Food Features: Bucatini all'Amatriciana
- Daniele Iannarone
- Jul 23, 2017
- 2 min read
Sure, we're delving quite far into the past in this one, but the bucatini all'amatriciana were so delicious that I just want to go straight back to that restaurant (conveniently called "Bucatini") in Rome and have it again, and again, and again.
As some of you may know, but some of you may not, I used to be a really picky eater. So picky that I didn't even eat tomato sauce with my pasta (I know right...)! So when I was in Rome back in December of 2015, some of my Italian family from Milan also happened to be visiting Rome, so they invited me to dinner. They said we were going to a typical Roman restaurant, their favourite in town, where the famous dish was, of course, the Bucatini all'amatriciana.
I was obviously a bit apprehensive about having some tomato sauce, but as we sat down for dinner they simply ordered five sets of the dish, without even consulting me on what I wanted to eat! Now, who was I to refuse a graciously offered plate of traditional pasta?!
Bucatini is essentially a long pasta, similar in length to spaghetti or linguine, but differentiated in the sense that there's a hole in the middle, hence the name. In fact, the word "buco" in Italian literally means hole, and so when you're eating the bucatini there's usually sauce slurping out from the other side.
The bucatini arrived, and, obviously, they were coated in a rich tomato sauce, among other toppings. Without a doubt, it was "amatriciana" sauce, something we had never eaten back in Montreal and thus something I had never before tasted. In short, amatriciana sauce is a tomato sauce containing guanciale (which is cured pork cheek), pecorino romano cheese and onions (and olive oil of course!).
Amatrice, from where this dish originated, is a town in cetral Lazio, near Rome, that was actually decimated by the earthquakes in the summer of 2016. The dish became popular in Rome in the 19th and 20th centuries due to the increased connections between Amatrice and Rome, and was so well received that it became considered a Roman recipe despite having its origins elsewhere.
Needless to say, delicious! I slowly set out to discover my meal, and upon my first bite I realized what I had been prived of all these years! The flavours blend together seamlessly, the guanciale adding some nice flavours the the pecorino cheese adding a perfect saltiness to the dish. Now, growing up Italian, I've eaten some pretty good pasta, but this one quickly became the best plate of pasta I've ever eaten!
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