‘Fake’ carbonara sauce causes outrage in Italy

A plate of spaghetti alla carbonara. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

ROME — Italians have very strict rules when it comes to making carbonara. The classic combination of Italian pasta, pork and cheese are mixed with egg yolks and pepper preferably just moments before serving to create the perfect dish.

Which is why, when jars of a pale creamy sauce labelled “carbonara” but made in Belgium using non-typical ingredients appeared in a store at the European Parliament — an institution Italy often calls on to protect its traditional foods from imitation — there was outrage.

Now, Italy’s agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, has called for an immediate investigation into an alleged culinary crime on the market shelves within the Brussels institution.

The product, made by Belgian food producer Delhaize, does not claim that the sauce was made in Italy, but it does commit the cardinal sin of using smoked pancetta instead of guanciale — pork jowl — in its recipe, critics say.

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Authentic carbonara recipes traditionally include guanciale, pecorino cheese, grana cheese. It is not acceptable to substitute pancetta, according to La Cucina Italiana magazine, a sort of bible of Italian cuisine.

Lollobrigida raged about the incident in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

“Leaving aside the pancetta in the carbonara… all these products represent the worst of Italian-sounding products,” he posted. “It’s unacceptable to see them on the shelves of the European Parliament supermarket. I’ve asked for an immediate investigation.”

For Lollobrigida, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, the issue is not just a matter of bad taste, it’s one of national pride.

Italy is currently trying to have its cuisine recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity product — a decision expected in December. And “Italian sounding” foods that are common across the world dilute the authenticity of one of the most important aspects of Italian culture, Lollobrigida says.

“Our cuisine is simple, but not easy,” Lollobrigida said at the Summer Fancy Food Festival in New York in July. “The sea and the land give us what we need, and thanks to our processors we can count on exceptional product quality,” he said.

Italy’s largest farm and agricultural lobby group Coldiretti says that the production of Italian sounding food is costly.

“The scandal of fake Italian products costs our country 120 billion euros (US$138 billion) a year, paradoxically resulting in the biggest counterfeiters of Italian excellence being industrialized countries,” the group said in a statement Tuesday after Lollobrigida called for an investigation into the Belgian sauce.

The Belgian company that produced the sauce has not responded to CNN’s request for a comment, but the European Parliament said the product had now been removed from the market’s shelves.

Coldiretti lists several Italian foods, including mozzarella, salami, mortadella and pesto, which are regularly faked.

Coldiretti adds that the use of the Italian flag colors, made-up Italian sounding product names and even photos of Italian monuments amounts to regulatory issues, and are misleading representations under European Union regulations.

The latest carbonara kerfuffle is not the first time the dish has caused a stir.

Last year, Heinz introduced a canned version of “spaghetti carbonara,” again with pancetta instead of guanciale, which drew comparisons to cat food and elicited a barrage of colourful comments.

The authenticity of Italian cuisine has long been thought to be an integral part of its cultural heritage, but some Italians believe it is time to evolve.

In 2023, historian Alberto Grandi stirred anger when he suggested that carbonara and pizza were American inventions, not Italian products, writing a book titled “La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste” (“Italian Cuisine Doesn’t Exist”).

He maintains that Italians who emigrated to the United States took many of the traditions with them, enhanced them there and then returned to Italy and called the improvements “authentic.”

That said, he isn’t against Italian cuisine winning the coveted UNESCO nod.

“UNESCO is not giving the designation for the recipes,” he told CNN in 2023, suggesting that the importance of cuisine and tradition in Italian culture is what’s being recognized. “The question is a philosophical one, not a gastronomical one.”

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN