How Hollywood Stars Helped Raise Alfredo Sauce To Culinary Fame

Italian cuisine as we know it is a fairly recent invention, which makes sense, since modern Italy as we know it is also less than 200 years old. Before the mid-19th century, the Italian peninsula was populated by numerous kingdoms that fought like cats in a burlap sack. While they shared some cultural similarities due to their geographical proximity, to talk about "Italian cuisine" then would be like talking about "European cuisine" now.

As much as tradition is valued in Italian and Italian-American cooking, most of the recipes we know today were codified in the 20th century. Although the history of some Italian staples, like spaghetti and tomato sauce, stretches back further, others are recent inventions – the mayor of Bologna even had to explain that "spaghetti bolognese" isn't real. While this doesn't mean that everything we know about Italian cuisine was dreamt up in a boardroom in the 1960s, it does mean that dishes like carbonara, tiramisu, and even pizza did not spring fully formed from the forehead of a 15th-century nonna. But just because it's not ancient doesn't mean there's no romance to it – just look at fettuccine Alfredo, which was born out of a husband's love for his wife and rose to fame thanks to two Hollywood stars, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who were both fans of the homespun dish. You don't have to eat fettuccine exactly like the Italians, but after hearing its origin story, you'll probably want to. 

Although combining pasta with butter and cheese was not a novel concept, modern fettuccine Alfredo was invented by a Roman chef named Alfredo di Lelio. In 1908, after his wife, Ines, gave birth, Alfredo sought to make a dish that would bring the color back to his beloved's cheeks — a dish that was not only satiating but easy to keep down. The original recipe was simplicity itself: it only called for fettuccine, parmesan cheese, and butter. But the rich, velvety sauce was as delicious as it was nourishing, and Ines ate it up. 

When Alfredo opened his new restaurant, also called Alfredo, in 1914, he made sure to include fettuccine al triplo burro on the menu and served it tableside with arm and fork-flailing theatricality. He was already well on his way to international fame before he was blessed by Hollywood royalty. A line in Sinclair Lewis' novel "Babbitt" refers to Alfredo's "little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa". But it was in 1927 when he and his dish became truly legendary.

It was the height of the Silent movie era, and the undisputed rulers of the day were a Hollywood It couple. Douglas Fairbanks, best known for swashbuckling roles in films like "The Mark of Zorro" and "The Black Pirate", was called "the King of Hollywood"; that made his wife Mary Pickford, the Queen. Although both stars would eventually fall out of favor with the advent of "talkies", they were as famous as they ever were in 1927, when they gifted Alfredo Di Lelio a golden fork and spoon inscribed with the words, "To Alfredo the King of the Noodles".

The pair had eaten at Alfredo's on their honeymoon in Italy some years earlier and remembered their creamy pasta meal so fondly that they honored its creator with a golden gift. Alfredo's soon became a celebrity destination (one that's still open today), and the dish that bears his name became a staple in Italian restaurants across the world.