All language subtitles for italy2

Well it's very exciting
to be back in Rome again.

At every turn
there's something

of historical
significance.

Look at that.

It's literally like you're
living inside a museum.

Even if you've never
been to Rome,

you've been to Rome.

Its stories have been told and
retold on stage and screen,

the city of toga's
and gladiators,

power and intrigue,
empire and ruin,

and of course La Dolce Vita -
the good life.

I'm Stanley Tucci.

I'm Italian on both sides
and I'm travelling across Italy

to discover how the food

in each of this
country's 20 regions

is as unique as the people
and their past...

The famous ancients of Rome
once ruled the world...

...but I'm here to discover

how it's the food
of ordinary Romans

that has conquered our hearts.

But I'm going to warn you,

if you're on a low
carb diet beware...

...you're going to see a lot
of pasta in this show.

I mean, like, a lot of it.
Like, a lot.

I'm sorry.

I've been visiting Rome
for decades.

Its beauty and history
still leave me breathless

but sometimes it's difficult
to find a good meal

if you don't know
where to look.

Rome is situated in Lazio,

a region sometimes overlooked

in favour of its grander
gastronomic neighbors

like Tuscany
and Umbria.

But Lazio has fed Rome
for centuries

and every part of
the sheep and pigs raised here

is put to use
in kitchens across the city

to make deeply
flavorsome food.

To start my journey,

I'm catching up
with my old friend Claudia.

She's lived here
virtually her whole life...

-There you are.
-...and her cardinal rule

for good food is, 'when in
Rome, eat as the Romans do.'

-Are you OK? Good.
-I'm good. You OK?

-I'm so happy to see you.
-It was a long time.

It was a long time.

Somehow almost 30
years has slipped by

since we first became friends

when we worked on a movie
here together.

I think that you came
first time for a...

Well, the very first time
was like '95.

No, I think '93, because it
was the Undercover Blues.

-I didn't know I was that old.
-I know, me neither.

Let's not mention it.
[LAUGHTER]

Claudia wants to take me
for a classic Roman pasta lunch

but with an hour to kill,

we decide to get
a coffee and reminisce.

Well the San Calisto
is a real institution.

That's where we went
a long time ago.

Yeah, yeah, we were there
every evening, you know.

Back in the '90s
we used to hang out

in a great café in Trastavere,

a grimy part of town, very much
on the wrong side of the river.

-Here we are.
-Yeah, and here we are.

And I was pleased to hear
it was still going strong.

-So you remember Marcello?
-Yes I do, I do.

Look what's there. The picture
you gave them in '93.

It's exactly in the same place.

I think nothing changed
in this place.

No it hasn't changed.

A little espresso
would be just enough

to whet our appetites
before we go to lunch...

...or so I thought.

-I know, I know.
-What's that?

-That's...
-Who's joining us?

These are maritozzi,

Roman breakfast with
a 2,000-year-old history.

You cannot resist one of these.

In the Middle Ages they were
one of the few sweet things

the church allowed you
to eat during Lent...

...it doesn't seem
very saintly to me.

-[TUCCI] Is it like a brioche?
-Yeah, it's like a brioche.

-'Cause it looks like a brioche.
-And it's even healthier

compared to this.
This is bomba con la crema.

It's fried. It's a sort of donut
with egg cream.

But Italians don't eat breakfast
like Americans eat breakfast

or the British eat breakfast
or the Dutch eat breakfast.

[TUCCI] Yeah, 'cause they don't
do eggs and bacon and...

-It's always something sweet.
-Yeah.

Nice to see you again.

As we staggered off
our breakfast

and headed through Trastevere,

I noticed that the area was
much busier and hipper

than years ago.

This was the poor quarters,

you see the buildings,
as nice as they are,

-are very small.
-Right.

And then of course,
as it happens

you know, the old quarters
got very trendy and everybody

-wanted to live here.
-Yeah and they become

-more gentrified and... Yeah.
-Yeah.

The city may be changing,

but one thing
that's as constant

as the ancient landmarks

is how much people in Rome
love their pasta.

