In this week’s episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci returns to Firenze, known to the world by its Anglicized name, Florence. As a twelve-year-old, Tucci and his siblings lived in the great city while his father, also named Stanley, took a sabbatical from his high school teaching job to study art. Great choice, naturally: Florence, fueled by the banking wealth of the Medici family, literally became the center of the universe in the 15th century; it lifted the gloom of the Middle Ages and replaced it with a burst of humanism known as “the Renaissance” (rebirth) – a cultural revolution which affected art, science, architecture, navigation, philosophy, literature, music and even religion. Thanks to Italy, the modern world was born. 

Speaking of which: If you’ve ever wondered why this uniquely Italian achievement is identified by a French word, renaissance, you can thank French historian Jules Michelet; he first used the term in a 19th century book. Subsequent copies, translated into English, retained it. I held on to a small string of hope that Tucci would, at one point in the show, turn to the camera and say, “By the way, the proper word for this artistic movement is ‘rinascimento’.”  

Snap! 

I bring this up as Tucci is never shy about promoting outside influences as possibly integral to Italy’s greatness, which reinforces the popular American view that Italy is nothing more than a pleasant postcard destination. But, back to that a bit later. 

The shots of Tucci walking around Florence with his parents had a nice, home-movie quality. Tucci pointed out the apartment building where he and his family stayed during their year-long sabbatical from 1972-1973. It was here where his mother, Joan, took Italian cooking classes while her husband was attending fine-drawing sessions. It was the experience of living in Italy, Tucci says, “that began my life-long love affair with Italian food.” Incidentally, his mother admits that “she didn’t know how to cook” when she first married, thus dispelling the myth that the sons-and-daughters of Italian immigrants were all great cooks. Her food-appreciation courses in Florence were clearly a cultural bridge to Italian culture, opening a deeper appreciation of the lifestyle. 

There were the usual shots of the spectacular Tuscan countryside – fittingly, seen from above, either via a drone or a helicopter. These God-like images have inspired painters, poets, and writers throughout history. Even Mark Twain, that quintessentially “American” of American writers, called Florence and its environs “the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit.” Tucci teased the audience with his own descriptions of Tuscany: “the land is idyllic, the art divine, and the food is out of this world.” He then reversed this Frances Mayes-inspired turn and noted that he was going beyond the city itself, into the countryside, to experience the true soul of the region.

Before that, however, Tucci checked off the usual food boxes. He talked about Tuscan bread (which he dislikes: “flat…tastes like cardboard”) and followed chef Fabio Picchi around the city as they purchased, and then prepared, the city’s bistecca alla Fiorentina.  Picchi, with his mane of white hair and ebullient personality, was an engaging personality; he looked like an Italian version of America’s famous 1990s public speaker, Leo “Dr. Love”  Buscaglia.  Picchi, too, cooks with “love,” and with humor. Tucci asked Picchi about regional differences in food. Picchi responded that cod cooked in the Veneto region would taste a bit different than cod prepared in Florence – not exactly an earth-shattering point. If the goal of Searching for Italy is to understand the Italian people, which is what its voice-over keeps saying, one would think that interviewing Picchi himself would be a better tactic than asking about cooking methods. 

Later in the show, in keeping with this theme of Italian regionalism, Tucci ate at an outdoor restaurant with two local art historians. They both concluded that the reason Tuscan bread tastes so bland is that “the Florentines didn’t want to pay the Pisani (people from Pisa) for salt.”  Surely Tucci and his crew are aware that different regions of the U.S. also have their food squabbles? Anyone from Chicago – such as yours truly – can attest to this even when it comes to something simple as knowing what to put on a hotdog (everything except ketchup). 

Then, after the promise of moving beyond the city’s borders to show us an unclichéd look at food, the bread theme returned twice, and in a more predictable context: “the working class”– a theme which Tucci has been driving home the past few episodes. Tucci visited workers in the countryside celebrating a “wheat threshing” festival, noting that these simple foods-of-the-people (cucina povera: peasant food) were a far cry from the juicy steaks served in the city. He also observed the Florentine talent for using old bread in soups such as Ribollita, Tomato, and Panzanella.  Later, while attending a swanky outdoor event at what looked like the magnificent Boboli Gardens, Tucci ate some panzarella from a cup. He then tracked down and praised the local young chefs were taking such “poor” food and giving it a new twist. 

In both instances, as in past episodes, this tendency to “democratize” Italian food – to make it seem unpretentious – seems specious. It also undercuts what Tucci himself keeps saying again and again: that Italians are, indeed, geniuses when it comes to food. And it’s true no matter what their social status. 

Which leads us to another Tucci theme: the outsider influence on Italian food. Toward the end of the show, Tucci accompanies Picchi to Livorno, the seaside town on the Tuscan coast. Tucci eats a flat-cake appetizer of chick peas, brought over, Picchi tell us, by “Greeks, Libyans, and Syrians.” When cooking his Livornese version of the fish soup cacciucco, Picchi notes that tomatoes were brought to Livorno by Jews who fled the Spanish, and that the tomato itself was introduced to Spain via the natives of the Americas. Tucci says he can’t imagine Italian food without tomatoes. No one mentions that it was a Renaissance explorer, the currently maligned Christopher Columbus, who made the journey to the Americas; it wasn’t the other way around. The Columbian Exchange of foods, plants, and animals was a major accomplishment of the Renaissance, but was perhaps too controversial for a food show. 

A “bar crawl” early in the show followed Tucci as he ordered wine from a working “wine window,” one of hundreds that the city of Florence ordered carved into the sides of buildings so that businesses could allow common-folk access to quality drinks. The city fathers actually encouraged its citizens, including pregnant women, to drink at least a liter of wine a day due to its health benefits. It has long been proven that the Mediterranean diet of wine and pasta is, indeed, the healthiest in the world, both then and now. But I’ve yet to hear even that simple, amazing fact as a rationale for the entire series. 

 As Tucci dipped a cantucci di Prato (cookie) into a glass of Tuscany’s vin santo (holy wine), he jokes, “I like anything that ends in Tucci.” His show officially ends next week in Sicily (though it has since been renewed for next season). Will he dare to not mention la mafia?  Thugs gotta eat, too!  -BDC