No, there's no cream in pasta carbonara, Italian dishes to rediscover in Rome

Pizza is an art to be respected. Some of the pizze found in France could be seen as a real offence to Italian gastronomy. It is unthinkable in Rome to order a pizza with chicken, smoked salmon, or even worse: pineapple. The secret of good pizza in Italy lies not only in the combination and variety of ingredients used, but also in the quality and freshness of the ingredients. A tomato-based sauce grown under the Italian sun, but also a good mozzarella di buffala and not the vulgar French supermarket mozza.

Eating a pizza in Rome or in Italy also means discovering the true technique of a pizzaiolo applied to the dough: an ideal combination of ingredients, the perfect way to roll out the dough and, above all, controlled cooking, resulting in a thin, crispy dough that enhances the flavour of the sauce and cheese. No thick dough that looks like sliced bread in Rome. Although the birthplace of pizza is Naples, you can also find very good pizze in the Eternal City.

In Italy, rather than mixing ingredients of any kind, people prefer to play with the shape to vary the pleasures, such as the A portafoglio (wallet) folded in half, perfect for eating while walking, or the Al taglio cut into squares, with more breadcrumbs on top and originating in Rome in the 1950s.

Yes, cream is a purely French addition. Sometimes we even see onions, which have no place there either, just like bacon. The list of ingredients is quite different, but also very simple: pasta, pecorino, pancetta, eggs and pepper (lots of pepper): just 5 ingredients. The pancetta, a very fine Italian sausage made from pork belly, replaces the bacon and adds a crazy flavour to the pasta. While pecorino (an Italian cheese similar to parmesan), eggs and pepper make up the sauce, the excessive amount of pepper adds a real freshness to the dish. Finally, for the pasta, the dish is perfected with bucatinis, large spaghetti, prepared in a bronze mould or so-called: trafilata al bronzo. This special manufacturing process makes the pasta rougher and better able to hold the delicious sauce.

A small exception is risotto, which is revisited all over the world, as it is in its nature to be open to interpretation. Although there is an "original" risotto: Milanese risotto with saffron, risotto is a staple for the nonna and the mamma for preparing good, varied family dishes. Even so, don't get carried away putting pineapple and nutella in your arborio rice. Although there are several versions of risotto, there are traditionally only 8 and they all correspond to different regions of Italy, a good excuse to travel around the country. The one in Rome is called Supplì and takes the form of a soft croquette with minced meat, tomatoes and Parmesan.