Carbonara is a classic pasta dish from Rome, and probably the most misunderstood dish in Italian cuisine.

The carbonara sauce is really typical of roman cuisine because it’s incredibly simple and uses only 4 main ingredients: eggs, pork, cheese and black pepper – NEVER cream! The American and British versions made with double cream are pretty awful and have completely misunderstood the point. Carbonara is not a general term for a creamy pasta sauce, it’s a specific dish. So despite popular belief and current advertising from Philadelphia cheese, there is no such thing as a ‘carbonara-style’ sauce. You cannot add cream, soft cheese, garlic, onions, peas or mushrooms and still call it a carbonara. Adding cream is completely pointless – it just washes out all the flavour and makes it really unhealthy. A proper carbonara should feel creamy and indulgent, but this comes from the egg rather than cream, and is balanced by the salty…