Over the course of a road trip across America, I was lucky enough to spend plenty of interstate time with my friend Andrea Armeni. One of the things we discussed at length was the question of in what circumstances the search for culinary authenticity turns farcical.

Florence Fabricant, in a recent article, embodies a common attitude amongst American food writers when she reveals the results of an exhaustive search for the true recipe for bucatini all’amatriciana, one of Italy’s most beloved pasta dishes: “After half a dozen plates of it during a recent trip to Italy, one detail became clear: for any pasta all’amatriciana to be authentic, it must be made with guanciale—cured, unsmoked pig jowl.”

Although it would be a difficult hypothesis to test empirically, Andrea and I had the same immediate reaction to this statement—his from growing up in Italy, mine from living there for a while: in Italy, almost nobody would care in the least bit whether pasta all’amatriciana were “authentic.” (more…)

The Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide, Second Edition (Fearless Critic Media, 592 pages, paperback, $15.95, distributed by Workman) has been released. The book’s scope has been vastly increased, from 390 to 480 restaurants in the greater Austin, Texas area, including Round Rock and the Hill Country. It’s now available on amazon.com, and here’s a list of the Austin-area bookstores and retail stores that sell the book.

My devoted and patient team of editors and critics includes Rebecca Markovits and Monika Powe Nelson—the co-authors of the First Edition (released in 2006)—along with Alexis Herschkowitsch, Erin McReynolds, and Nat Davis.