At the beginning of all of “this,” when we were in the initial OMG WE ARE GOING TO RUN OUT OF FOOD AND TOILET PAPER phase, Mr. Sauce and I were eating a lot of Italian food. Like, a lot of Italian food.
Why? It was hell to get grocery delivery from the supermarket, so initially we were doing a lot of ordering from an Italian market here in Baltimore called Trinacria. They were fulfilling orders the same day and when you showed up they would just throw the box into your trunk upon arrival.
(it also didn’t hurt that they sell $4 bottles of Pinot Grigio)
Mr. Sauce, Esq. and I ordered meats and cheeses by the pound (you don’t want to know how much Parmesan cheese, pancetta, and Italian sausage there is in my freezer). We bought pre-made bags of stuffed shells and a spinach lasagna. We stocked the pantry with canned tomatoes and pastas. We bought all kinds of pastas–short, fat, long, spindly. All kinds of pastas we never tried before.
That is how we come to Sophia Loren and her Bucatini.
Her first book contains the original recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara:
From her 1998 cookbook, I took her recipe for Bucatini alla Carbonara:
I picked the recipe because I had Pancetta and Bucatini on hand.
Well, I thought I had Bucatini. Because it has a hole in the center of it. Bucatini is long hollow noodles. Well, we did not have Bucatini, we had #19 Long Ziti.
There is a difference between Bucatini and Long Ziti.
A big, big difference.
It’s quadruple the size.
When cooked, the pasta looks like skinny pork intestine.
The sauce was tasty, but the noodles were unwieldy and difficult to eat. All flopping about. Not bending the whole way because the pasta is so big. Kinda like a half-melted plastic boba straw–so it doesn’t look very appealing, either.
This is a more appetizing shot:
It was not until later that I did a bit of research and discovered the long ziti is supposed to be broken into smaller pieces (but the good Lord invented normal-sized ziti, so what’s up with that?) or you make it the way it was intended to be used–in a bake. Which is totally logical.
So this is my bit of advice today–if you are going to try a pasta shape you’ve never cooked before, do a little recon and first see how it’s supposed to be used.
2020… So, I’m exactly three years late. But it’s never too late is it ? ?
Too damn lazy to dig out my beloved “Sofia” cookbook, I hopefully Googled, “Sofia Loren’s Carbonara” and… Voila!! Had a crush on this woman when I was a young girl and have always admired her. Anyway, thanks for posting this, it was fun to read. Just wanted to add that in ~my~ cookbook she remarks that the buccatini is jokingly called “priest stranglers” in the countryside. >grin< Just one more thing future people: Look no further; this is THE BEST recipe.
Thanks Yinzerella
This was hilarious!! I love you guys!! Thanks for the much needed wonderful chuckle!
Still looks pretty darn good, plus now you and Mr. Sauce, Esq. have a fun story. I love any kind of pasta a la carbonara.
I luv her! When I was a youngun I read an article about her in one of my mum’s ladies magazines and Miss Sophia attributed her skin & hair to all the Italian food she ate. Well I knew right then I could have a healthy appetite if this goddess did.