Four star dishes in particular

have become an emblem
of the city

and Claudia is taking me
to find out more

at a place she says
is the Pantheon of pasta...

[TUCCI] The restaurant
is fully booked...

-But we don't care. [LAUGHS]
-Yeah, we don't care.

Well tell me some more
about pasta in Rome.

Pasta in Rome is like,
you eat it every day.

I mean you don't live
without pasta.

Every day?

And everybody has its own recipe

and of course it's the best
ever, you know,

and yours is nothing
compared to mine.

Right, it's true. It does
become very territorial

-doesn't it?
-Yeah.

Romans revere what they call
The Four Pastas.

[TUCCI] Nice to see you,
thank you for having me.

Simple but iconic dishes
of staggering deliciousness.

They are creamy Cacio e Pepe,

made with mainly sheep's
cheese and pepper.

The ancient Gricia,
which has added pork.

Its luxurious cousin Carbonara,

which is elevated
with egg yolks.

And finally, our lunch
today, Amatriciana,

made with tomatoes...

...and this Roman favourite,
Guanciale, fatty pork cheek.

[TUCCI] The Guanciale
are a base

for a lot of different
dishes in Rome.

We would normally
use pancetta

but the taste
is totally different.

-Terrible. Terrible.
-No.

-No, no, terrible.
-Yes.

[TUCCI] Thank you.

[TUCCI] Thank you so much.

-It's very good.
-[TUCCI] [SPEAKS ITALIAN]

Pasta's delicious. Delicious.

The sauce is actually quite
light, which is nice,

and the guanciale
are really delicate.

Yeah, yeah it is.

No, no. I kept some space
in my stomach for this.

Ah. Because we didn't
eat the...

-My god.
-No.

Across this city,
every single day,

Romans eat pasta
that has ancient bonds

to their surrounding
countryside.

Now it's hard to imagine,
but this iconic food

was once at risk
of being banned in Italy...

Sitting at the big, warm,
carbohydrate-loaded heart

of Italian cuisine is pasta.

And fittingly
for the nation's capital,

Rome is obsessed
with the stuff.

I've been promised
the best carbonara in the city

and I've been told to come

to the working-class
backstreets

behind Termini Station

and to ask for the Don.

[TUCCI] Tell me what you do.

I'm passionate about
popular food

and for a long time
I made a show

where I play vinyl music disc
and that's...

-Like a DJ? As a DJ.
-As a DJ, yeah.

But at the same time...

Daniele di Michele is a chef,
historian and DJ

who cooks Italian food
while he spins records.

His stage name is Don Pasta.

Oh I have seen some
of the stuff...

-Yeah, yeah. It's crazy.
-Oh it's really fantastic.

I was pretending for the
audience that I didn't know,

-but why lie?
-It's a joke.

It's really great.

Don Pasta has promised me

the greatest dish of Spaghetti
Carbonara I've ever tasted,

and on the way he tells me

why pasta matters
so much to him.

I realised that Italian food
is popular food,

roots food.

Italian food is the resistance
of the normal people

or the working-class people
that eat well

because the working-class people

create the roots
of Italian food.

Yes.

Today we may think
of a bowl of pasta

as the ultimate comfort food

but there's a distinctly
uncomfortable history

of Italians fighting oppression
through pasta.

In the early 1930s,
Mussolini and his fascists

imposed import bans
on various foreign goods.

This lead to food shortages,

malnutrition and
a lack of wheat

which raised the prospect of
Italian tables with no pasta.

[SPEAKS ITALIAN]

In typical style, rather than
lifting the import bans,

Mussolini tried to convince
Italians that eating pasta

would make them weak, lazy
and even sexually impotent

and that a high protein diet

would make them more productive

and war-like.

The campaign was clearly
not a success.

When the fascism arrived

a big part of Italy
is with Mussolini...

-Yeah.
-...but 30-40%

is against Mussolini.

In fact pasta actually became
a powerful symbol

of the resistance
against his fascist regime.

