This post is inspired by our summer holidays in Montenegro. In Sv. Stepan we go to a little ‘caffe’ each year – we love their family kitchen vibe, and Masha and I always have the local seafood platter for two. Like many tourist spots, they also have a variety of Mediterranean favourites, i.e. pizzas, salads, etc. Last year a table sat down next to us and – ahem – they were English speakers, which is not that common in that part of Montenegro yet. Instead of having the fresh, local, totally reasonably priced seafood or grilled meat selections (never mind the bargain local wines!), they ordered spaghetti Carbonara, spaghetii Bolognese, a plain salad (Balkan’s follow a Slavic ‘chopped’ salad mode), and a bottle of water! We feel a little sorry for them, they really missed a beautiful expression of everything local…
Anyway, since then, the idea of there being two kinds of standard spaghetti has been a bit of theme at dinner time here. So, in the absence of mountains of fresh seafood, grilled meats, and bargain Balkan wine, I choose to present our ‘other 50 weeks of the year’ favourites of spaghetti as a ‘showdown’. Carbonara vs. Bolognese!
Let’s begin with Carbonara. It is, frankly, a newcomer to the table here. I think I made it once before – probably more than ten years ago back in Canada – but I didn’t really follow any traditional technique too closely. We did have, growing up, a down-home, 1950’s prairie version that was attributed to my maternal grandfather. This was broad egg noodles, chopped bacon (streaky rashers for the Brits), large diced yellow onion (sweated but not caramelised), and black pepper – finished at table with powdered ‘parmesan’. I used to make that for myself as a single twenty-something, and also a few times for my family before leaving Canada.
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