"Searching for Italy"

For centuries they have called us 'Italian maccaroni', a widespread offense on the millions of compatriots who arrived after so many hardships and customs-health selections on American territory.

Now macaroni as an authentic symbol of Italian pasta are on the mouth, it is said, of the millions of spectators who every Sunday evening at nine o'clock, Washington time, carefully follow on CNN "Searching for Italy" a series invented by Stanley Tucci, actor, writer, expert in cooking.

The listening data speak of an exceptional success considering that the transmission is aimed above all at a people, the American one, famous for many things but certainly not for the level of their cuisine.

The national dish is hamburgher with fried potatoes.

Having millions of people who follow this specialized program makes it clear how "In Search of Italy" has also taken America's number one cable television executives on the back of the scenes.

And for us Italians who have been living in the United States for a long time, it is a source of pride to meet sometimes strangers at the supermarket who get excited to hear us talk to each other in Italian and declare to be assiduous spectators of this special that convinced them to experience the endless streets of Italian food.

Stanley Tucci many years ago worked as a producer and director as well as a main character in a film, "Big Night" that told the story of two brothers who wanted to open and run a restaurant in New York characterized by food cooked exclusively in the Italian way without any compromise with the contaminations of the American subculture.

We remember the scene of the first two patrons, an obese virago and a poor succubus husband, who order, it would be better to say they get persuaded to order from Tucci, a risotto mantecato and presented on the table after 20 minutes of cooking.

"But what stuff is this, after so much waiting, so little rice and a strange taste..." was railing the fat.

Needless to say, the exclusively Italian restaurant experiment fails in the film.

Now we find Tucci who tells this America the wonders of Italian regional cuisine by inserting the recipes in a context in which there are historical references to the political and social events of Italy.

 

In America they build mansions, with huge kitchens in which the landlords who in their vast majority do not know how to cook and only use the microwave in which they thread the frozen packages of pre-cooked foods.

If American girls consider cooking a form of submission to machismo, the number of males who discover that they have fun and have a knack for preparing a fine dinner increases.

"Discovering Italy" is not only a great tourist-gastronomic manifesto but the demonstration that life on the Peninsula manages to carve out moments of happiness, mutual understanding, civil dialogue and respect for the opinions of others. 

The power of good food and a glass of wine.

All this before the pandemic.

Now the world has changed. 

But let Italy get out of the lockdown and everything will come back as before.

Oscar