Egg yolks, guanciale, grated pecorino romano and a generous grind of black pepper: carbonara is creamed off the heat, with no cream and no garlic, until it forms a sauce that coats the spaghetti or rigatoni. It is the most argued-over dish of Roman cooking, the one every family has an extra rule for.
The name remains a puzzle. One theory ties it to the charcoal burners of the Apennines, who carried ingredients that would not spoil; another claims the recipe was born after the liberation of Rome in 1944, when eggs and bacon from Allied rations ended up in Roman cooks' pans. Neither theory has a document to back it up.
The first written trace dates to 23 August 1939, when a Dutch-language newspaper printed in Indonesia mentioned «spaghetti alla carbonara» served in the trattorias of Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. The first recipe published in Italy came only in 1954, in the magazine La Cucina Italiana: from there carbonara left Rome and conquered the rest of the country.