Recipe for good food paste sparks rage in Italy

The Italians responded with Fury after the popular UK’s good food website published a recipe for a traditional Roman dish that did not include the right original ingredients and seemed to reduce it as a quick meal.

Pasta Cacio is a PEPE is a beloved Roman dish known for being simple but surprisingly challenging to do – so well the description of food as something that can quickly unfold for “quick lunch”, annoyed many.

The recipe also listed four ingredients – spaghetti, black pepper, parmesan and butter and offered double cream as an option – when there should be only three: spaghetti, black pepper and Pekorino cheese.

Such was the indignation that an association representing restaurants in Italy said with the British Embassy in Rome.

One of the Italian food associations said they were “astonished” to see the recipe of such a respected British food site owned by the BBC by 2024. His president Claudio Pika said the letters were sent to the immediate media, the UK’s website owner, and the ambassador of the UK.

G -N Pika said: “This emblematic dish, traditionally from Rome and the Lazio region, has been a major Italian cuisine for years, so much that it has been reproduced even beyond Italy.”

He regrets that he is contrary to the British site, but explained that “the original recipe for Cacio E PEPE excludes parmesan and oil. There are no four ingredients, but three: pasta, pepper and pekorino.”

The furore is widely covered in Italian media, as a journalist from the public television operator RAI says, “We are always told that you are not as good as BBC … and then they go and do it. Such a serious mistake. The suggestion of adding a little cream gave me goosebumps.”

The Good Food Food brand was owned by the BBC Studios (the BBC trade wing) by 2018 when it was sold to Media Co immediately – such as the BBC prefix was dropped on its name last year.

While some chefs can experiment with the dish, the main concern is that the website misleads readers by presenting its version as an original.

The Italians often make fun of foreigners for their interpretation of their recipes, but the indignation in this case is about something deeper: forging tradition.

Mauricio and Lovanna run a hotel in Central Rome – he has been in their family for four generations.

“You can make all the variations in the world – but you can’t use the original Italian name for them,” Mauricio said. ” You can’t say it’s Cacio E PEPE if you put oil, butter and cream in it. Then something else is. “

He added: “You have to give in to Caesar what is Caesar!”

Giorgio Eramo runs a restaurant for fresh pasta near St. Peter Square – serves Cacio E Pepe and other traditional pasta dishes.

“It’s terrible. It’s not Cacio E PEPE … What good food it publishes, with butter and parmesan, is called” Alfredo Pasta “. It’s another type of pasta,” he said.

On the paste board of his restaurant, he offers Cacio E PEPE with lime – variation. But he says that’s good.

“It’s different, it’s for the summer to make the pasta. But this doesn’t affect tradition. It’s not like cream or butter. Lime is just a small change.”

Nicholas, who runs a sandwiches store near the Vatican, took a specific problem with the inclusion of cream.

“Cacio E PEPE should not be cooked with cream; cream is for desserts. For God’s sake. Who uses cream does not know what cooking means.”

Italians are often angry when foreigners quarrel with their food recipes – pineapple pizza, cappuccino after lunch or carbonara with cream, for example.

Eleonora, who works in a busy cafe in Central Rome, thinks that the Italians probably do not need to be angry so much, but understands why they do it.

“Our tradition is based on food. So if you touch the only thing we have around the world … It can make us feel a little sad.”

For comment, immediate media was reversed for good foods.