Don’t ask for Pasta Alfredo, please…
Nov
2005
2005
28
My wife is collecting in her new ebook a variety of misinterpretations of Italian cuisine. Today it’s the turn of … Pasta Alfredo.
Alfredo Sauce or, Salsa Alfredo, is more of a myth than a reality and you are not going to find it in any real Italian recipe books. There is a restaurant in Rome which makes the original fettuccine Alfredo, but that is made with butter and Parmesan cheese. The only product that somehow resembles Salsa Alfredo (Alfredo Sauce) is called panna (which is a thicker version of whipping cream). I suggest you do not ask for Alfredo Sauce when you are in a restaurant because the vast majority of the people will not know what you are talking about.
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Wait a second… you mean restaurants in Italy, right? Most restaurants that serve Fettuccine Alfredo in the US that I know of would put Alfredo Sauce on it.
I thought Fettuccine Alfredo was invented by Alfred Di'Lelio in Rome?
Let me copy & paste an excerpt from our eBook regarding this topic:
"Alfredo Sauce or, Salsa Alfredo, is more of a myth than a reality and you are not going to find it in any real Italian recipe books. There is a restaurant in Rome which makes the original fettuccine Alfredo, but that is made with butter and Parmesan cheese. The only product that somehow resembles Salsa Alfredo (Alfredo Sauce) is called panna (which is a thicker version of whipping cream). I suggest you do not ask for Alfredo Sauce when you are in a restaurant because the vast majority of the people will not know what you are talking about."
Alfredo sauce (or whatever your name is)
I am sorry to dissappoint you but I am Italian (Italian from Italy and not Italian American) and will too tell you that if you go to a restaurant in Italy and ask for fettuccine Alfredo or whatever with Alfredo sauce, you will get a weird look and the response will be: "chi e' Alfredo? (Who's Alfredo?). I've been living in USA now for over a year and the first time I heard of fettuccine Alfredo was here in US. My reaction at the time was the same…."chi c…o e' Alfredo? (who the heck is Alfredo?)
Dora
Absolutely true, I'm also Italian (from Milano) and I was pretty surprised on a trip in the US seeing (and hearing) how these "Alfredo" pastas and sauces were supposedly Italian..there were people ready to swear that it is a tipical Italian dish…being a fairly good cook and a "buongustaio" (person known for his high standards in wine, food and anything good life has to offer) I did a little reseach. There was (70 years ago) a guy that had a Restaurant in Rome called "da Alfredo" that used to serve pasta, mainly fettuccine or penne, with butter and a passing of Parmesan cheese…but with time the preparartion became so diffused in the lower-class population that it actually became a "non-recepy"…this meaning that tipically when you don't want or don't have time to cook and are willing just to gobble something quick you just throw a piece of butter on the hot pasta and a handfull of Parmesan grated cheese…the taste is nothing special but it will treat your hunger. So tipically nobody in Italy would put on his restaurant's menu "penne al burro e formaggio" (penne butter&cheese;) because clients would feel "presi per il culo" (cheated at) being this a really basic home plate tipically shoved by a tired mom in front of the hungry kids for supper. Nonetheless nobody in Italy remembers poor old "Alfredo" and his mid-low level restaurant. Possibly the Italian immigrants in the US, mostly coming from the lower-class, diffused this "recepy" in the early 1920-30s and ended up cheating at their american customers selling "pasta al burro" as if it was a famous and refined dish "alla Alfredo"… ;-D All in all if you go into a restaurant in Italy and ask for "pasta alla Alfredo" you would get a strange face as said in an other post.
What’s really sad is this notion that in order for food to be “good,” it must be elaborate. Sometimes good food is simply made of quality ingredients with an uncomplicated preparation. There is nothing inherently wrong with cream or Parmesan or Romano cheese. Spending half and hour with 15 ingredients every night is more a symptom of snobbery than it is of quality.
I am an American but i have been living in Italia for the last 4 years. I have been to the restaurant you speak of "da Alfredo" and would say the pasta there is much better than anything you would find in USA. The history you speak of (the humble origin, serving just some pasta with burro e parmigiano when you do not have time or are too tired to fix anything else) makes me laugh because "da Alfredo" today is an upper-scale restaurant with men in white coats who serve you at your table!
I wonder…with SO MANY different types of primi in Italia, why are the Salsa Alfredo & the Bolognese the most popular to make it to America???
Thanks for the relief from all the snobbery on this page!
Well said..
