After Don Draper becomes involved with Suzanne Farrell, Sally Draper’s grade school teacher, their trysts take place in the converted garage apartment Suzanne rents not far from the Draper’s home. Despite her initial resolve not to expect too much from Don, she begins to wish for a future for them as she falls harder and harder for him.
One night around Halloween 1963, Don is waiting for Suzanne in her apartment when she returns home with groceries to make him dinner. They embrace and Suzanne tells him she’s making, “spaghetti, with cream and butter and cheese.”
“And hot pepper,” says Don.
“Yes!” exclaims Suzanne. “I had it like that in Little Italy. Oh, I love that place…I wish I could take you there.”
Little Italy is New York’s Italian mecca at the southern end of Manhattan. The area is crowded with authentic, intimate Italian restaurants, like Angelo’s of Mulberry Street, a Little Italy institution since 1902. Though Suzanne was using spaghetti, and not the flat egg noodle about a quarter-inch wide known as fettuccine, the rest of the ingredients are pure Alfredo, a name derived from two restaurants in Rome called Alfredo that serve a pasta dish with the same ingredients. (South of Rome, fettuccine is called tagliatelle.)
There’s no doubting the popularity of this Italian classic in Don Draper’s time. A fettuccine Alfredo recipe published in the New York Times in 1962 was so popular with readers that famed Times food critic Craig Claiborne selected it as just one of three favorite recipes from 1962 to be republished in his column on April 2, 1963.
Angelo’s of Mulberry Street has been using the same Alfredo recipe since the 1960s, and Chef Joseph Calle was generous enough to share it with us (it includes cracked pepper, as Don would have liked, on the side). The pasta at Angelo’s is homemade, a step more ambitious cooks may wish to consider. A warning to the literally faint of heart: Chef Calle’s preparation uses an entire cup of heavy cream for a single serving. As Roger Sterling says shortly after his heart attack, “All these years I thought it would be the ulcer. I did everything they told me. I drank the cream, ate the butter.” Now that’s rich!
COURTESY OF ANGELO’S OF MULBERRY STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
NOTE: Angelo’s uses homemade pasta and serves the fettuccine in a large bowl.
1⁄2 pound fettuccine
1 teaspoon butter
8 ounces heavy cream
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons Parmesan cheese, grated
Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
YIELD: 1 LARGE SERVING