Bacon Factoids

the raw egg is cooked when all the hot ingredients come together. Most of the Italian cooks tke a little of the boiling pasta water and dump it in the bowl on top of the other ingrdients when the carbonara is made.

Guanciale was what I was trying to think of. Its got a totally different flaver than pancetta . Its like a spicey thin layer of salt cured bacon. In the ala carbonara its cooked a bit thicker than the normal paper thin slices youd get at a café.

When mrs F makes carbonara, she will just ue a smoked US bcon cut into bits nd cooked in a shallow pan with some water so it doesn't crisp up.

Well that's me bloody told. (But in a nice way.)

When I was in the deli business, we served the posh people of Radlett. One lady had SO much money to waste, she used to make Carbonara using half a pound of Lachshinken. Nowadays that would cost you £25 or more

AND she used to be a bigwig at the local synagogue.

Yes, but years ago I was a guest when a someone made carbonara where the egg was slimy. I know good restaurants do it right.

My thing about slimy eggs is a remnant of my picky childhood eating choices.

On the other hand, my friend Bonnie does a wonderful carbonara - she married a guy whose family was from the Genoa area and whose mother was a fabulous cook who taught her.

Adds, at least when I tried to find it, I couldn't get italian pancetta here in the U.S. and I've found U.S. made pancetta weirdly undelicious relative to theirs. I admit I've not tried it from Mario Batali's father's place, or that place in Iowa. Those might be better (to me) but the cost of shipping and the cost of the pancetta are out of my range.

I've memories of buying italian sausage at Fiumicino airport and having it confiscated when I got to the US customs. Grrrrrrr. I've no idea if various meat products are exported to us by now. I think they don't like/fear the italian processing in caves, etc.

Meats can be imported because they are inspected by the USDA or the USDA has verified that the foreign government's standards for meat inspection are equivalent to theirs. You cannot bring meat into the U.S.--no one can, no matter what the country of origin is. I used to bring meat across the border from Canada, but that was then. I wouldn't try it now.

I read that about the cave business as a reason a long time ago, and it might have only been about hams (etc.) and not ordinary italian sausage products. You must be right about the US inspectors being able to do importers' food inspection. Good to know.

The "cave business" is nonsense. If it passes USDA inspection, or an inspection regime known to be equivalent, it can be imported. But you[/b[/i] still can't bring it in.

I get that re my being unable to bring the items in through customs and importers being able to have customs check their products.

On the cave business being nonsense it might well be by now. I don't have the sources re where I first read about it in the eighties.

the secret isas follows

1boil the pasta in only half the amt of water than usual

2mix up ALL THE UNCOOKKED INGREIENTS

3take only about T of the bacon grease to DD TO HE SUCE

4 Add the boiling greaSE, THE 1/2 CUP OF BOILING Pasta WATER (ITS concentrated the starches to prevent the whole thing from getting gluey) and pour this over the whole egg cheese/pasta mix

5
All the ingreients that were cooked hould be dded while boiling hot 9the past is al dente of course

6some people fry up some small amts of onion chunks and add this to the carbonara(Rigotoni or Penne are the pastas for this dish)

Also, some restaurants add some uncooked prosciutto squares to the mix and toss it in.

Al Carbonara and clams with white sauce re my two fav pasta dishes (the clams dish is made with an oil grlic cheese and chicken stock base, to which is dded a1/4 C dry sherry and cooked down bit.) Linguini is the pasta.

BTW, all these recipes are done by TASTE, not an exact measurement of ingredients

srry about my bad spelling. My hand has seized up and gone a bit paralyzed in the last several months

Setanta, you got me wondering and I looked up if culatello di zibello (from Parma area, delicious) could be imported to the U.S. and the first link I saw was this one -

Culatello! Long-standing Ban on Italian Cured Meats May Be Lifted

http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/04/fda-ban-italian-italian-cured-meats.html

I don't remember if culatello was one of the cave cured meats or not. Off to the grocery store, will check it out later.
Looked quickly at the article and it talked about a swine virus, which I'd not seen mentioned before, and not caves in particular.

Thanks, fm. I may even try it now. Enough with my worrying re my making egg slime - I have bacon in the refrigerator. Interesting re the whole pasta water thing.. will listen.

On clams, I still do Claiborne's clams with anchovy sauce, of yore. I would be hard to wean from that one.

Concerned re your hand. I sorta know your hand history, and wonder about its getting this stuff now.

I've something called tenor muscle wasting - had been checked for carpal tunnel but no re testing. People including my general clinic gp tell me it's arthritis (but not the ortho guy); I figure there may be some but not much. The ortho who checked was the one told me about the muscle wasting, one of the carpal symptoms. Tenor muscle wasting and ganglion cysts (I have them on the left) can add up to .. tada, too late found carpal tunnel, according to one website. Not that I take one website as the word. I doubt that, since I tested neg. Must see that guy again one of these days.

My hands (both, but not at once, or did they one time?, hard to remember) have seized and that's in the realm of awful, but last time was about a year ago.)

I've no answers, natch, but I suppose you know to go see an expert.

yeh Its a PITA but we play em as we are dealt.
As far as BACON, We made some last night to top a salad with a sweet sour bacon dressing (with a lotta bacon. It was our entire supper meal.
DEEEELIGHTFUL !!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jobarrow/we-are-all-mason?utm_term=.wn27YyKnq&sub=3575210_4676207

http://abachelorandhisgrill.com/2012/10/cheese-stuffed-bacon-wrapped-burger/.html#.WQnpkzFtnIU

or maybe