Have you ever eaten with Italians? When we get together for a meal, we invariably end up talking about food: “mamma makes it better”, “if only you had tried my grandmother’s recipe”, “you have to try my carbonara.”

The classic scene requires a young male, who has just recently started to cook for himself, waxing poetic on said Roman pasta, on the correct dose of Pecorino Romano (not Parmigiano!) and the very refined technique of searing the guanciale (not pancetta!), before arriving at the climax of the tale: the cremina.