Season Two of CNN’s “Searching for Italy” series with Stanley Tucci began on Sunday, May 1st. The show was scheduled two months earlier but was understandably interrupted by the tragic war in Ukraine. No matter. This only postponed the inevitable: Tucci and his crew perpetuated the same cultural pattern as last year – stunning visuals, occasionally witty voice-over asides, and a misplaced obsession with turning Italy into a multi-cultural nation.
First up: Venice. How could one screw up La Serenissima, one of the most storied places in Italy? In truth, you can’t. This city, with its flowing street-canals and serpentine alleyways, is sui generis, the equivalent of a castle in the air, even though its popularity is also contributing to its current status as a human Disneyland, bursting at the seams with tourists. (Note: A few days before Tucci’s show aired, the city announced that it may start charging fees for day-trippers to limit the human flow). And Tucci’s team seemed to do some actual research this time around; they mentioned the city’s history as a sea power and showed film footage of its recent floods, the latter a reminder of the city’s watery fragility.
(Interestingly, the city’s ambitious and controversial MOSÉ project, aimed at containing future floods, wasn’t mentioned. Why?).
Rather than just give my own opinion on this episode, I also relied on Mario Costantini, my personal travel agent for Italy. Mario emigrated to the U.S., specifically Chicago, as a young man in the early 1960s, where he became an established tour professional. He revisits friends and family in Venice on a regular basis, so he still has his “feet in the water,” as it were. I will use some of his comments as a guide, when needed.
Tucci started his food-based show with an obvious choice: cichetti (“small dishes”), the Venetian equivalent of Spanish tapas, though most major Italian cities have similar “happy hour” foods. He carried the fish-theme over to a visit with chef Gianni Scappin, a Venetian native who once worked in the states and who also supervised Tucci when he (Tucci) made his 1996 foodie film, Big Night. Together, they made risotto nero di seppia, where Tucci accidentally broke an ink sack on a cuttlefish, spewing black liquid everywhere. Joked Tucci: “When you make this dish, you need to repaint your kitchen.”
After taking a drink at the famous (and infamously expensive) Harry’s Bar – a frequent haunt of American author Ernest Hemingway – Tucci then went duck-hunting with Andrea de Robilac, a Venetian historian. Robilac explained how the Doge, the leader of the Venetian Republic, would annually order five ducks to be given to every member of the legislative body in the city, which meant 5,000 ducks felled in one fell swoop.
Ernest Hemingway
Despite the huge figure, my travel agent Mario explained it this way: “Duck is not really in our (Venetian) menu. Hunting in the lagoons is very exclusive, just for a few rich bastards.”
Tucci later traveled to the island of Mazzurbo, where he washed down some food with the island’s famous Dorona wine. Mario again: “Looks like a tourist trap for lunch. (The proprietor) probably charges 200 euro without the wine, but not for the locals.”
In short, despite his intellectualism, Tucci never goes beyond the accepted, lazy view of Italy as one big open deli. You get a better sense of Venice’s history and beauty watching twenty minutes of David Lean’s 1956 film Summertime than you do watching this entire show.
Tucci and his crew then pulled out their predictable “arrogant American” attitudes with their next segment – a visit to the Orient Express, a restaurant run by a 25 year-old immigrant from Afghanistan. Tucci mixed it up with the “multi-cultural” chefs in the kitchen: Afghani, Nigerian and Iranian. He then concluded with the same spiel from last year’s episodes: “Some Italian politicians see the arrival of foreign food, and the people who bring it, as a bad thing. I say adding new ingredients just makes the stew richer. It’s the Venetian way.”
Mario? “The idea that the locals appreciate food from other countries is fake. Afghanistani food? Not true. Only those people prefer it.”
What Tucci and his progressive crew see as pseudo-racism is actually something much simpler: Taste – literally. The Italians know a good thing when they see it. Why mess with it?
To promote his post-colonial arrogance yet again, Tucci got in a car and drove to nearby Friuli Venezia Giulia, where he and a Polish/Jewish/Italian chef ate some pork goulash. True, the region borders Austria and Slovenia; and true, its cities have some influences from those nations. But the only reason Tucci ate this dish was to exclaim, “I love it! It’s the perfect mix of so many different cultures right in a bowl.” I refer you to Mario’s comment above.
Despite those comments, my travel agent did like the show: “Bellissima!” Mario said. “As a Venetian, I enjoyed seeing my home again.”
