The Famous Hollywood Couple Who Introduced The US To Fettuccine Alfredo

Like many popular Italian dishes in the U.S., Fettuccine Alfredo isn't entirely Italian. In the case of this creamy, cheesy pasta dish, it originated as a collaboration of sorts between a Roman chef and a Hollywood power couple. The couple in question were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, two silent film actors — and they were a big deal, with the respective nicknames "The King of Hollywood" and "America's Sweetheart."

Fettuccine Alfredo evolved from the couple's 1920 honeymoon to Rome. They visited a local restaurant belonging to chef Alfredo di Lelio, and tasted his signature dish: Fettuccine al triplo burro. He'd created it years ago for his heavily pregnant wife, who couldn't keep most food down. It was an adaptation of fettuccine al burro, a very simple dish of pasta with fresh egg noodles, butter and parmesan, often served to children and sick people. But there was one change — he tripled the butter in it so his wife could get enough calories, and after some of di Lelio's friends tried it, they agreed it was great. So, the dish ended up on the restaurant menu as "fettuccine all'Alfredo."

The famous couple encountered di Lelio at least twice: On their original 1920 visit to Rome, and then again in 1927, when they delivered him a golden fork and spoon with an engraving declaring him the "king of noodles." This was an enormous publicity coup, with the couple sharing the restaurant's details with other big names of the day.

Pickford and Fairbanks brought this creamy pasta back stateside. It quickly ended up in cookbooks, but a few changes crept in, partly due to issues with the ingredients that were available. For example, the butter in America wasn't the same consistency as Italy's, and the parmigiano-reggiano cheese there wasn't imported until after WWII.

American chefs experimented with using cream in place of butter, leading to something more closely resembling our present-day Fettuccine Alfredo. This may have also been due to American chefs having difficulty getting the butter and cheese to emulsify in pasta water, since this technique wasn't standard practice in the country at that time. Cream was just an easier way for them to get it, well, creamy. Flour also found its way in as a way to thicken the sauce. And over time, numerous other variations have cropped up, adding everything from chicken (or even steak, if you're feeling fancy) to broccoli — hence why contemporary — American — Fettuccine Alfredo often has almost no resemblance to the original fettuccine al triplo burro.