Pasta alla gricia

Pasta alla gricia

Place of origin	Italy
Region or state	Lazio
Main ingredients	Guanciale, Pecorino Romano, black pepper
Cookbook: Pasta alla gricia   Media: Pasta alla gricia

Pasta alla gricia is a pasta dish originating from Lazio. It consists of pasta, Pecorino romano, black pepper and Guanciale.

Origin of the name[]

According to the most likely hypothesis, the name of the dish come from the romanesco word gricio. In the papal Rome, the grici were sellers of common edible foods,^[1] and got this name because many of them came from Valtellina, at that time possession of the Swiss canton of Grigioni.^[1] Pasta alla gricia then would mean pasta prepared with the simple ingredients (guanciale, pecorino romano, black pepper) readily available at the local gricio.

Another theory about the origin of this dish claims that it was invented in a hamlet called Grisciano, in the region of Lazio, near Amatrice. This theory is however unlikely, both for the size of Grisciano, which is little more than a group of houses, and because in this case the adverbial locution should be alla grisciana. It should be noticed that still in the sixties of the twentieth century in Amatrice amatriciana sauce was prepared without tomato, therefore coinciding with gricia.^[2] Due to this reason, gricia is often named amatriciana in bianco.

See also[]

• Carbonara
• Cacio e pepe

Notes[]

Sources[]

• Gosetti Della Salda, Anna (1967). Le ricette regionali italiane (in Italian). Milano: Solares.
• Ravaro, Fernando (2005). Dizionario romanesco (in Italian). Roma: Newton Compton. ISBN 9788854117921.