Alfredo sauce

The Only Original Alfredo Sauce with Butter and Parmesano-Reggiano Cheese. The dish became widespread and eventually alfredo sauce to the United States, where it remains popular. The recipe has changed, and its commercialized version—with heavy cream and other ingredients—is now ubiquitous.

Modern fettuccine Alfredo was invented by Alfredo Di Lelio in Rome. According to family accounts, in 1892 Alfredo Di Lelio began to work in a restaurant that was located in piazza Rosa and run by his mother Angelina. The fame of Alfredo’s fettuccine spread, first in Rome and then to other countries. Di Lelio was made a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Corona d’Italia. In 1943, during the war, Di Lelio sold the restaurant to two of his waiters.

The dish was so well known that Di Lelio was invited to demonstrate it both in Italy and abroad. Recipes attributed to Di Lelio only include three ingredients: fettuccine, young Parmesan cheese and butter. Fettuccine Alfredo, minus the spectacle, has now become ubiquitous in Italian-style restaurants outside Italy, although in Italy this dish is usually called simply “fettuccine al burro”. This act of mixing the butter and cheese through the noodles becomes quite a ceremony when performed by Alfredo in his tiny restaurant in Rome. As busy as Alfredo is with other duties, he manages to be at each table when the waiter arrives with the platter of fettuccine to be mixed by him. Alfredo’s fettuccine has long been popular with Americans.

By 1922, it was already being reported on by American travelers. Multiple magazine articles and guidebooks in the 1920s and 1930s extolled Alfredo’s noodles. In 1966, the Pennsylvania Dutch Noodle Company started marketing their dried “Fettuccine Egg Noodles”, which included a recipe on the package for an Alfredo sauce including cream and Swiss cheese as well as Parmesan and butter. The American restaurant casual dining chain Olive Garden has popularized its versions of fettuccine alfredo, which may be combined with chicken, shrimp, or other foods to make main courses called “chicken alfredo”, “seafood alfredo”, etc.

Alfredo sauce is often sold as a convenience food in grocery stores in many countries. In 2020, the Alfredo alla Scrofa restaurant began offering its own bottled version of “Salsa Alfredo”, promoted as using only the highest quality ingredients. Fettuccine al Burro or Fettuccine Alfredo”. Waverly Root, The Food of Italy, 1971, p.