Nothing brings a nation together faster than someone else butchering one of their most historic dishes. Last week, a French website called “demotivateur.fr” posted a cutesy 40 second video along the lines of those “Tasty” recipes you’ve probably seen on Facebook three times a day. In it, they offered their formula for “spaghetti carbonara” — which they made with raw onions, bowtie pasta, and raw bacon boiled together in the same pot all at once. Because the French hate cleaning pots, apparently. They topped their concoction with a raw egg yolk and added créme fraîche to really stick it to the Italians.
After seeing the recipe shared all over the internet, the Italian people lost their collective sh*t. The outrage jumped from the web to the front page of Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Italian site Meridiana Notizie managed to snag a copy of the video before the French website took it down in shame:
The hashtag #CarbonaraGate started trending on Twitter, with people declaring everything from the video’s use of farfalle to the way the cheese is grated as further proof that this was an act of war.
What a spectacular metaphor for the EU as a whole #Carbonaragate https://t.co/erQtKolIH6
— Ana Milicevic (@aexm) April 12, 2016
Barilla, whose pasta is featured at the beginning of the clip, took to Facebook to pasta-shame the clip. They quickly took that down, though, when they realized Demotivateur was one of the sites they pay to use their products.
#Carbonaragate: PLEASE forget the cream. Here's the traditional Carbonara #recipe & cooking #video: https://t.co/dYTK8Q42ez #Barilla #pasta
— Barilla Australia (@BarillaAUS) April 9, 2016
“This is why we had it removed and published what is the video of a correct carbonara,” Barilla’s Luca Di Leo told The Guardian.
The way the dish is made can vary a little bit. Some swear you have to use guanciale, a Roman pig-neck bacon that’s hard to get. Others use pancetta. Most use spaghetti noodles and sometimes it’s been done with penne. There is egg, but it’s typically mixed in — though Mario Batali does just plop a yolk on the top, which Martha Stewart apparently digs.
But the millions who watched the French “one-pot” version in horror agreed that no one should make it like that. Barilla added: “It’s just not right.”
(Via The Guardian)
