Roman restaurant association ‘astonished’ to see four ingredients, not three, listed on Good Food website
One of the UK’s most popular food websites has cooked up a storm in Italy after allegedly botching a recipe for the traditional Roman pasta dish, cacio e pepe, drawing diplomatic representations from the main trade association for Italian restaurateurs.
A recipe on Good Food, formerly owned by the BBC, which continues to licence the web address bbcgoodfood.com – described cacio e pepe, a culinary institution in the Italian capital, as a “store cupboard favourite” that could easily be whipped up for “a speedy lunch” using “four simple ingredients – spaghetti, pepper, parmesan and butter”.
The notion that making cacio e pepe is easy was bad enough, but the presence of parmesan cheese and butter has been deemed a cardinal sin. Traditional cacio e pepe contains three ingredients: pasta (usually tonnarelli, a type of spaghetti), pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper.
Such is the fury, Fiepet Confesercenti, an association that represents restaurants in Italy, said it would demand a correction from the website in order to “safeguard this iconic dish”. Furthermore, it has taken up the issue with the British embassy in Rome.
