I kind of hate that I can´t order a carbonara let alone say the word out loud without immiediatly humming that tune. But I also kind of love it.
Same here. Like all other kids grown up in the 1980s. 
Thanks for the Ohrwurm. Not!
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I’ve had carbonara too tonight!!
But it’s not home made, I’m in Rome because of my job… here’s my dinner:
Carbonara and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
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Roasted suckling pig with friggitelli tempura
Triple dark chocolate brownie with raspberry sorbet and Muffato della Sala
(Muffato is a sweet wine made with grapes which are affected by a mold which is called “the noble mold”, just like french Sauternes)
…you asked for food porn, and you get it!! 
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I can’t judge your carbonara only by its picture, it looks nice.
Here is how I made it, recipe for 2 people:
smoked pork belly, 200g100g.
I fry it in plain olive oil for a long time. It must almost burn. It must become crispy.
While it goes, I boil 200g of pasta. When it’s ready I put it right in the pot with the pork. Now I turn off the flame. Then I put 1 entire raw egg and 1 yolk. You must stir immediately, or your egg will cook despite of the turned off flame. Your egg should remain almost raw. Put your pasta in warm dishes, add a lot of black pepper and roman pecorino chees.
Then I eat immediately and insanely quickly.
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Fantastic!
What’s that tune?
It’s the first time I hear it…
The italian lyrics are ilarious…
Probably as my english!
I used the knowledge of this person: Gennaro Contaldo and made the sauce similar to the video. I used regular butter with a little bit of olive oil on top, and I used salami and Vienna sausages instead of pancetta. 
Also I had my handmade pasta instead of spaghetti.
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It was a big hit in Germany in the 1980s by the German band Spliff (the name of the band doesn’t make any sense).
I’ve seen the video very quicky, but I have to say it is quite a faithful way to do it. Only butter seems a variation to me.
BTW, I’ve noticed he uses one entire egg plus one yolk, just like me! I thought it was a secret of mine! 
Is this the/a “classic” carbonara recipe? Or does each Italian family has its own recipe?
Well, the classic Carbonara recipe is the one used in its native area (Rome and its hinterland).
Sometimes, some variations are allowed. Nonetheless, there are some unmissable ingredients to make the carbonara as good as intended.
Here comes the ORIGINAL recipe:
- 1 egg per person
- 200 gr. of pasta (spaghetti or tagliatelle are the best)
- 100 gr. of jowl or bacon (jowl is better)
- 50 gr. of Pecorino romano cheese
- salt and pepper
- Take the jowl and cut it into little squares. Brown them in a pan and turn it off when they have hardened and roasted on the outside.
- While the pasta cooks in salted water, beat the eggs with salt (not too much salt, because the jowl/bacon is already tasty), a handful of pecorino cheese and a little bit of black pepper.
- Drain the pasta “al dente”, pour it into the pan where the jowl squares were browned and allow the sauce to be absorbed, stirring with a wooden spoon.
- Pour the pasta into the cooking pot, add the beaten eggs and mix it so that the egg congeals but does not become an omelette. This operation should be done when the stove is off; add more pepper and possibly other pecorino cheese.
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No, it isn’t. As I said, the use of butter is quite obviously a variation. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a “fat border” in Italy. Northern regions, including Emilia Romagna, use mostly butter.
Central and southern regions, from Tuscany on, use mostly olive oil (caronara is from Rome, BTW).
Only a FEW italian recipes has BOTH.
Anyway, I’m sure the original recipe is the one cited by Zak.
But I have to say that usually the original recipes of classical italian dishes are written retrospectively by a designed commission. History gives us a lot of recipes for the same dish, with little or big variations.
As you can see, my home recipe is very close to the original: same ingredients, similar procedures and doses. One little variation is to use only ONE entire egg and one yolk. I do this since it makes the flavour and the color stronger, and the result less liquid. Mostly every home recipe has little variations, but it’s not uncommon to find major (arguable) variations. For example, it is very common in italian homes the orrendous habit to put cream inside carbonara…
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I’ll give you one more recipe.
It’s a very quick recipe, that I make every time I have a strong PASTA desire.
And I mean pasta, I’m not referring to the garnishment.
This is a very simple and quick recipe, but it’s not easy.
It has only three ingredients, and so you MUST use TOP quality ingredients and you MUST be very precise with salt and timing, or you’ll spoil everything.
