Inventing a tradition that does not exist and has never existed and then defending this imaginary tradition from alleged external attacks by putting up a wall in an ideological, chauvinistic and populist way, shouting lèse-majesté (without there being any “majesté” to offend) and getting indignant at every turn. It happens in many areas, but it happens even more in the world of food and gastronomy. It is called “gastronationalism”. And it must be fought or at least identified as such.

Carbonara and off-target gastronationalism

The latest victim of gastronationalism and easy indignation is the canned pasta alla carbonara announced by the English branch of Heinz, an American brand famous throughout the world for ketchup and producer of a thousand other sauces and shelf-stable preparations. Just to play on the homonymy, no one doubts that the famous fagottelli alla carbonara by chef Heinz (Beck) are gastronomically more interesting than the canned spaghetti alla carbonara by Heinz, but that said, what is so outrageous if the American multinational decides to place a carbonara alongside its other canned pastas such as ravioli, anellini hoop or bolognese? And instead the indignation is mounting: “they are destroying the gastronomy of our country” thunders Gianfranco Vissani.

Heinz’s foolproof carbonara designed for young people

In reality, Heinz, as it openly declares, has thought of a foolproof product since often when making carbonara at home you risk getting the timing wrong and losing the creaminess of the dish in favor of a Cantonese rice-style omelette; assuming that creaminess is “tradition”. A product especially designed for the younger ones who don’t want too much hassle, not by chance the claim that accompanies the launch of the new product – already on sale in the online store – is “no drama carbonara”.

Heinz (which is the fifth largest multinational food company in the world, with a turnover of 26 billion dollars a year and does not move haphazardly) lets it be known that the product comes on the back of a series of research and surveys that have demonstrated the increasing inability and lack of desire of young people to cook. According to research carried out in the United Kingdom between 2022 and 2023, it emerged that GenZ (i.e. those under 30) are clamoring for cheap and quick meals. And perhaps with a controlled number of fats.

Make two portions of quick carbonara for just over €2
And so the market analysis passes through marketing and generates the product to be launched. Heinz Spaghetti Carbonara (which does not appear to have any trace of egg, but instead contains pasta, bacon, salt, pepper, dried parsley, onion extract and garlic, among other ingredients) is offered in a 400 gram can or in two portions at 1.75 pounds (about 2 euros, a little more) and with the additional promise of being ready in a minute in the microwave.

The unjustified hatred for canned food: but why?

It remains to be seen where the indignation comes from if not from a bit of ignorance and provincialism. Perhaps there is an idiosyncrasy towards canned or preserved foods? But it would have no reason to exist: canned fish is often better than fresh fish, there are extraordinary canned vegetables, as well as extraordinary fruit (jams and marmalades) and even the most luxurious foods such as caviar or foie gras are packaged in cans. Therefore, associating a poor quality product with canned food is superficial, and yet Alessandro Pipero went to folkloristically declare to the Times that canned food is cat food. But in the specific case of carbonara all these entrenchments are even more anti-historical.

The history of carbonara, which until now no one cared about

First of all, it is a recipe that has very little to do with Italian tradition: the very first version was published in the United States, in Italy the first written attestation appeared very recently (only 70 years ago to be exact, in August 1954 in La Cucina Italiana) but it was quite different from what we today consider the carbonara to be defended with a knife between the teeth. After that, throughout the Sixties, very few people paid attention to it, in the Seventies and Eighties it was made in Italian homes in a way that has nothing to do with today’s and when it appeared in restaurants (see Gualtiero Marchesi) it was covered in cream exactly like the canned version by Heinz that had just been launched. In the various “historical” recipes for this preparation there was Gruyere cheese, garlic, onion and so on. So what is there to defend? Perhaps the recent version that has become popular in the last fifteen years with the fashion for “carbocrema” created to titillate the Instagram algorithm and crispy guanciale? If anything, it is paradoxically the latter that turns its back on tradition.

The “real” carbonara? It was made with canned food

But there is even more, if we talk about canned food: according to the most accredited legend about the birth of carbonara, the dish was invented in Riccione, just liberated in 1944, by a Bolognese chef making extensive use of canned foods supplied to the Allied army, such as egg yolk powder. In short, it turns out that Heinz’s canned carbonara is the version that most philologically cites the tradition of this dish, not only for the element of canned food, but also for its identity itself: a dish made in an emergency, quickly, in the absence of great economic possibilities and in the easiest and most improvised way possible. Precisely the requests of today’s young people to which Heinz wants to respond.

The birth of products of very large distribution that cite our supposedly historical preparations, confirms if anything the global allure that Italian recipes continue to have, to the point of being replicated until the most popular results possible. Good news for our gastronomy since more people will taste the fast&cheap carbonara of Heinz and more people will be able to have the idea of ​​​​coming here to try an artisanal and express version. Of those made well though, not of those served by thousands of tourist restaurants in Italy that serve tons of carbonara every day infinitely worse than the packaged ones in a box. It would be legitimate to be indignant about those.

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