My brother's mother (dad's first wife) was born and raised in Italy and only left when she came back with dad in the late 40s. For Christmas a few years back, she gave me a sheaf of recipies handwritten on notebook paper that she got from her mom when she left Italy. Everything is in Italian, measured in grams, etc. Unfortunately, I only translated thru a few recipies and have since misplaced the originals in a move
We have a friend staying with us for a while, and he cooks excellent Latin food. So we trade off - he makes a pinion, I make carbonara for him.
Adjust all of this to your taste, I put garlic powder in the pasta water to give the pasta itself some flavor...
1 pt. heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan or other similar cheese
1/4 lb pancetta either sliced super thin (to shred) or one thick slice diced up into cubes
1 tablespoon butter
1 lb pasta - fettucini is traditional, I like linguine or thick spaghetti.
salt
pepper (white if available)
Put cream in small sauce pan on medium to low heat, and simmer it, stirring constantly - you don't want it to boil, you don't want it to let the fat congeal on the surface, but you do want to be evaporating the water and reducing it by about 30% volume over a 30-45 minute period. Cook up the pancetta in a fry pan, drain it well, and crumble it up fine (if using shredded style - you can leave the dice cubes whole if they are small enough) and put it to the side. Boil up the pasta (I add garlic powder to the water to give the bare pasta some flavor) to your taste as far as doneness. Add a little more heat to the cream, and add about 1/4 cup of the cheese a little at a time, stirring it in. Don't let things clump up, keep stirring. Drain pasta, put in large bowl, add the butter (and maybe some more garlic) and mix it around the pasta to melt it and barely coat the pasta. Dump the cream and cheese sauce over it, mix in, and then add 1/2 the remaing cheese and mix that in. If everyone wants the pancetta, mix 3/4 of it in now. Serve it up with the remaining cheese and pancetta available as "add some extras on top".