There may be no more beloved Italian dish than carbonara: hot pasta tossed with a creamy sauce of raw beaten eggs, accentuated with crisp bits of guanciale, and finished with a shower of grated aged Pecorino Romano cheese plus freshly ground black pepper. While it is also made with fettuccine, linguine, or bucatini, spaghetti remains the canonical carbonara pasta shape, and the classic recipe contains no butter, cream, or garlic.

Carbonara is most associated with Rome and the Lazio region, but as with so many Italian dishes, in Italy, its origin provokes much speculation and debate. Some connect it to pasta cacio e uova, a Neapolitan dish of pasta tossed with melted lard, beaten raw eggs, and cheese, as documented in Ippolito Cavalcanti's 1839 Neapolitan cookbook.