Archive - Pastaphilia

What Happens When Recipes Are Borrowed… and Then Given Back

Britain's love affair with Italian food, and how both nations have borrowed, adapted and reinvented recipes.

Oct 24 • Mark Gowen

10:51

Prt 6: Carbonara: The Peculiar Puzzle of the Pope’s Pasta

Could carbonara’s past be hidden in the story Fettuccine alla Papalina?

Oct 20

SEX, LIES AND SPAGHETTI (Part 1)

Forget brothels. The Secret History of Puttanesca is so much more revealing.

Oct 16 • Mark Gowen

Part 5 - Carbonara: The Curious Case of the Disappearing Butter

From 1950s cookbooks to modern culinary heresy: the rise and fall of butter in Carbonara.

Oct 11 • Mark Gowen

Part 4 - The ‘Santa Maria’ Carbonara, 1957

A forgotten 1950s cookbook reveals a single ingredient many early Carbonaras shared - and gives us a signpost to the recipe’s birthplace

Oct 6 • Mark Gowen

September 2026

Part 3 - Elizabeth David’s Spaghetti alla Carbonara, 1954

The next instalment of my Authentically British Carbonara miniseries explores the second Carbonara recipe ever published in Britain - Elizabeth David’s…

Sep 29 • Mark Gowen

PASTA RECIPES FIRST PUBLISHED BY MARK GOWEN

I hate to boast, but in the UK you saw these first from me :)

Sep 26 • Mark Gowen

Spaghettoni Pizzati

Why choose between Pizza and Pasta when you could have both?

Sep 24 • Mark Gowen

Part 2: Spaghetti Carbonara - Theodora FitzGibbon, 1952

My journey through British Carbonara recipes starts with Theodora Fitzgibbon’s 1952 recipe, from ‘Cosmopolitan Cookery in an English Kitchen.’

Sep 21

I’ve been eating pesto since 1977 and making it since the mid 1980s. This is my pesto.

Sep 18 • Mark Gowen

Part 1: The Road to Nowhere… or Finally Revealing Carbonara’s Hidden DNA?

Welcome to my new Substack miniseries, and the start of my journey to discover the origins of Authentically British Carbonara...

Sep 14 • Mark Gowen

Pappardelle with Caper Pesto and Scallops

pappardelle con pesto di capperi e capesante

Sep 10 • Mark Gowen

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