Between new year and epiphany, I had two separate lunches with two separate Roman friends who live in London but were back for the holidays. Our lives in reverse, I had just returned to Rome after two weeks with my family in London. I have known both friends for more than a decade, and it is even longer since we swapped countries, yet we are still having the same conversations about work, weather, words, nostalgia and bread, which is really just a way of talking about belonging to two places, and holding on to the good and flawed parts of both. Both conversations ended in the same way, with the friends telling me that they were reluctant but ready to go home, but first needed to buy guanciale to take back with them.
Guancia means cheek, and guanciale are the salt-cured pork jowls that hang like pepper-dusted paddles above salumerie (deli) counters in shops and on Roman market stalls. Unlike the more familiar pancetta (salt-cured pork belly) with its equal streaks of meat and fat, guanciale, like my cheeks after festive eating, is mostly fat. Cured with salt, and flavoured with only red or black pepper, the fat of guanciale has a thick, almost sweet and delicate flavour, which melts into a deeply flavoured and seasoned cooking medium.
Along with strutto (lard), guanciale has been a most accessible and essential cooking fat in Rome for centuries. These days, olive oil is ubiquitous, but guanciale is still a favourite in Rome and Lazio, its rich flavour and binding power the mortar in many traditional dishes, and especially the quartet of classic Roman pastas – guanciale, pecorino and egg carbonara; pecorino and black pepper cacio e pepe; guanciale, tomato and pecorino amatriciana; and the pre‑tomato ancestor of amatriciana, the lesser spotted but greatly loved amatriciana bianca, or gricia.
Guanciale and pecorino are gricia. It is the happy meeting of melted fat and grated pecorino on the surface of the pasta itself, which – with the help of some starchy cooking water and a toss – results in a slightly emulsified and creamy sauce. While the need for guanciale and pecorino is single-minded, lots of different shapes and surfaces work for gricia, as illustrated by the traditional trattorie of Testaccio. Checchino Dal 1887 uses long, pierced bucatini, while Trattoria Da Bucatino favours spaghetti; Trattoria Da Felice mezze maniche; Agustarello tonnarelli; and Perilli (the Fellini-esque trattoria and cavernous home to cummerbunds and trolleys on Via Marmorata) tubes of rigatoni for their white-fluted bowl of gricia.
Like Perilli, I use rigatoni for my gricia, for no other reason than I like it, the ridged tubes seemingly designed to wear a cheese coat and hide the glistening batons of guanciale, a discovery akin to finding a forgotten two-pound coin in your pocket.
New year, new reminder (as much for myself as anyone else): when it comes to cooking pasta, the rule of thumb is one litre of fast-boiling water for every 100g pasta. Bring the water to a rolling boil, add 10g coarse salt for every litre of it, stir, chuck in the pasta, stir again and boil, uncovered, until al dente. How you like your pasta cooked, though, is obviously entirely up to you.
Pasta alla gricia
Serves 4
3 tbsp olive oil
150g guanciale, cut into 2mm wide / 3mm long batons
120g pecorino romano, grated
400-500g pasta – spaghetti, bucatini, penne, mezze maniche or rigatoni
Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add salt, add pasta, stir, and cook until al dente.
Meanwhile, put the oil and guanciale into a large frying pan and fry gently for a few minutes, or until the fat has rendered and the pieces are shiny starting to crisp.
Once the pasta is ready, drain, saving some of the starchy cooking water. Tip the pasta into the frying pan, toss, add two-thirds of the cheese and a little pasta cooking water, and toss again.
Divide between bowls and top with the remaining cheese and a grind of black pepper, if you wish.