This recipe is Spaghetti aglio, olio, peperoncino.
Put 3 spoons of extra virgin olive oil per person in a pot. Put a lot of garlic.
I’d say two-three cloves per person cut in little pieces. If you prefer you can avoid to cut the cloves in order to remove them before serving, but in this case I suggest to raise the dose.
Now, fry your garlic at a vey low flame. Don’t let it get brown!
At last, add some dried hot italian peppers (as you like, iti is inended to be quite hot).
Then turn off the flame, and concentrate to the pasta. Dont let ii overcook, drain it very al dente. Don’t mess with salt.
NO CHEESE on top of this kind of pasta!
Drain it, mix it with the coocked oil, and eat voraciously.
(Side note: olive oil changes its taste when you cook it. if you like the taste of raw olive oil, cook less oil than normal, and add some raw oil after cooking).
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NOT in my home! 
NOT in my home!
That’s why I asked. (@ZakPhoenixMcKracken: Stop reading here! ) I did that too when I made carbonara. I am confident that the carbonara I eat in Italy had also cream in it. But I don’t know where I got the recipe from …
But it’s interesting to know that the “original” recipe use only eggs. Thanks for your explanations and all the recipes! (Maybe we should collect our recipes and publish a book: “The taste of Thimbleweed Park: Cooking for Geeks”.)
Great. Now I got hungry again…
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Well, cream is an ingredient which is rarely present in italian original recipes. The people who use it in carbonara do so to make it more creamy, while, you should achieve a similar result only with egg.
The result with egg only would be more flavory and more sticky.
If you are interested,
Here I explain why cream is sometimes added to original recipes that doesn't have it
Cream is fat. Fat makes food more enjoyable but at an an obvious high health cost.
Cream makes food more enjoyable because of palatability (medical term). The mellow consistency of fat makes the food round, structurate and enjoyable. It also covers imperfections. And, finally, since aromatic molecules are lipophile, fat vehiculates falvors better.
The side effects are in the field of health as I suggested, but also in the field of taste:
In very low quality kitchens, they use a lot of cream. The food may be tasty, but it simply tastes of cream.
Cream flattens the taste.
That’s why the use of cream is considered, in Italy, as a “cheap” way to improve your cooking if you are a poor cook, or you use low quality ingredients. Good ktchens use tasty ingredients to make tasteful dishes, they don’t trick their dishes with cream.
The Cream Parable in Italy
Until the sixties-seventies, the only cream you could find in Italy was probably the whipped cream you could get in cafes, as a topping for your gelato or your ciccolata.
The use of “panna da cucina” (cooking cream) came into homes with the advent of UHT sterilization, TV ads and the more and more pervasive presence of supermarkets. All this elements concurred in changing consume habits. From the 80es on, cream became a constant presence in our fridges. By the nineties, in my home experience (and looking at my friends, too), cream was extensively used.
The, between the 90es and 00’s, things changed again. People started to care about slow food, healthy ingredients, genuine and original recipes. So the use of cream decreased again. Today it is quite uncommon to find recipes with cream in restaurants.
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I had a discussion with a family member, who uses to eat his spaghetti aglio, olio, pepperoncino with Parmigiano. I always thought that the Parmigiano impaired the taste of the other ingredients, so I’m relieved to read this.
Much as I have observed certain similarities between the Italian and the Mexican kitchen, this is a significant difference. Mexicans use to fry vegetables until they are partially black.
Nonetheless, I appreciate both the Italian and the Mexican kitchen, since they are tasty, light and not so heavy on the meat (unlike the Greek kitchen - no harm meant!). This is not to say that I were a vegetarian, but, in my opinion, the average consumption of meat is just too high, especially seeing the questionable production conditions of meat (including mistreatments of animals and abuses of pharmaceuticals).
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Well said, man! 
I can’t agree more.
There’s plenty of reasons why your words are so important. I can just look at how my grandparents cooked back then to see how we overstated use of meat and food in general. But that’s a long story… This would take another whole topic (I mean balance in food production and consumption).
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Isn’t mascarpone (or other fat chees) used instead of cream in original Italian recipes?
I have a simple recipe (for linguine al prosciutto e mascarpone) with no cream, but a LOT of butter and Mascarpone. I usually make that one with less butter (pure fat) than required by the recipe, but adding either some cream or even half-skimmed milk until the sauce has the right consistency and have less fat in the end result (still a fat bomb by any standard).