Nor was today’s supposedly inviolable recipe already fixed. When La Cucina Italiana published carbonara in 1954, it called for pancetta, whole eggs, Gruyère cheese and garlic. Even the Italian culinary establishment was still figuring out what carbonara was supposed to be.
That makes Vanni’s version more interesting. It wasn’t a corruption of a centuries-old Roman formula. It was one of the versions Italian cooks were making while the dish was still developing.
I’m still making it like Vanni taught me.
I use bacon rather than guanciale, and I use a lot of it: one pound of bacon for one pound of dry pasta. The bacon isn’t a garnish. The crisp pieces are distributed throughout the bucatini, and the rendered fat is one of the ingredients that makes the sauce.
I prefer Boar’s Head thick-slab bacon. The bacon should just be just pork and fat. Maple or hickory flavoring or anything else that will take over the dish. I put it in the freezer briefly, just long enough to firm it, then cut it into small cubes and render them slowly over low heat until they are crisp and firm but not burned.
Vanni’s ratio was three egg yolks for every two people. He used Parmesan. I now replace about a third of it with Pecorino Romano, which adds a sharper, saltier bite without overwhelming the other flavors.
The yolks and finely grated cheese are mixed with black pepper and a little nutmeg. The hot bucatini goes in, followed immediately by the bacon and rendered fat. The heat of the pasta and bacon cooks the yolks gently as everything is tossed together.
The danger is always too much heat. Carbonara can go from silky sauce to scrambled eggs in a few seconds.
Always save some of the pasta water. It is about as close to magic as cooking gets. A little of that starchy water loosens the egg and cheese mixture while helping it cling to the pasta. The finished sauce should coat the bucatini, not sit in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl.
And no cream. The creaminess comes from the yolks, cheese, bacon fat and pasta water.
Every time I make carbonara, I think of that evening in Bernex and the stained page at the back of The Joy of Cooking. I doubt Vanni would have cared whether his bacon, Parmesan and nutmeg passed today’s carbonara purity test. He made something delicious, and he showed me how to make it.
More than half a century later, I am still making Carbonara alla Vanni.
It wasn’t simply the first serious dish I learned to cook. It may have been the dish that taught me I could cook at all.