Trawling Instagram today, this jumped out at me:

Click to be taken to @Papelito.Studio on Instagram

This is a fact. No correspondence will be entered into. It doesn’t matter if you like it some other way. There is no ‘But I like it with parsley’ or ‘I substituted chicken for the guanciale’, or ‘It tastes better with cream’. Because no. No, it does not. Or, if you believe it does, that’s fine, but what you have cooked is not carbonara. You’ve made up something different. Enjoy. Just don’t call it carbonara. 

Italians are very strict with their food rules. Which is hysterical, because in my experience (from, you know, my own family), Italians generally don’t really like rules all that much. I remember hearing about a time when there was a lucrative cottage industry in Italy of tee-shirts with diagonal black lines across the front for people to wear instead of buckling up when seatbelts became mandatory. I am, in equal measure, amused, astonished and appalled at the audacity of it all (and alliterative too). 

Anyway, back to carbonara. The ingredients for the recipe are not open to negotiation. If you want to make it for dinner tonight, you need eggs, guanciale, pecorino, black pepper and bucatini. È tutto!

Thank fuck diabetes isn’t that rigid!

I break rules, ignore rules and make up rules all the live-long day. Because that’s how I do it. Diabetes is an opinion. Work out yours, change it as you like, add different things, or change change them out. And go for it. And don’t let anyone – even loud, passionate Italians – tell you otherwise. 

Totally irrelevant postscript of my favourite ever story of Italians breaking rules (which, by the way, I think would make a brilliant series)

Years ago, while in a very long queue at the Santa Maria de Monserrat monastery, Aaron and I got chatting to a nonna-aged Italian woman. After five minutes, she’d had enough, announced that Italians don’t queue and pushed her way to the front, ignoring the stern rules that were clear to everyone else. She returned ten minutes later to tell us the statue was a gorgeous sight, and that we were stupid for not following her. Two hours later, while still diligently lining up, we realised she was right.