Amatriciana sauce
Amatriciana sauce, known in Italian as amatriciana, is a sauce made with tomatoes, guanciale, pecorino romano or pecorino di Amatrice cheese, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil, dry white wine, and salt.
Originating in the comune of Amatrice, the amatriciana is one of the best known pasta sauces in present-day Roman and Italian cuisine. The Italian government has named it a prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale of Lazio, and amatriciana tradizionale is registered as a traditional speciality guaranteed in the EU and the UK.
Development
Amatriciana derives from a dish called pasta alla gricia. The origin of the word gricia is unclear. In papal Rome, the grici were sellers of common edible foods, who got this name because many of them came from Valtellina, at that time a possession of the Swiss canton of Grigioni. According to another hypothesis, it is named after the frazione of Grisciano, in the comune of Accumoli, near Amatrice. The sauce—nowadays named also amatriciana bianca—was, and still is, prepared with guanciale and grated pecorino. At some point, a little olive oil was added to the recipe. In the 1960s, amatriciana sauce was still prepared in this way in Amatrice itself.The invention of the first tomato sauces dates to the late 18th century. Tomatoes were introduced to Europe through the Columbian Exchange via Spain. The first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook L'Apicio Moderno by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.
The amatriciana recipe became increasingly famous in Rome over the 19th and early 20th centuries, due to the centuries-old connection between Rome and Amatrice. The recipe was well received and became a classic of Roman cuisine, although it originated elsewhere. The name of the dish in the Romanesco dialect eventually became matriciana due to the apheresis typical of this dialect.
While tomato-less gricia is still prepared in central Italy, it is the tomato-enriched amatriciana that is better known throughout Italy and elsewhere. While in Amatrice the dish is prepared with spaghetti, bucatini is now most commonly used in Rome.