italian food writers, bloggers, chefs, home cooks, and pasta makers. A video demonstrating the French style carbonara went viral, viewed by more than a million Italians. They were appalled to witness farfalle (bowtie) pasta cooked in the same pan as diced bacon and onions, finished with crème fraiche and an unidentified cheese, topped with a raw egg and parsley. Commenting on the social media uproar, Adam Gopnik, in The New Yorker magazine, took a different view: “Carbonara purists cannot stop the pasta revolution.” He argued that the concept of one-pot pasta has already “swept through American kitchens” citing the popular Martha Stewart and Food52 recipes.

Two Michelin star chef Marco Sacco offers a middle path. "In the kitchen, the protection and care of tradition must be able to coexist with the desire and the possibility to innovate and experiment,” he explains. “The original recipe, or the oldest versions, must be defended and preserved, just as an artistic asset is protected in a museum or a UNESCO site. But this does not mean that maximum freedom should not be given to experiment, innovate or adapt to the territory with new ingredients.”