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Chefs and gastronomes recoil in horror as Heinz introduces tins of spaghetti carbonara to supermarket shelves.
The unveiling of Heinz’s new tinned easy-meal set X (Twitter) alight with declarations of disgust recently. Top Italian chef Alessandro Pipero asked ‘Do you mean in a tin, like cat food?’ on hearing that Heinz is was promoting its new canned version of the classic Italian dish, while Wanted in Rome on X reported Italians saying that they ‘wouldn’t even give it to a stray cat.’
‘Spaghetti Carbonara doesn’t contain cream’, say all Italians
Part of the outrage is what many food lovers see as the continued ‘Americanisation’ of Italian cuisine. Ask any Italian and they will firmly assure you that, unlike the Heinz variety, Spaghetti Carbonara does not contain cream or bacon or parsley, while the ingredients on the Heinz tin list pancetta, cornflour, skimmed milk powder, cheese powder, sugar, garlic flavouring, onion extract and dried parsley. This quick and easy to prepare classic ‘carbonara’ part of the recipe only has 4 ingredients: egg yolks, black pepper, guanciale and olive oil.
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The internationalisation of classic regional dishes has been berated by many in recent years with TV chefs like Nigella Lawson who was accused of killing Italian food when in 2017 she added 60ml of double cream to her version, or Jamie Oliver who very nearly started a war with Spain by adding chorizo to his idea of Paella.
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