Amatriciana sauce

Amatriciana, called matriciana in the Romanesco dialect, is a sauce of tomatoes, guanciale (cured pork cheek) and pecorino romano or pecorino di Amatrice, seasoned with black pepper, dried chili, olive oil, white wine and salt. It comes from the municipality of Amatrice in the province of Rieti, in the Lazio region, and is among the best-known pasta sauces in Roman and Italian cooking. It grew out of pasta alla gricia, the same preparation without tomato, after tomato sauce arrived in Italy in the late eighteenth century; the first written recipe for pasta with tomato sauce is in Francesco Leonardi's 1790 cookbook, and the earliest known recipe explicitly named amatriciana dates to 1914. The Italian government lists it as a traditional agri-food product of Lazio, and amatriciana tradizionale is registered as a traditional speciality guaranteed in the European Union and the United Kingdom.