Mamma mia carbonara!

Carbonara, with its simple ingredients, is one of the greatest pasta dishes Italy has given the world

If I asked you to name two great pasta dishes, chances are that you would name spaghetti bolognese or some kind of pasta carbonara. (Perhaps, spaghetti again.)

The two most influential modern versions of the pasta carbonara have been created by German and Spanish chefs(Gettyimages)

Fettucine Alfredo was invented in Rome, but these days, only tourists order it (Getty Images)

Why do people all over the world love carbonara? I reckon it is the ingredients

Spaghetti bolognese is claimed to be based on ragu (Shutterstock)

Ragu is a kind of meat sauce from Bologna (Shutterstock)

German chef Heinz Beck’s version of the carbonara is the best

La Pergola in Rome is a place of culinary pilgrimage

The Sühring twins made Beck’s version of the pasta carbonara popular in the east

Macaroni carbonara, made with tubes of transparent guanciale-flavoured gelatine at Disfrutar in Barcelona

Eduard Xatruch, Oriol Castro and Mateu Casañas, the chefs from El Bulli who are now ruling the kitchen at Disfrutar in Barcelona