But Mario’s final comments also reflects what has become very apparent with “Searching for Italy”: “The show was good but it’s not done for the Italians. It’s done for 99% of tourists.”
At one point, after eating his duck meal, Tucci, trying to avoid the usual “Oh my God, this is so good” cliche response, asks his fellow diners how to say “magical” in Italian. It’s not that difficult of an adjective (magico). Couldn’t Tucci have taken the time during his summer break to pull out an Italian language book and practice a few more synonyms for “yummy?”
I will leave it to the PBS travel guru Rick Steves, a Norwegian American, to summarize what was lacking in “Searching for Italy: Venice,” to wit:
“By day, Venice is a city of museums and churches, packed with great art. Linger over lunch, try to crack a crustacean with weird legs and antennae. At night, when the hordes of day-trippers have gone, another Venice appears. Dance across a floodlit square. Glide in a gondola in quiet canals while music echoes across the water. Pretend it’s Carnevale time, don a mask – or just a fresh shirt – and become someone else for a night.”
Una citta’ magica, indeed! -BDC
I think that Italy is a “multi-cultural” country. Italy has been open to foreigners and different cultures for centuries. However, Italy’s multi-culturalism has nothing to do with the progressive ‘left-wing” multi-culturalism as we know it today.
Venice has a great example of “multi-culturalism”: the Jewish Ghetto. While discriminated in the rest of Europe, many Jews came to Venice and established a cosmopolitan community. The Ghetto became a cultural hub. As stated in the Smithsonian magazine, “nearly one-third of all Hebrew books printed in Europe before 1650 were made in Venice”.
Hence, Tucci preaching about foreign food and acceptance of foreigners shows his lack of knowledge of Italian history.
Excellent point, though in fairness the Jews of Venice had a rough time of it from 1516 to 1797, when the Republic forced them to live in “ghettos.” The word “ghetto” is a derivation of the Venetian word for steel, ‘geti,’ a once-thriving trade for the Jews. Its current spelling and pronunciation are attributed to Germans in Italy.
In his episode on Rome, Tucci devoted an entire segment to the Jews in that city, both their culinary influence and over-all acceptance into Roman society.
The Roman Empire, of course, was the first truly multi-cultural nation in world history. It freely incorporated people from its provinces and even revived classical cultures that were nearly lost to time (Hello, Ancient Greece, and you’re welcome!).
Signor Tucci needs to read a few more books and a fewer menus.
Tucci shows political inclination in each show. While I enjoy the show in spite of shortfalls, he would not be my choice to star in the show. Cheers, come on! I don’t feel he knows, or really knows Italy. His Sicily was the worst. As was pointed out, his selections about Venetian cuisine could have been better. He seems the need to press multi-culturalism as we know it today. The countries around Italy, like Austria and Slovenia, have adopted many Italian dishes. I will continue to watch Tucci but I know what to expect. It is too bad
that they could not find someone with a passion for Italy, its history and food to do the show!
Yes, funny (“Cheers!”). Why couldn’t Tucci do something as simple as teach viewers the different phrases which Italians use to toast? “Cin cin…” “Salute…” “Cent’Anni…” etc.
Mario is wrong about “Afghanistani” food being liked only by Afghans. I recall a popular Afghan restaurant in the East Village called “The Khyber Pass” as well as another Afghan place on W. 43rd Street off 6th Avenue whose name I do not remember. I dined at both several times and the cuisine was basically standard Middle Eastern, with lamb, chicken, kebobs, rice, and breads. I am sure there are plenty of Afghan restaurants in most major cities.
Sorry for the miscommunication: Mario meant Venetians in Venice, not in New York.
If you’ll recall, this came up during the Rome episode, too, when Tucci profiled an Asian man who so loved Italian food that he went to Rome and opened up his own restaurant. After a while, Tucci noted, the Italians stopped eating there, which he viewed as racist.
Again, how about something as simple as “taste”? The Italians know food and have expectations as to how it’s prepared, served, etc. The Asian man’s touches were perhaps too exotic for their palates. Tucci and his crew never give Italians benefit of the doubt.
One of the most ridiculous statements by Tucci suggests that someone back in the sixth century thought it would an interesting idea to build a city that had canals rather than streets. The reality is the ancestors of the Venetians built a city on a cluster of islands in a lagoon as a means of escaping the ravages of the barbarians who were flooding into Italy (illegal immigrants?).