Pasta Carbonara

Nowadays if one tries to get a Carbonara anywhere, at the best it has been made with an insane amount of cream, at the worst it only consists of cream and some ham half-heartedly thrown in, carelessly thrown over some stale noodles. (like in our canteen…)

Originally this wasn’t the case. An original Carbonara only consisted of eggs, parmesan and black pepper, cooked in the still hot pasta (mostly Linguine or Spaghetti), with some fried bacon thrown in for good measurement. It is, the story goes, the traditional way for North Italian coal miners to prepare their meals. Especially as they only had very few things to choose from up the hills anyway. At first rather obscure as a dish, it became more popular when after WWII Italians were supplied with loads of eggs and bacon by the American troops, and had to do something with those things.

Nevertheless even such a simple version as this recipe tastes heavenly. This is my little take on this classic. Without cream, but not necessarily less unhealthy. 🙂