The Great Fettuccine Alfredo Scandal
If you want to make an Italian chef clutch their heart, just mention ordering fettuccine Alfredo at your favorite restaurant. When we surveyed this group of Italian chefs for the Italian American dish that most violates their Italian ideas of “good food,” they overwhelmingly agreed on the consistently popular fettuccine Alfredo. Real Italian Alfredo is just butter, cheese, and pasta water. American restaurants load it up with heavy cream and make it super thick.
For an Italian, fettuccine Alfredo is a big no in the rule book! In Italy, pasta dishes are all about keeping it simple and letting each ingredient shine. But Alfredo is loaded with cream and butter, which is way too heavy. The irony is that this dish actually originated in Rome, but it’s basically unheard of in Italy. When you order it in America, you’re getting a completely different dish from what Italians would recognize.
The Spaghetti and Meatballs Myth
Spaghetti and meatballs would never be eaten together. But in this country, it became one dish because they didn’t have as much time to eat with their families. Picture your favorite Italian restaurant scene from a movie – there’s probably a plate piled high with pasta drowning in marinara sauce, topped with golf ball-sized meatballs. This heartwarming image represents everything wrong with American interpretations of Italian dining.
Italians simply don’t eat that dish. Meatballs may be served (maybe even with a marinara sauce), but only as their own course, and under the name polpettes. Pasta is served as its own course, prior to the protein. It isn’t paired with meat or fish. In authentic Italian dining, each course has its moment to shine, and combining them into one massive plate goes against centuries of culinary tradition.
Only in the Italian regions of Campania and Abruzzo is there any record of this supposedly classic combination. And even here, the meatballs (polpette) are barely big enough to be called balls. An Italian would serve the two separately: the meatball as a main and the pasta with another sauce as a primo (first course).
Breaking Spaghetti – The Ultimate Taboo
Nothing will make an Italian chef more visibly upset than watching someone snap spaghetti in half before cooking it. I believe the Italians would say – it’s a sin to break your spaghetti. This isn’t just about tradition; there’s actual science behind keeping pasta strands intact.
This is because spaghetti is meant to be twirled around a fork in a way that also gathers up sauce. With shorter, snapped-in-half pieces of spaghetti, this twirling becomes more difficult or impossible: The spaghetti may be too short to twirl, or the sauce might weigh it down, causing it to fall off the fork. When you break the pasta, you’re essentially destroying its ability to hold sauce properly.
The reason why you should not break pasta is this: This is how long pasta is supposed to be eaten. You rotate your fork and the pasta strand should be long enough to both stick to itself and to get entangled in a way that prevents it from slipping off and doesn’t allow the sauce to drip. If you break your long pasta in half, you’ll have shorter strands that are a pain to be eaten and then you get the people who [shudder] use a knife to eat spaghetti. I guess it could be compared with someone using a fork to impale sushi. It won’t kill anyone, but it’s ugly and, yes, frowned upon.
The Pasta Water Tragedy
One of the most heartbreaking mistakes Americans make happens at the very end of cooking pasta. Pasta water is an unexpected gem of an ingredient that some home chefs mistakenly pour down the drain. Always save at least a half cup of pasta water to add to your sauce. This starchy liquid is pure cooking gold, and watching it disappear down the kitchen sink is like throwing away liquid diamonds.
If you haven’t heard, let us introduce you to the cereal milk of dinnertime: Pasta water. It is Italian pasta dish perfection. This starch is liquid gold for creating creamy, well-coated pasta dishes. Rinsing throws away this precious cooking ingredient. Professional chefs always save pasta water and never rinse their noodles.
Even worse than not saving pasta water is rinsing cooked pasta altogether. Italian chefs in the know would never, ever rinse spaghetti with cold water after cooking. Rinsing spaghetti after draining it is not only unnecessary, but it can also make it less flavorful. The excess starch that clings to the noodles after they’re drained properly provides structure and flavor. Not rinsing your noodles retains some of the starch that cooks out into the water, making it easier for spaghetti to hold onto the sauce you plan to serve, leading to more flavorful spaghetti.
Chicken Parmesan Over Pasta – The Double Crime
In Italy, chicken and pasta rarely appear together on the same plate. It’s just not traditional. Chicken parmesan smothered in thick red sauce is purely an American invention that Italians find strange. This dish combines two major Italian food crimes into one devastating plate.
According to Italian chefs, “Italian” restaurants in the U.S. really like to put chicken in places where it doesn’t belong. For example, you’ll never find chicken Parmesan at a restaurant in Italy; it’s an Americanized spin on “Parmigiana di melanzane,” or eggplant Parmesan. The original dish from Sicily uses eggplant, not chicken, and it’s certainly never served over a mountain of pasta.
Chicken parmesan on spaghetti? Steak on pasta? We don’t ever do it. The practice of putting large portions of breaded, fried protein over pasta violates the Italian principle of letting each ingredient shine individually. It’s like putting a heavy winter coat over a delicate silk dress – it completely overwhelms what should be the star of the show.
Carbonara with Cream and Vegetables
Few things will make an Italian chef shed a tear faster than seeing carbonara loaded with cream, peas, mushrooms, or any other random vegetables. This drives Italian chefs crazy because it changes the entire flavor profile of their beloved recipe. Adding vegetables to carbonara is like changing the recipe for apple pie – it’s just not the same dish anymore.
True carbonara is a masterpiece of simplicity, requiring only eggs, pecorino cheese, guanciale (cured pork jowl), and black pepper. Each ingredient plays a crucial role in creating the silky, emulsified sauce that coats the pasta. When Americans add cream to make it “easier” or throw in vegetables to make it “healthier,” they’re essentially creating an entirely different dish.
Certain famous sauces, such as carbonara, cacio e pepe and amatriciana, should be served with dry pasta in order to bring out the true essence of these sauces. Your dining experience isn’t going to be the same if you opt for fresh pasta with these dishes. The technique of creating carbonara requires precise timing and temperature control – adding cream or vegetables throws off this delicate balance completely.
