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Butter and Cheese
(Pasta al burro e formaggio) This is the simplest form in which the spaghetti may be served, and it is generally reserved for the thickest paste. The spaghetti are to be boiled until tender in salted water, taking care to remove them when tender, and not cooked until they lose form. They should not be put into the water until this is at a boiling point.
Take as much macaroni as will half fill the dish in which it is to be served. Break into pieces two and a half to three inches long if you so desire. The Italians leave them unbroken, but their skill in turning them around the fork and eating them is not the privilege of everybody. Put the macaroni into salted boiling water, and boil twelve to fifteen minutes, or until the macaroni is perfectly soft. Stir frequently to prevent the macaroni from adhering to the bottom. Turn it into a colander to drain; then put it into a pudding-dish with a generous quantity of butter and grated cheese. If more cheese is liked, it can be brought to the table so that the guests can help themselves to it.
The macaroni called "Mezzani" which is a name designating size, not quality, is the preferable kind for macaroni dishes made with butter and cheese. 7
A three-ingredient dish that lives or dies on timing and on how much cheese you are willing to grate. Everything hinges on tossing the pasta with butter and cheese while it is hot enough to melt them into a sauce.
- Toss, don't layerThe instruction to "put it into a pudding-dish with butter and grated cheese" reads as assembly, but the result should be emulsified. Add the butter and cheese to the hot drained pasta and toss hard, loosening with a few spoonfuls of the reserved cooking water until it coats rather than clumps.
- Cooking timeTwelve to fifteen minutes "until perfectly soft" suits the thick paste this dish is "generally reserved for," and pasta of the period was commonly cooked longer than we cook it now. Modern dried spaghetti reaches al dente in 8-11 minutes; check the box and taste, and remember the author's own warning about pasta cooked until it loses form.
- MezzaniMezzani is a medium-width tubular pasta, still sold in Italy though not always abroad. Ziti, rigatoni or penne stand in for it; the point is a thick shape with enough surface to hold butter.
- "Macaroni" and "paste"In this book both words mean dried pasta generally, not the small elbows. "Paste" is pasta translated literally from the Italian.
- Salting the waterNo quantity is given. About a tablespoon of salt per four quarts of water is the usual modern ratio, and it matters here because there is nothing else in the dish to season it.
- The cheeseThe recipe does not specify a cheese; the likeliest intention is Parmesan or a dry pecorino, grated fine and fresh. Pre-grated tubs will not melt as smoothly into the butter.
- Yield"As much macaroni as will half fill the dish" is a serving-vessel measurement, not a weight. Reckon 3-4 oz dried pasta per person, with roughly 2 tablespoons butter and a generous half-cup of grated cheese for every pound.
- No pudding-dish neededThe dish is not baked. The pudding-dish is simply a deep warmed bowl for tossing and serving; warm it first so the butter does not seize.
Pasta al burro e formaggio is among the plainest of pasta dressings, associated with the butter-and-cheese cooking of northern Italy rather than the olive-oil south. The aside about Italians leaving the strands unbroken because winding them on a fork "is not the privilege of everybody" is a small record of how unfamiliar spaghetti still was to English-speaking readers — this recipe itself offers to break the strands into two-and-a-half to three-inch lengths. The insistence on not cooking pasta until it loses form anticipates the idea later expressed in English as al dente, though the recipe still asks for macaroni "perfectly soft."