Fettuccine Alfredo

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Fettuccine Alfredo
CourseMain (United States)
Primo (Italy)
Place of originRome, Italy
Associated cuisineItalian, Italian-American
Created byAlfredo di Lelio I (1882–1959)
Main ingredientsFettuccine noodles, butter, Parmesan cheese
Variations(Primarily US) additions: cream, chicken, broccoli, parsley, garlic, shrimp, turkey, salmon

Fettuccine Alfredo (Italian pronunciation: [fettut'tʃiːne alˈfreːdo]) is an Italian-style pasta dish which is a well known staple of Italian-American cuisine. It is made with fettuccine noodles, butter, cream, and Parmesan cheese. As the cheese is mixed with freshly cooked, warm fettuccine, it melts and emulsifies to form a smooth, rich cheese sauce coating the noodles.[1] In the United States, where it is often served as a main course, the recipe sometimes includes chicken or other ingredients.[2]

The dish is named for Alfredo Di Lelio, a Roman restauranteur who is credited with its invention and popularisation in the early to mid-20th century.[2] His elaborate tableside service was an integral part of the dish.[3] Fettuccine Alfredo is based on a traditional Italian preparation commonly known as fettuccine al burro (lit. 'fettuccine with butter'), pasta burro e parmigiano (lit. 'noodles with butter and Parmesan'), or simply pasta in bianco (lit. 'blank' or 'plain noodles').[4][5] The name "Alfredo" is generally not used in Italy.[6]

History[edit]

In Italy, the combination of pasta with butter and cheese dates to at least the 15th-century, when it was mentioned by Martino da Como, a northern Italian cook active in Rome;[7] this recipe for "Roman Macaroni" (Italian: maccaroni romaneschi) calls for cooking pasta in broth or water and adding butter, "good cheese" (the variety is not specified) and "sweet spices".[8]

Modern fettuccine Alfredo was invented by Alfredo Di Lelio in Rome. According to family accounts, in 1892 Alfredo Di Lelio began to work in a restaurant run by his mother Angelina that was located in piazza Rosa. Di Lelio invented fettuccine al triplo burro[1] (later named "fettuccine all'Alfredo" or "fettuccine Alfredo") in 1907 or 1908 in an effort to entice his wife, Ines, to eat after giving birth to their first child Armando. Alfredo added extra butter or triplo burro to the fettuccine when mixing it together for her.[9][10][11] Piazza Rosa disappeared in 1910 following the construction of the Galleria Colonna/Sordi, and the restaurant was forced to close. Di Lelio later opened his own restaurant, Alfredo alla Scrofa, then called "Alfredo", in 1914 on the via della Scrofa in central Rome.

In 1943, during the war, Di Lelio sold the restaurant to two of his waiters.[12] In 1950, with his son Armando, Alfredo Di Lelio opened a new restaurant in piazza Augusto Imperatore (Il vero Alfredo all’Augusteo[13] – now managed by his niece Ines Di Lelio), which displays a set of gold cutlery inscribed "To Alfredo the King of the noodles" said to have been a 1927 gift from of the American actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in gratitude for Alfredo's hospitality.[6][1][14] The two restaurants competed vigorously, with escalating puffery: "the king of fettuccine", "the real king of fettuccine", "the magician of fettuccine", "the emperor of fettuccine", "the real Alfredo", etc.[12]

In the 1950s, Di Lelio promoted the dish and his restaurant by creating a celebrity wall of fettuccine themed photographs of himself and his noodles posing with film stars, famous musicians, and dignitaries including James Stewart, Bob Hope, Anthony Quinn, Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Jack Lemmon, Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power, Sophia Loren, Cantinflas, and many others.[15]

The dish was so well known that Di Lelio was invited to demonstrate it both in Italy and abroad.[12][better source needed] Di Lelio was made a Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia.[16][17][better source needed]

In American culture[edit]

This act of mixing the butter and cheese through the noodles becomes quite a ceremony when performed by Alfredo in his tiny restaurant in Rome. As busy as Alfredo is with other duties, he manages to be at each table when the waiter arrives with the platter of fettuccine to be mixed by him. As a violinist plays inspiring music, Alfredo performs the sacred ceremony with a fork and spoon of solid gold. Alfredo does not cook noodles. He does not make noodles. He achieves them.

— George Rector (1933)[18]

The dish has long been popular with Americans, who, when in Rome, often seek out its historical origins.[2][19] Alfredo's noodles have been extolled in multiple magazines and guidebooks since as early as the 1920s and 1930s,[17][20][21] and Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt (a satirical critique of middle class American vacuity) makes reference to "a little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world."[22] In 1927, the American food writer and restaurateur George Rector wrote about "Alfredo's noodles", describing in detail the restaurateur's tableside preparation ceremony and its accompanying violin music; he did not give the dish a specific name, nor did he mention golden tableware.[16] Also in 1927, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks supposedly dined at Alfredo's and gave him the golden fork and spoon mentioned above.[21]

In 1966, the Pennsylvania Dutch Noodle Company started marketing their dried "Fettuccine Egg Noodles", which included a recipe on the package for an Alfredo sauce including cream and Swiss cheese as well as Parmesan and butter.[23]

The American restaurant casual dining chain Olive Garden has popularized its versions of fettuccine Alfredo, which may be combined with chicken, shrimp or other foods to make main courses called "chicken Alfredo", "seafood Alfredo", etc.[24] Olive Garden's recipe also includes cream and garlic.[25]

