In the final episode of Season Two of Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci focused on his home city for the last ten years: London. And, shockingly, he and his crew actually made a classical reference – they noted that the city was founded by the Romans over 2,000 years ago (as Londinium, which they did not note). And although Tucci told us via his voice-over narration that “no city can rival [London’s] elegance and charm,” he and his producers failed to note what Queen Elizabeth herself, still going strong after 70 years on the throne, told the Italian Parliament during a 1980 speech: “I would like to thank your people for bringing civilization to my people.”     Prego!

Ironically, I found this final episode one of his most interesting, even absent the usual awe-inspiring shots of various Italian landscapes. It wasn’t because of its central theme – namely how Italian immigrants transformed the eating habits of a nation for whom the phrase “elegance and charm” was never applied to its cuisine. It was, rather, the inner-war which Tucci seemed to be having with himself; that is, his professed love of Italy and Italian food duking it out with his obvious sense of inferiority via anything Anglo, a fault common to many Americans, including those of Italian descent.

That sense of inferiority was obvious to many of us during past episodes of the show: Tucci’s passive-aggressive stance toward Italian food – praising it yet damning it simultaneously – was a familiar one born from the sons and daughters of Italian peasant immigrants, people whose views of Italy were blinded by poverty or desperation. Imagine judging America or its history via its poorest southern towns or most arid southwestern plains.  People don’t.

Yet Italian Americans, Tucci included, still seem to cling to the notion that Great Britain was the Great Beacon of Western culture. It seems impossible for them to fathom that the United Kingdom came out of Italy, not the other way around. As stated, it was the Romans who founded London. Ideas inspired by their Rule of Law found their way into the Magna Carta. The British Empire deliberately modeled itself after the Roman one. Shakespeare set many of his plays in Italy, a country admired then as a seat of learning. (The show on Emilia-Romagna did note that the University of Bologna is Europe’s oldest.)

And when the Founding Fathers (men of English, Welsh, Scots and Scots-Irish stock) conceived of a new nation, they drew inspiration – again – from classical Rome and Roman writers. Indeed, they combined the name of these new “united states” with that of an Italian navigator: Amerigo Vespucci.

The chief surprise of the London show is that, for once, Tucci truly seemed to be on the side of Italy, Italian food, and the Italian people – their cheerleader, as it were, yet in his own bone-dry manner (which is itself a bit Anglo, no?). Unlike in previous shows, where any hint of Italian brilliance or creativity had to be promptly watered down by allusions to other cultures, Tucci was clearly doing a “tally-ho” for the Italians. Each segment of the show made the same point: italianità has been a vital, necessary ingredient to current British culinary success. Once again: Prego!

Tucci said that London “could be Italy’s 21st region,” given its Italian immigrant population of 500,000.  Given that only 13,000 Italians lived in the city’s Soho District after World War I, that figure is quite staggering — even more so when you consider that much of it has ballooned only over the past 30 or 40 years. Tucci shared these facts while cooking with Francesco Mazzei at his famed Satoria Ristorante in the city’s Saville Road district, home to renowned English tailors. (Hmm. I wonder if Italian tailors have shops there now, too?). Mazzei not only catered Tucci’s wedding to his current wife, the British literary agent Felicity Blunt, but shares Tucci’s Calabreseheritage. Mazzei said he appreciated the “freedom” which London offered to Italian immigrants like himself to bring staples of Calabrian foodstuffs – like Nduja spread and chili peppers – to Italian/British menus.

Stopping at an Italian deli (Tucci said that London now boasts over 3,000 such delis and restaurants), he met up with Gennaro Contaldo, who emigrated to London from Amalfi in 1969 and “started a gastronomic revolution.” Contaldo became a popular TV chef and “even taught Jamie Oliver how to cook Italian food.” Tucci then went to the East End and met Angela Hartnett who, despite her last name, is the daughter of Italian immigrants from the small town of Bardi in Emilia Romagna, part of a mass migration from that town to South Wales after World War I.

Then it was on to La Mia Mamma, which was the show’s liveliest segment. Started by Sicilian immigrant Peppe Corsaro, the restaurant changes its menu every few months to highlight Italy’s various regions. Its chief charm is allowing female chefs from those regions to come and cook as a team. In this case, it was a group of “mammas” from Campania who showed Tucci how to make Neapolitan ragù. The energy and charm of these women put a continual smile on Tucci’s face – a rarity!

The next segment took us to the city’s SoHo district and focused on Quo Vadis, a restaurant first opened in 1926 by Peppino Leoni. In a reversal of the show’s usual “Italian food needs something foreign in it so as to be acceptable” motif, we learn that Leoni fought against the “haute cuisine” attitudes of the era which considered French food superior to “low-class” Italian food. Leoni gave his dishes Frenchified names but surreptitiously introduced Italian herbs, tastes, and oils to their preparation.

We then got a short lesson on how the Fascist regime attempted to weaponize Italian food in 1937 by opening up some kind of nationalized food office in SoHo. A mere few years later, when Italy and Great Britain were at war, the restaurants in the area were shuttered and people like Leoni were arrested and sent to interment camps outside of London.

What became of him? Or of those whose places of employment were confiscated? We never really found out. As quickly as this bit of interesting history was introduced, it was gone. The segment ended with Tucci having a cup of espresso at Bar Italia in SoHo, remarking at how quickly history passes.

Clearly, it was the writers and editors who’d had a quick coffee break!

Final stop: Acton, a suburb outside of London, where a former investment banker, Simona Di Vietri, gave Tucci a tour of her mozzarella dairy. The show ended with Tucci eating a small piece of burrata by himself, remarking, rather cryptically, that “the future of Italian food may be contained in this dish.”

That was it. No elaboration. Credits. End of show. If this was Tucci’s attempt to suddenly become the Marcus Aurelius of dining, it didn’t work. It merely left one hungry for more – just as many previous episodes did.

So, by my count, Tucci has still 11 more regions to go as he continues “searching for Italy.” Will he ever find what he is looking for? That he seemed to connect with Italian culture only in an episode where the Italians were considered outsiders is a very odd development indeed.

He could have ended the show by shopping in London’s famous Lombard District, created by goldsmiths from Italy’s Lombardy region in medieval times. Or, even better, he could have worked off his food visits by visiting the town of Bath, England, with its perfectly preserved Roman baths.

Still, it was gratifying to see Tucci finally seem to grasp that yes, the Italians do have gifts that should be celebrated and admired, and all on their own. -BDC

-BDC