Almost Italian

When Imperial Rome was the center of the ancient Western world, its cuisine was as multinational as the capital itself. Well-to-do Romans enjoyed produce from the the fertile plains of Campania, grain from North Africa, spices and dried condiments from Asia, along with the bounty of the Mediterranean Sea.

During the Renaissance and heydey of Genoese and Venetian trade with the Ottoman Empire, Italy’s urban centers were cauldrons of food fusion.

But during the Age of Discovery, the Italian peninsula was left behind. Columbus sailed for the Spanish crown, not Italy. And after the seismic culinary effects of the introduction of the tomato and pepper, those New World interlopers that forever altered all Mediterranean cuisines, Italians settled down to what they already knew. Indeed, they were among the last in the Mediterranean to embrace tomatoes, which were not staples in the Mezzogiorno until well into the 18^th century.

Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

This is all the back-drop to Italian food in the post-industrial age. To put it simply: Food throughout the Italian peninsula has not changed with anything like the speed that it has in many other parts of the world.

Likewise, Italian-American cuisine has remained remarkably static since its birth. Spaghetti with Meatballs served in an immigrants’ boarding house at the turn of the 20^th century was pretty much the same dish served in a wise-guy café in Hoboken in the 1970′s. But once they began to imagine and adapt dishes like Pasta Primavera, Penne alla Vodka, and cold pasta salads, Italian-American restaurant chefs expanded menus that had once been limited to variations of pasta with red sauce.

Let’s look at a Roman classic, Pasta alla Carbonara, as a starting point. Sometime in the past 30 years, an inventive chef was inspired to replace the requisite guanciale, cured pork jowl, with smoked salmon. Thus was born Smoked Salmon alla Carbonara.

We don’t have that first printed recipe, but the Internet is littered with permutations we couldn’t (or maybe, shouldn’t) have imagined. On March 17, 1982, the St. Petersburg, Florida, Evening Independent published a recipe for “Salmon Carbonara” featuring canned salmon and Parmesan cheese. (You may easily surmise that, in 1982, that cheese would have been the industrial product in the shiny green foil cylinder.) Needless to say, any Old World Italian would have considered the combination of seafood and cheese an infamita of the highest order.

Think back to the 1980′s… recall the Silver Palate cookbooks and that decade of decadence when cream ruled. Italian-American restaurants attempting to cultivate a more sophisticated clientele were serving pasta without red sauce. Pasta presentations in “a Parmesan cream sauce” appear to have gained favor because they were “lighter” (only in color, for they were certainly no lighter in calories) and because they were more delicately flavored than dishes in a garlicky marinara. Compared to a red-sauce dish, these creamy pastas seemed to express urbane luxury, just what the upscale Italian-American restaurant diner wanted to experience.

Curiously, we found many of that period’s recipes included peas, a reminder of the New England tradition of Salmon and Peas on the 4^th of July. Though these recipes stopped short of Tuna Noodle Casserole, there were some unfortunate similarities.

Despite its wayward past, we think that Salmon alla Carbonara deserves rehabilitation.

We wanted our rendition to be closer to the original Italian alla Carbonara treatment, named for the “charcoal-maker’s wife.” We’ve kept it simple. In the original, guanciale (or pancetta) is rendered and crisped, the fat and crispy bits added to beaten eggs. Abundant black pepper and grated Parmesan go into the mix. At the last minute, the heat and starch of the cooked pasta, straight from the collander, thicken and partially cook the beaten-egg mixture. The result is an an unctuous sauce that clings to every strand of spaghetti, linguine, or fettuccine.

Our version omits the guanciale and also the Parmesan—in the Italian tradition of keeping cheese far away from fish and seafood.

But without the hot fat to help emulsify the eggs, the sauce lacks body. So, we’ve added just a little sour cream. Smoked salmon, sliced into strips, requires no further cooking and replaces the pork to yield a quick and elegant meal. Since the stove is needed only to boil the pasta water, the dish is perfect for a warm evening.

Ingredients:

2 Large eggs
1/4 Cup sour cream
Freshly ground black pepper
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Bermuda onion, finely diced
1/2 Lb. Linguine or fettuccine
6 oz. Smoked salmon, cut into ribbons 1/4 inch wide

Preparation:

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.

Break the eggs into a large bowl, and with the back of a fork or a whisk, beat them thoroughly. Beat in the sour cream. Add four or five grinds of black pepper, the parsley, and the onion.

When the water has come to a boil, add the pasta and cook until it reaches the al dente state.

Drain the pasta in a collander and immediately add to the egg mixture. Stir vigorously with tongs or a wooden spoon. This will cook the egg mixture as it comes into contact with the hot pasta.

When the pasta is thoroughly coated, gently stir in the salmon. Divide the pasta equally between two dinner plates and garnish with additional parsley.

Serves two.

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