I must confess that recreating the very particular and porky pleasure of spaghetti carbonara without said pork was not a puzzle that had been keeping me up at night until a reader wrote in to ask for advice on the subject. Given that the principal actors in the classic carbonara are cured pork and cheese, it seemed to me that they’d be better off sticking with cacio e pepe, or one of the many vegan pasta dishes in the Italian repertoire – agilo e olio, say, or pasta con pangratto. After a moment’s thought, however, it struck me (rather guiltily, I must admit) that, delicious as those dishes are, they are delicious in an entirely different way from spaghetti carbonara and that, frankly, if someone has been big enough to give up meat, the least I could do is offer a recipe that does measure up in that department. So, apologies – and thank you for inspiring this column, because there really is very little I like more than cracking a bona fide culinary conundrum.
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