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Restaurant Guide and Food Article

If you ask for pasta with Alfredo sauce at a restaurant
in Italy all you get from your waiter is a stare. Why is one of the
most famous “Italian sauces” for pasta unknown in its country of
origin? The answer is simple: because in Italy an Alfredo “sauce”
doesn’t exist.

Yes, Italians make a dish of pasta, fettuccine dressed
with nothing else than good aged parmigiano cheese and a lot of butter,
but is such a simple preparation that Italians don’t even consider it a
“recipe”.

Waverly Root in his famous book “The Food of Italy” (New
York, 1971) wrote: “FETTUCCINE AL BURRO is associated in every
tourist’s mind with Rome, possibly because the original Alfredo
succeeded in making its serving a spectacle reminiscent of grand opera.
It is the same ribbon shaped egg pasta tat is called tagliatelle in
Bologna; but the al burro preparation is very Roman indeed in its rich
simplicity. Nothing is added to the pasta except grated cheese and
butter - lots of butter. The recipe calls for doppio burro, double
butter, which gives it a golden color.”

Who was Alfredo then? Alfredo di Lelio, this was his
full name, was an inspired cook who proposed this new exciting dish in
the restaurant he opened in Rome in 1914. It was a high gourmet
preparation in the Roman tradition of simplicity. Apparently he created
his Fettuccine all’Alfredo when his wife lost her appetite during her
pregnancy. To bring back her appetite he prepared for her a nutritious
dish of egg fettuccine with parmigiano cheese and butter. That probably
gave him the idea for his “triple butter” fettuccine.

He was an extravagant character who used to personally
serve his paper-thin fettuccine with golden forks, apparently donated
to him by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, the famous silent movie
stars. In the fifties and sixties, Hollywood discovered Rome. Paparazzi
photographers took photos of actors such as Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner,
Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, or Sophia Loren in front of a plate of
Fettuccine all’Alfredo, making his restaurant famous all around the
world. The restaurant is now run buy his grandson, and the golden forks
are still used to serve this dish for special occasions.

Samuel Chamberlain, journalist and food writer, met
Alfredo in the late fifties and wrote in his book “Italian Bouquet – An
Epicurean Tour of Italy” (New York, 1958): “Finally there is the great
Alfredo, showman par excellence, who draws an endless file of amazed
and hungry tourists to watch his calisthenics over a dish of hot
noodles. The King of Noodles has come out of retirement, and now wields
his golden fork and spoon at ALFREDO ALL’AUGUSTEO, at number 31 on the
Piazza Augusto Imperatore. His Maestosissime Fettuccine all’Alfredo are
most majestic, without a doubt. […] You have to visit this place at
least once, we suppose, just to say you have seen this elderly,
melodramatic good-hearted clown in action.”

So, forget the heavy cream, the parsley, the garlic, and
all the other stuff suggested in the hundreds of Alfredo recipes that
circulate around. Take down from the shelf that pasta machine, prepare
your fresh fettuccine (you can substitute fresh fettuccine with
excellent dry egg noodles), and enjoy the simple Maestosissime
Fettuccine al Triplo Burro the way Alfredo himself would do them.