“as an American.”
According to "Lidia's Italian American Kitchen" by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, a restaurateur in Rome in the early 1900's came up ith this dish for his wife who was "eating white" after childbirth. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks ate this every night on their trip to Rom in Alfredo di Lelio's restaurant. These travelers brought it back to the USA where it became popular.
Stephanie
I'm italian and chef.. PLEASE PLEASE the american are a good and friendly people but PLEASE again is better when dont TALK of FOOD!!!!
Sorry but any retaurant in USA SERVED SO ORRIBLE FOOD!!!!
Sorry come in Italy or in France or Spain or Greece taste our food and nothing else!!!
Hello
I am from Italy, I have to say that is happened to me few times some foreigner asked me of alfredo pasta, think we do that in italia.
i dont know this alfredo and he dont own italy, we are italians and we havent any special person name in our traditional cousine except for the pizza margherita, that was entitled to the Queen of Italy, otherwise 0.
so please stop to joke with our country and we havent this alfredo, mannnnnnnnnnnn
thta is ego, they want joke with our country, come on pasta burro e parmigiano is normal, it havent a name, what happen, each one should give his name to that? i dont think.
thta is just pasta burro e formaggio grattuggiato, parmigiano o grana o pecorino, things that are the basic in italian food.
nothing special then, plz eat it with raviole, or gnocchi, mmm
and no call it anfredo as we havent such name here, and no label it as italian then is american pasta alfredo, not italian, is like one italian go to nigeria and make penne all'arrabbiata, e then he say its name is penna mr "paolo", or i don tknow, and then what? he says is italian name!! but plzzzzzzz come on
Hello, what city are u from?
I FORGOT TO SAY
WHY PEOPLE LIE?
ALOT PEOPLE DO ITALAIN RESTAURANT AND DO PIZZA THEY DONT KNOW HOW DO STILL THEY CLAIM ITALIAN, AND THEY CLAIM EVEN TO BE HALF ITALIAN.
PLZ
IS TIME FOR HONEESTY
I WAS IN UK
EVERYONE NEED A JOB IN PIZZA NEED TO CLAIM TO BE ITALIAN FOR HALF? AS SAY I AM ITALIAN HE WOULD BE CATCHED AS LIAR
A friend of mine who is from Bologna absolutely loves one thing when he comes to the US and that is our steak. Come to think of it, an Israeli friend feels the same way. We Americans may make horrible food but we have no equal when it comes to a thick slab of beef.
Well, there are some Italian origins, but it have been American tourists who broad the recipe to the US and made it what it is today. Not to mention that only few people really use the traditional ingredients when they make their "Alfredo sauce".
Good post, found it on Bing BTW.
Ok guys, let’s get this straight and easy: pasta Alfredo is not a typical italian dish. It is not snobbery, it is not a joke, it is the one and only truth. If I open a restaurant in Rome tomorrow, and decide to put in my menu the “Pasta Dorima” it doesn’t automatically become a traditional italian dish. Our national cuisine founds its origins on our ancestors, on the history of our country, not on the arguable creativeness of its chefs of modern times. So please, when an Italian tells you pasta Alfredo is not a famous italian dish, just trust in him.
HISTORY OF FETTUCCINE ALL’ALFREDO AND ITS CREATOR
We are the grandchildren of Alfredo Di Lelio (Alfredo and Ines Di Lelio). The story is this. Alfredo di Lelio opened the restaurant “Alfredo” in Rome nel 1914, after leaving his first restaurant run by his mother Angelina Rose Square (Piazza disappeared in 1910 following the construction of the Galleria Colonna / Deaf). In this local fame spread, first to Rome and then in the world of “fettuccine all’Alfredo”. In 1943, during the war, Di Lelio gave the local to his collaborators.
In 1950 Alfredo Di Lelio decided to reopen with his son Armando (Alfredo II) his restaurant in Piazza Augusto Imperatore n.30 “Il Vero Alfredo”, which is now managed by his nephews Alfredo (same name of grandfather) and Ines (the same name of his grandmother, wife of Alfredo Di Lelio, who were dedicated to the noodles).
In conclusion, the local Piazza Augusto Imperatore is following the family tradition of Alfredo Di Lelio and his notes noodles (see also the site of “Il Vero Alfredo”)
An Italian never calls pasta Noodles. It’s like an American calling an hamburger, or patty, a smashed-groundbeef. Pasta is pasta. Noodles in far on the West side. Appreciate it.