Amatrice, located in central Italy, was devastated by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershocks on Aug. 24. Nearly 300 lives have been lost. Both architecture and infrastructure have suffered significant damage, with many buildings left in ruins.
What made the situation even worse is that many visitors had come to town for the now-canceled Sagra dell’Amatriciana, a festival that had been scheduled for this past weekend. It would have been the 50th annual celebration of the city’s most famous dish: Pasta all’Amatriciana [ahl-ah-mah-tree-CHAH-nah].
This isn’t just any old spaghetti with meat sauce but rather a sublime dish topped with a tomato-based sauce that features guanciale [gwan-CHAH-leh] — cured hog’s jowl — pecorino cheese, and hot pepper flakes.
To support efforts to rebuild Amatrice (pronounced ah-mah-TREE-cheh), chefs around Italy and the rest of the world are joining in a culinary campaign and using the pasta dish as a fund-raising tool.
Italian graphic artist and blogger Paolo Campana, who lives in Rome, first suggested the idea on his Facebook page soon after the earthquake. As simple as the dish’s few ingredients, the effort is very straightforward: Restaurants should feature Pasta all’Amatriciana on their menus and donate money to the Italian Red Cross for each plate ordered.
By the next day, 700 restaurants in Italy had already signed up for what is being called AMAtriciana, with the capitalized letters emphasizing the Italian word for love. Each establishment will donate 2 Euros to relief efforts for every order of the dish.
Mr. Campana has a great affinity for Amatrice, he has said in international interviews, having eaten at the city’s famed 119 year old Hotel Roma this past New Year’s Eve.
The hotel — which made the very best version of Pasta all’Amatriciana, according to Mr. Campana — is now nothing but rubble.
British chef Jamie Oliver has promoted the fund-raising effort as well, using the hashtag #EatForItaly.
On his site Food Revolution (jamiesfoodrevolution.org), he announced that at his restaurant, Jamie’s Italian UK, Pasta all’Amatriciana “will be on the specials board ... for the rest of the month. A donation of [2 Pounds] from each dish will go straight to the International Red Cross, and I think we can easily make thousands and thousands of pounds to help …. Many restaurants are getting involved and this could really make a difference, money will go to supporting the fire fighters involved with the digging, setting up of tented camps for homeless, and provisions of food and clothing as well as medical assistance to people injured, old, kids, pregnant women.”
Locally, George Mancy said that Mancy’s Italian Grill at 5453 Monroe St. will participate in #EatForItaly starting this week and continuing through the month of September. He was glad for this opportunity to support fund-raising efforts, as he’s been reading about the devastation and said, “It’s terrible.”
Carlo Petrini, founder and president of Slow Food — an organization dedicated to preventing “the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions” — is encouraging fund-raising efforts beyond the immediate crisis. His organization has asked “restaurateurs from around the world to put the symbolic dish of this devastated town on their menus. They should keep it on the menu for at least a year, donating a small part of the proceeds to those affected in this tragedy. Furthermore, we ask customers to choose these dishes wherever they find them in restaurants.”
So eat for Italy, now and even when the earthquake in Amatrice is no longer front-page news.
Contact Mary Bilyeu at mbilyeu@theblade.com or 419-724-6155 or on Twitter @foodfloozie.
First Published August 30, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