Preparation[edit]

The fame of the dish, called on Alfredo's menus maestosissime fettuccine all'Alfredo (lit. 'most majestic Alfredo-style fettuccine'), comes largely from the "spectacle reminiscent of grand opera" of its preparation at table at his restaurant in Rome,[4] as described in 1967:

[The fettuccine] are seasoned with plenty of butter and fat parmesan, not aged, so that, in a ritual of extraordinary theatricality, the owner mixes the pasta and lifts it high to serve it, the white threads of cheese gilded with butter and the bright yellow of the ribbons of egg pasta offering an eyeful for the customer; at the end of the ceremony, the guest of honor is presented the golden cutlery and the serving dish, where the blond fettuccine roll around in the pale gold of the seasonings. It's worth seeing the whole ceremony. The owner, son of old Alfredo and looking exactly like him, ... bends over the great skein of fettuccine, fixes it intensely, his eyes half-closed, and dives into mixing it, waving the golden cutlery with grand gestures, like an orchestra conductor, with his sinister upwards-pointing twirled moustache dancing up and down, pinkies in the air, a rapt gaze, flailing elbows.[12]

Recipes attributed to Di Lelio only include three ingredients: fettuccine, young Parmesan cheese and butter.[16][21][12] Yet there are various legends about the "secret" of the original Alfredo recipe: some say oil is added to the pasta dough, others that the noodles are cooked in milk.[26]

Fettuccine Alfredo, minus the spectacle, has now become ubiquitous in Italian-style restaurants outside Italy, although in Italy this dish is usually called simply "fettuccine al burro".[5][27]

Alfredo sauce[edit]

In many countries outside of Italy, pre-packaged "Alfredo" sauces (and ready to eat "Fettuccini Alfredo" meals) are sold as a convenience food in grocery stores. Unlike the original preparation, which is thickened only by cheese, the prepared food and fast food versions of this dish may be thickened with eggs, starch or other emulsifiers or bulking agents such as cellulose powder.[28]

See also[edit]

Media related to Fettuccine Alfredo at Wikimedia Commons Alfredo Sauce at the Wikibooks Cookbook subproject

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Carnacina & Buonassisi 1975, pp. 72–73
  2. ^ a b c Cesari, Luca (26 January 2023). "The Invention of Fettuccine Alfredo: A Love Story". Literary Hub. Retrieved 20 April 2024.
  3. ^ Downie 2011, p. 106
  4. ^ a b Root 1971, p. 86
  5. ^ a b "Fettuccine Alfredo". Giallo Zafferano. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  6. ^ a b Cesari, Luca (24 September 2023). "Lo strano caso delle Fettuccine Alfredo, il piatto quasi sconosciuto in Italia e famoso negli Usa" [The strange case of Fettuccine Alfredo, an almost unknown dish in Italy that's famous in America]. Gambero Rosso (in Italian). Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  7. ^ Annalisa Zordan (29 May 2016). "Fettuccine Alfredo. Come si preparano e chi le ha inventate" (in Italian). GamberoRosso. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  8. ^ de Rossi, Martino. Libro de Arte Coquinaria. pp. s.v.
  9. ^ "Alfredo 1914". alfredo1914.com. web. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  10. ^ "La Storia". il vero Alfredo (in Italian). web. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  11. ^ Carnacina (1975). Roma in Cucina. pp. 72–73.
  12. ^ a b c d e 'frasi' [pseudo. of Francesco Simoncini?], Ristoranti a Roma, A.B.E.T.E. 1967, p. 99
  13. ^ Somma, Marianna (20 February 2024). "Storia delle Fettuccine Alfredo, il più famoso piatto italo-americano" [The history of Fettuccine Alfredo, the most famous Italian-American dish]. Wine and Food Tour (in Italian). Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  14. ^ "Fettuccine Alfredo Day: lo storico ristorante festeggia annunciando la nuova apertura in Arabia Saudita". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). 7 February 2024. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  15. ^ Mariani & Bastianich 2011, p. 79
  16. ^ a b c George Rector, "A Cook's Tour", Saturday Evening Post, November 19, 1927, p. 14, 52, 54, 56, 58 snippet
  17. ^ a b Edward Manuel Newman, Seeing Italy, 1927, p. 176
  18. ^ George Rector, a la Rector: Unveiling the Culinary Mysteries of the world-famous George Rector, 1933, p. 39
  19. ^ Mariani, John. "Why Fettuccine All'Alfredo Is One Of The World's Greatest Simplest Dishes". Forbes. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  20. ^ Harper's Bazaar, 67, 1933, p. 52
  21. ^ a b c Barry Popik, "Fettuccine Alfredo", February 14, 2009 [1]
  22. ^ Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 1922, p. 196: "there's a little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world"
  23. ^ Todd Coleman, "The Real Alfredo", Saveur, April 13, 2009
  24. ^ Olive Garden web site, "Amazing Alfredos"
  25. ^ Olive Garden web site, "Fettuccine Alfredo"
  26. ^ Doris Muscatine, A Cook's Tour of Rome, New York: Charles Scribers' Sons, 1964, p. 126
  27. ^ Mariani & Bastianich 2011[page needed]
  28. ^ "Papa Gino's, "Nutritional information and Allergens". Archived from the original on 19 May 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2015.

Bibliography[edit]

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