Armed with their guns
and sheets of pasta

many of the Partisans
who stood up to Mussolini

lived in these very streets.

[ARCHIVE] And the great
access railyards

from which troops and supplies
are poured into Southern Italy

are blasted...

[TUCCI] During World War Two,

this area bore the brunt
of Allied bombings

that aimed to disrupt
the nearby rail hub.

Tragically, over a thousand
people were killed.

This is in essence
like a monument.

Yeah, you can see
the effect of the war.

Yeah.

People died, the families died,

and all this area is bombed.

This particular square

was home to a hugely popular
local trattoria

before the war.

The owner's wife and all
but one of their children died

when their building was
hit during the bombing.

After the war, the local
community raised funds

for the surviving
father and son

to reopen the restaurant again.

The boy started work here
aged just eight

and amazingly
he's still here today.

The story of Roman food,
Aldo Pomudollo.

[TUCCI] Aldo...

Beautiful.

Aldo now runs the restaurant
alongside his daughter Rossana.

People come from
across the city,

and apparently further afield,

to enjoy the comfort
of Aldo's family food.

So tell me about carbonara.
Carbonara is a Roman dish

but we don't know
when it was invented, right?

One story I'd always heard

is that carbonara came about

when the American soldiers
in Rome during the war

started missing their
bacon and eggs from back home

and wanted them added
to spaghetti.

Aldo, however,
has his own theory.

It seems some things are
destined to remain Roman myths.

What everyone can agree on

is that the carbonara here
is incredible.

You have basically
four ingredients -

pasta, eggs, the guanciale,
and cheese. That's it.

But when I try it at home
it's never this good.

My mother does that too.

You could just die now.

When I taste pasta like this,

I understand why it remains
so important to this city.

Rome may be the seat
of power and religion

but it's overwhelmingly
a working class town.

This is simple food that has
been elevated over centuries

by people making the best

of what little they
had available.

They are rightly proud
that their humble food

has come to define Italy
to the entire world.

I've headed five miles
out of the city centre

using the newly
extended Metro line.

Romans have a reputation
for resisting change

and the arrival
of the subway in 2014

has shaken up old poor
neighborhoods of the city,

nowhere more so
than Centocelle.

I'm meeting Massimiliano

who's the editor of Italy's
most prestigious food journal

to find out what's going on.

Gentrification is moving
in on this neighborhood

and food is on the front line.

[MASSIMILIANO] The
neighbourhood was born

during the Roman Empire.

Centocelle is a Roman name,

cento carceri
is '100 jails' in English.

-100 jails?
-Jails, yeah, exactly.

There may never have actually
been one hundred jails here,

but what this area does have
is three new subway stations

all within close proximity.

[MASSIMILIANO] These things
change up the game, OK?

A lot of people came here
to try to invest a bit.

-Is this where we're going?
-Yeah, it's here.

Let's go in and see
what he's got.

Centocelle has long had
a rough reputation.

That's changing fast though

and one place that's seen
by some as ground zero

for the transformation
of the neighbourhood is a deli.

Vincenzo opened this place
well before the Metro arrived.

He wanted to rehabilitate
the surrounding Lazio region's

mediocre reputation for food

and bring the best
of the countryside

back for his neighbors
to enjoy at fair prices.

-Can I taste some?
-Ah, si! [LAUGHS]

Pecorino cheese
is made from sheep's milk

and Rome is famous for it.

Historically the animals were
raised all around Lazio

as a cheaper alternative
to cattle and crops.

Vincenzo goes a step further
than most sellers

and searches in some
unlikely places

for cheese that also
helps his community.

-What does that mean?
-[MASSIMILIANO] In a jail.

-In a jail. Jail. Jail.
-In a jail.

Oh OK.

Only in Italy would an ancient
cheese recipe

be saved by prisoners.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, that's delicious. Mmm.

As well as sheep's milk cheese,

pork finds its way into almost
every dish I've had in Rome.

Historically, pigs were raised
all around the city

because they need less space
than other animals.

To me, Vincenzo is doing
something amazing.

