What's Tempting: Making Italian pasta your own

Amatriciana. Carbonara. Gricia. Cacio e pepe.

This is not a new Italian singing group. These are the 4 primary pasta dishes centering around combinations of bacon, cheese, and pepper.

Amatriciana adding a tomato sauce with guanciale, red pepper flakes, pecorino romano, and pepper
Carbonara adding an egg to pancetta, pecorino romano, and pepper
Gricia bacon, pecorino romano, and pepper
Cacio e pepe pecorino romano and pepper

These are the basics of these sauces. Ask any Italian nona and you will get variations within variations. Some will swear an amatriciana sauce gets onions; some will swear that there are no onions. Carbonara can get peas but mostly don't.

Bacon comes in 3 different names: lardo, pancetta, and guanciale. Lardo consists of thin strips that don't add much flavor or taste. Pancetta is cured Italian bacon. Guanciale comes from the jowls of the pig and is much harder to find.

Adding new cultures to our food regime can awaken sluggish, repetitive takes on food. Most people have had Italian food, so the country's food is not new. However, most Americans have had variations on Italian-American food. For most people, this is a little new.

The great things about these Italian pasta dishes is that the foods are not complicated, hard to find, or unusual. You might find after trying these dishes that Spaghetti O's is no longer your sweet spot for Italian food.

After traveling to Italy last fall, I wanted to replicate the experience I had with these pasta dishes. I dragged home several pounds of Italian pasta. I scoured out to the farthest reaches of Chicago to get really good pancetta. I looked for bucatini, pici, spaghetii alla chitarra, and other similar pastas. I hunted for the best tomato puree that I could find. I brought back really good red pepper flakes from Italy.

In Rome, Florence, and scattered places in Tuscany, I found many outstanding plates of pasta and some okay plates. The good plates have meaty, salty goodness; sweet but not too sweet tomato taste; the burn of red pepper flakes; and the salty goodness of a fine percorino romano. I had one cacio e pepe that was so intense I struggled to finish a medium-sized plate.

I also had plates with lardo that you could barely see and definitely not taste. I had dishes that were supposed to have the spice of the red pepper flakes and found no spice in the dish. I was shut out of a few places that perhaps had wonderful plates that I may never taste.

After considerable practice, I could honestly say I could not compete with the best plates I had. I could do better than some of the plates I had in Rome and elsewhere in Italy.

I experimented with different variations as to how much pasta water to add or red pepper flakes to throw into the sauce. The best guanciale I had might have been in Toronto and not Rome. The pancetta I found in Chicago was very nice but didn't compare to what I had elsewhere. The tomato products varied in consistency and most were too thin. It's easy to use pasta water to thin a sauce but most of the sauces I had were too thin to start.

The pastas were good but none really excelled in taste. The best spaghetti I found in Windsor, Ontario in the city's Little Italy neighborhood. But I found ones better than I have had at home.

The best plates in Italy had rich beautiful sauces that needed wine or Coca-Cola to cool the heat from the red pepper flakes. The consistency was ideal and the meat was plentiful. I had a few meals where I cooked the food in a limited kitchen setup. I couldn't duplicate that well in the kitchen in Rome but would be curious what I could do in a real kitchen in Italy. The fresh porcini mushrooms were really amazing.

The bucatini I had in Italy was supreme. The bucatini I had here didn't work out too well. A hearty spaghetti will do just fine.

You also have to consider that if Italy is your destination, Italian food labels are more precise, listing percentages on the ingredient list. European Union standards are much higher than in the United States. Italians really care about the quality of their food.

The top picture is my attempt back in the United States. The other picture was from a really nice place in Rome.

Two things in the good dishes aren't on the recipe: love and patience. The Italian nona does add a lot of love to the dishes. Patience requires knowing that your dish will take time to make and knowing when to do what to do thanks to patience.

Traveling and eating would be something I could do for the rest of my life. The memory of those meals can get you through until the next trip. Bringing back that education can help you try and match what you found. Even if you don't match what you found on your travel adventures, trying is also part of the fun. You may find that your meals at home will be better as a result.

photos credit: me