With his bike in its usual place against the wall and a pile of broccoli trimmings on the next table, Augusto spreads three architect’s plans over one of the as-yet unset tables outside his trattoria in Testaccio. The first of the plans he shows me is of his family’s land just outside the town of Santa Lucia. It is mostly situated in the region of Abruzzo, but, because of the regional lines drawn up under Mussolini in 1927, a small area is in Lazio. The second plan is of his home town itself, Santa Lucia in Montereale. He points to his family house, which is still standing – just. This is not the case for much of the small, ancient village, wiped out by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that hit central Italy in the early hours of 24 August this summer.
Like many such towns, depleted as people left to find work, Santa Lucia is sparsely populated with only a few full-time inhabitants. Miraculously, none were killed. However, 6km away, in Amatrice in Lazio, 295 people lost their lives; the exquisite medieval town, dense and vulnerable, reduced to a pile of rubble. The same with nearby Pescara del Tronto, the home town of Augusto’s chef Enrico. As Matteo the waiter flicks cloths before laying them on tables, Augusto taps his finger insistently on the third plan showing clusters of tiny villages, many of them no more, the heart of Italy ruptured by its seismically active Apennine spine. “Terribile, terribile, infernale,” Augusto says.
I was in England on the day of the earthquake. Friends and family in Rome, nearly 100 miles away from the epicentre, felt a deep, sliding judder, like a fall in a dream that wakes you up with a sickening jolt. My partner, Vincenzo, was also out of Rome, but two days later the band he plays with drove back down to Abruzzo to play a concert. As in much of Italy and beyond, talk was of the earthquake and the numbers of lives lost, rising like an out-of-control counter – 30, 130, and then almost 300. The show of solidarity was uniquely Italian, a country where place, food and culture is inextricably intertwined. The dish cooked for 8 musicians, and hundreds at the concert, was the dish named for the town of Amatrice: amatriciana.
Back at the table, Augusto still has his finger firmly on the map. He is the one who suggested I write about amatriciana, and who, in the face of my doubts that I will be clumsy or inappropriate, reminds me that pasta unites. He is not bombastic about recipes – simply clear with an appreciation of history. Amatriciana is dish invented by shepherds, who would go high into the mountains during the transhumance with their flocks in the valley of Amatrice. They had pecorino cheese in abundance; they would also carry guanciale (cured pork jowl), dried pasta, wine and a curl of the red chilli you so often see hanging in great bunches above doorways in Abruzzo.
Early amatriciana was in bianco – white; sometimes called alla gricia. Over the years tomato was added, a tradition that was embraced when Abruzze chefs and trattoria owners brought their dish to Rome, where it settled in very nicely. The traditional pasta for amatriciana is bucatini, meaning “pierced” – which is exactly what they are: long pasta with a hole down the middle. When cooked al dente, bucatini retains its shape surprisingly well: you can wind it around your fork, but then it may well break loose, flapping like an unmanned hose and flicking sauce across your chin.
Guanciale is more delicate than pancetta: rich and almost sweet; qualities that make it sing here. You can make something delicious with pancetta or bacon though. I love the taste of fresh tomatoes and, while we still have some fat with summer, let’s use them. Not too many though: the pasta shouldn’t be drowned in red, but covered in a thin mantle of sauce studded with pork, enriched with sharp, tangy pecorino.
Augusto suggests a little wine and uses the word mantecare (whisk) to describe the action of beating the cheese with the sauce, which is what brings everything together into a full-bodied dish. As he folds the architectural plans, smoothing the creases with his huge thumbs, he also suggests you think of your plate of amatriciana as tribute to those affected by the devastating earthquake and the long, inevitably complicated process of rebuilding.
Augusto’s bucatini all’amatriciana
Serves 4
120g guanciale or pancetta
400g tomatoes, either fresh and ripe, or peeled and tinned without juice
100g pecorino
White wine (optional)
A pinch of dried red chilli
Salt
500g bucatini, spaghetti, rigatoni or caserecce
1 Bring a large pan of water to the boil for the pasta. Cut the guanciale into short batons. If you are using fresh tomatoes, peel them by plunging them first into boiling water – you can use the water for the pasta – then cold, at which point the skins should split and slip away. Then chop them into strips. If you are using tinned tomatoes, chop them roughly. Grate the pecorino.
2 In a large frying pan over a medium-low heat, fry the guanciale so it renders its fat and is just starting to brown. If you like, add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate.
3 Add the tomatoes and chilli, then cook until the mixture has thickened into a rich sauce – which usually takes about 8 minutes. Taste: if the sauce is too acidic, add a little sugar.
4 Meanwhile, once the water is boiling, add salt, stir, then add the pasta. Once the pasta is cooked, either drain in a colander, saving some water, or use tongs to lift the pasta directly on to the sauce. Add most of the cheese, and toss/beat well, adding a little pasta cooking water if it seems stiff. Serve, sharing the rest of the cheese between the plates.
- Rachel Roddy is a food writer based in Rome, the author of Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome (Saltyard, 2015) and winner of the André Simon food book award
