'New York Times' 'abomination' carbonara recipe makes it to Italian TV

Over the weekend, The New York Timesshared a carbonara recipe that included tomatoes and tomato paste, which are not in the traditional Italian pasta dish.

The dish was originally created in Rome and is made with eggs and hard cheeses like Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano-Reggiano to give it a creamy consistency.

It's then all mixed together with cured pork and black pepper.

Many people took to social media at the time to mock the dish, noting that it should be criminal to change up the ingredients in the savoury pasta dish and how it could spark a war between the US and Italy.

And now, the outcry from people online about the "abomination" has made its way to an Italian TV network.

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On Thursday (2 February), Federica Cocco, a data journalist at the Financial Times, took to Twitter to share a thread of screenshot images and commentary from La Vita In Diretta that spoke about the Times rendition of the pasta dish.

One image shows a TV screen highlighting the Smokey Tomato Carbonara dish accompanied by the running banner that reads "Carbonara col sugo? La polemica arriva dall'America."

This translates to "Carbonara with sauce? The controversy comes from America," according to Google Translate.

In another tweet, Cocco shared another image of a chef and what appears to be two anchors pouring the egg-based cheesy sauce into a pot. The journalist also shared a translation of what was said,

"'Everyone, this is how you ACTUALLY make carbonara. See? NO TOMATO," she wrote, in part.

In subsequent tweets, Cocco noted that "a panel of six" were chatting about the pasta "abomination" and quipped that it's great she understands Italian because she would've easily thought "we're declaring war."

People online echoed the same sentiments they did when the tomato carbonara recipe first came onto the scene.

One person on Twitter wrote: "There are grounds for retaliatory sanctions for sure…"

"Why not ketchup? My fellow Americans, stop trying to reinvent the mother cuisine," another added.

A third joked: "America has officially gone too far."

Someone else believed the US is choosing "violence" and added: "The Americans chose violence. Think they're getting off lightly if all the Italians are doing in response is discussing this on telly."

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