I know what you’re thinking..but rumor has it, fettuccine alfredo is NOT an Italian dish. I was as surprised as you are in this moment. Take a deep breath and let’s learn why…
I actually found out about this rumor from my long lost Italian cousin while I was abroad. I asked her where the best place to get alfredo was and she was confused. She later told me that fettuccine alfredo does not exist in Italy and that it is just an Americanized hoax! There are a lot of Italian pastas with similar ingredients to an alfredo sauce, but as far as we know, it is non existent in Italy.
I researched the origin of fettuccine alfredo and found the whole story from the HuffPost. (I will link the website below!) The famous dish comes from a Roman restaurant owner named Alfredo di Lelio, who named a pasta dish of cheese and butter over linguine after himself. It all started because his pregnant wife was feeling nauseous and couldn’t keep anything down. To try to calm her stomach, Alfredo created a decadent cheesy sauce that she couldn’t get enough of! The dish was so delicious that he decided to add it to his restaurant’s menu.
So how did fettuccine alfredo become a “famous Italian dish” you ask? In 1920, a famous Hollywood couple by the names of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford walked into Alfredo’s restaurant. They ordered the fettuccine alfredo and fell in love with it’s tangy goodness. They asked Alfredo for the recipe and brought it to America.
That wasn’t the end of it though! The couple sent Alfredo a gift of a photo of them in the restaurant and golden silverware engraved with the words “to Alfredo the King of noodles”. After that, Alfredo’s restaurant became extremely famous and many of Hollywood’s elite traveled to Rome to try the pasta for themselves. To view the full story in more detail, check out this link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-origins-of-fettuccine_b_4590831?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALV_7-8qyf3nVzRHb40tXxSLyIPp8jDDk1EDlRYce4K-o-8Ygi9CAz4xkbAn1DttFyaSWyDG0vb7WjEj6716DyjoLjTxB9LQN3rdO9TnQjFydkiv4LMHFEgYssUlKT-cgi-k0gQ19pAnunpexDMq_9Asaj_z_LJ0pyHr1PXkfsVu
I know this is a lot to take in, but we will get through it together. You’re not alone. This doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy Alfredo sauce!! Speaking of which, my mom makes the BEST of. Look out for one of my next posts where I’ll teach you how to make sauce just like Alfredo himself!
