In the latest episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci continued his journey in southern Italy with a stop in Puglia (POOL-ya), located, as he says, “in the heel of Italy’s boot…with 500 miles of coastline and 60 million olive trees, one for every Italian in Italy.” The town of Foggia, he noted, is the “bread basket of Italy,” producing much of the nation’s durum wheat. He stated that “50% of Italy’s olive oil comes from this region,” describing its taste as “peppery” (good adjective). And he compared the region’s pasta as being “like its people – fiery, uncompromising, and it breaks all the rules.”
The “rule-breaking” theme is a familiar one in the Anglo world, which has long used this trope to promote the idea of Italy, and the Italians, as being shady, untrustworthy, and volatile. Tucci took a roundabout, light-hearted swipe at it with his first segment. Accompanied by Sophie Minchilli, who grew up in Bari, the capital city, Tucci visited the lungomare (seafront), where they observed the “semi-legal” practice of public fish mongering. Minchilli explained that the city has long given up enforcing laws limiting local fishermen from selling directly caught products to the public. This also applied to the elderly women who make orrecchiete (“little ears”) pasta on tables in front of their homes in Bari Vecchia (Old Bari), the more enclosed area of the city.
I anticipated a dumb joke about Sacra Corona Unita, the Barese version of organized crime, but, mercifully, none arrived. As Minchilli correctly said, Bari Vecchia was actually considered a fairly dangerous area when she was growing up. But it is now clean and flourishing, much like Puglia itself.
(Apologies but I have to travel-drop: When I first visited Bari in 2017, I was immediately impressed by its modern train station and the surrounding park, dotted with magnificent palm trees. Ditto the rows of tall, imposing public buildings and the sheer eye appeal of the gently curving lungomare – the latter of which was designed by Ms. Minchilli’s grandfather. Images from movies like Christ Stopped at Eboli and endless “southern Italy” jokes faded away).
A stop in Puglia wouldn’t be complete without a look at the famous “Trulli” homes in Alberobello or Cisternino. Tucci related the legendary story of how these odd, conical-shaped homes were cleverly, and quickly, “de-roofed” so as to fool visiting inspectors looking for fully built homes they could tax. Once these greedy outsiders departed, the residents put the roofs back up. Tucci visited Cisternino, where he got a taste of local meats at the Bere Vecchia, where you select your particular cuts and have them cooked directly for you.
Too bad Tucci couldn’t have actually eaten in one of those unique Trulli homes – which, by the way, are open for rental by tourists. Airbnb, be damned!
It was then on to Altamura, known for its famous bread, shaped like a mountain. Oddly, though, Tucci was more interested in hanging around with cheesemaker Vito Dicecca who, to be fair, was a fairly fascinating character. After touring the world, Dicecca returned to his family’s cheese shop in Altamura and created not only a distinctively new blue cheese, but 66 different types of it. Why the obsession with the color blue, he asked Dicecca?
“I lived in California, Pasadena, for a while,” he said. “And I loved surfing. The blue of the ocean inspired me.”
Tucci then dipped his toe into Basilicata, a neighboring region that shares both a border and history with Puglia. The Puglia episode’s theme of “Rags to Riches” (also the caption for this segment) found its perfect metaphor in the capital city of Matera, one of the oldest areas of Italy known to be inhabited (3,000 years ago). The city’s unique caves were actually inhabited in modern times by poor peasants, the revelation of which, after WWII, earned Matera the label, “the shame of Italy.” Since then, and especially within the last twenty years, Matera has boomed into a tourist mecca, full of shops, cafes, and hotels, many of the latter actually built around – and even within! – the city’s mountains.
Interesting side-note: Francesco Foschini, a native, tells Tucci that Matera, long a backdrop for Biblical film epics due to its ancient terrain, finally got to see itself as “Matera” – the new and revitalized city that it has become – only in the recent James Bond film.
Tucci and his producers missed a few things in Puglia. The spoken regional dialect, which is difficult for even Italians to understand, is only briefly mentioned. Nor was the fact that the last recent wave of Italian immigrants to America (1967-1972) were from Puglia. (Why?). The “stone city” of Ostuni, with its bright-white homes overlooking the Adriatic Coast, wasn’t featured. And it’s hard to see how a visit to Puglia could fail to note Lecce, called the “Florence of the South” for its unique rococo churches and its bustling wealth – not to mention its Roman ruins located smack in the middle of the city.
Ah, Rome. All roads did lead to it. Indeed, the Via Appia in Rome ends in Brindisi, Puglia, a fact not acknowledged in the show. But kudos to Tucci and his crew for finally mentioning classical Rome more than once in an episode. They even spent a minute on modern Italy, showing stock footage of Mussolini working the fields of Puglia in a show of public support for local farmers, a key initiative of the Fascist regime (which Tucci’s voice-over brands as an ultimate failure). That Fascist Italy did far more for farmers and rural workers than Communist China and Communist Russia (and even our own capitalistic nation: think of the still-poor region of Appalachia) is the subject for a much more nuanced TV series than a likeable actor “fascinated by his Italian roots.” -BDC
I still watch Tucci because with all his mistakes, Italy is so interesting and enchanting.
I just wish someone else had thought up and done the series. One who truly loves, knows and isn’t politically biases would have made it even better for me. I don’t know Tucci and I may be wrong about him but he comes across to me with a political agenda. I have not said this so clearly!
I still admire Tucci for two reasons: 1) He is one of the few – very few – actors to bring up the subject of institutionalized Hollywood stereotyping; and b) the fact that he chose to even do such a series speaks to some sense of italianita`, however muted.
He is a creature of Hollywood and has to deal with the L.A. loonies, so his political affiliations are clearly from the Left: concern with women, poverty, workers’ rights, anti-racism, multi-culturalism, etc. These are important topics in their own right, but that’s my question: are they “right” (or Right?) for a series dedicated to food?
My bigger concern is that, at some inchoate level, he carries within him many of the same biases that most Americans do about Italy — that it’s an inferior country whose foods and landscapes are the only things to be celebrated.
Though he does visit cities, it’s obvious that his main concern is with country living and/or peasants, the latter of which feeds into the American mentality of a rural, agricultural nation, which Italy is not. It has one of the top economies in Europe.
Great people come from Bari! Rocco ,Joe, Miguel, and Nick Stella!
As far as the rule-breaking theme, I completely agree.
I am from Bari and visit every year.
It is very unusual to see unauthorized food stands. On the ‘lungomare’, there is an authorized covered stand where fishermen can display and sell the fresh catch. All costal towns in Puglia have something similar.
I called my family to see if they are aware of any illegal stands. They were puzzled. And even if there are a couple of stands, it is so insignificant that clearly shows the bias toward Italy.
As far as the old ladies in the old town, they now all have a license and pay taxes.
This is an old story overblown by the NYT a few years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/world/europe/italy-bari-pasta-orecchiette.html
Most of the articles by Jason Horowitz (NYT) on Italy are fesserie (baloney)
I saw fishermen selling their wares on the lungomare in Bari—and it’s a long and impressive seafront, by the way. As you say, the actual number of such fishermen amounts to a handful when you step back and look at the entire beach location.
As for coverage of Italy, the correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning, Seth Doane, actually does a much more impressive job than many of the foreign correspondents like Mr. Horowitz. Doane seeks out artisans, craftsmen, business people, etc.–in short, real Italians with impressive creative skills which go beyond mere foodstuffs.