One of the favorite weeknight dinners of my childhood (or "emergency dinners," as my mom would call them), this extremely simple pasta dish is a staple in my culinary arsenal. Whenever I think there is nothing left in my fridge, there's always a couple of eggs, the end of a piece of cheese and a bit of bacon, which makes spaghetti alla carbonara a hero of a dish. Even further proof that carbonara is awesome is the fact that it is both easy to make and easy on the wallet.
I did some research, and what I found was interesting (and slightly confusing), so I thought I'd share. Carbonara seems to be one of those dishes that is pretty widespread, yet we don't really know where it comes from, and its origins are surprisingly contentious (weird, right?). You can read about it here in depth. The general consensus is that it is a Roman dish, and it has something to do with either coal or coal miners (carbonara is a derivative of the word carbonai which means charcoal in Italian). The dish got its name either because coalminers invented the dish, or because the black pepper sprinkled on top resembles coal dust.
A less popular theory is that, during WWII, American GIs in Italy asked local cooks to create a meal for them out of their rations of bacon and eggs. While this is a really nice story, it has been discredited for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that it doesn't explain the name, Italians remember eating carbonara before the war, and that it is traditionally made with guanciale, an Italian cured meat made from pork jowl, not bacon. However, some argue that pancetta is the correct choice, and bacon is a perfectly acceptable substitute. I reeeeally like the idea of breakfast (re: bacon and eggs) reincarnated into a pasta dish, so I use regular ol' American bacon.