Now people come here from
around the city

to this once
overlooked suburb.

But over the past few years,

another 50 to 60 food places
have opened up nearby.

Romans are renowned for their
stubborn resistance to change.

I guess it's what's kept this
city standing for centuries.

But Massimiliano wants to show
me another café in the area,

one of many that have opened
in recent years.

I wasn't fully prepared
for what we found.

Oh my lord

It's hard to imagine,
but a few months ago

this place was a thriving
café and bookshop

called La Peccora Elettrica
- The Electric Sheep.

On the night of
April 25th, 2019,

Alessandra's café
was firebombed.

She set about rebuilding
her business

but shockingly, the night
before she was due to reopen,

the attackers struck again.

Three local businesses

have now been attacked
like this here in Centocelle,

including a pizza place
and this jazz bar.

The police still haven't found
who's responsible.

Because Alessandra hosted
community events at the café,

including anti-fascist talks,

suspicion has fallen
on the far right.

But others here blame
local criminals

protecting their old turf

or even anti-gentrification
campaigners.

But is this happening
in other parts of Rome too?

When change happens,
Romans resist,

but whoever did this has made
it dangerous to sell food.

It seems brutal to attack

restaurants and cafes
in this city

that is united in its love
of eating together.

Tucked in a curve
of the River Tiber

is Testaccio, once known
as the belly of Rome,

home to the old slaughterhouses

that supplied 19th and 20th
Century Romans with meat.

So tell me about this place.

This is the Ex Mattatoio,
the retired slaughterhouse...

...and for about a hundred
years, until the 1970s,

it's where most large
Roman animals were slaughtered

basically from lambs
all the way up through steer.

This four square mile site

will be redeveloped
into a cultural area.

But for now, signs of its
former life are everywhere.

You can still see the tracks
that the carcasses move on.

Oh yeah, for the carcasses,
yeah.

Katie Parla is a renowned
food writer

who swapped New Jersey for Rome
almost 20 years ago.

[KATIE] You got the
veal pavilion here...

Oh. Vitellara.

Skinning happened there.

-Right.
-The Pellanda.

[KATIE] It's an organised place
with so many pavilions.

-Covering a vast area.
-Right.

And really influencing
the types of foods

that would be eaten just across
the street at the trattorias

of the late 19th and
early 20th Century.

In butchery, the animal
is quartered and those cuts

went straight to the upper
and middle-class kitchens

everything that's left over,

the blood, brains
and intestines,

was called the quinto quarto -
the fifth quarter -

and those were left
to the poor.

Some workers were even paid
in offal instead of money,

so they had little choice
but to make the best of it.

One restaurant keeping these
historic flavours alive

and taking them into
the 21st Century

is Santo Palato.

If you know how to cook offal,
you can turn the poorest guts

into the richest of dishes...

[KATIE] We're hungry right?

-Starving.
-Follow me.

I haven't eaten in like an hour.

...and Katie wants
me to meet Sara,

a young chef
with a growing reputation

for doing amazing things
with innards.

-[SARA] Bonjourno.
-[TUCCI] Stanley.

[KATIE] She's gonna make
a frittata for us

and it's topped
with chicken innards.

So everything we focus on here
in your restaurant is offal.

-Yes.
-Yes, good.

-One egg per person. OK. Yep.
-Yes.

-...throughout the day.
-Oh yeah.

Have it for breakfast,
lunch, dinner. Yeah.

-I like it in a sandwich.
-[TUCCI] Yes in a sandwich.

That's what I used to take
when I was a kid to school.

Yeah. I'm very down with that.

Chef Sara gave up
medical school

to pursue her dream
of opening a restaurant.

[TUCCI] Woah, yes.

[TUCCI] So the stomach, the
heart and the liver.

[SARA] Yes.

In Rome you find frittata and
chicken organs, but separately.

-[TUCCI] But separately.
-[KATIE] Yeah,

and she has combined them.

[KATIE] It's ready.

[TUCCI] Oh wow.

-[KATIE] Smell it. Wow, rich.
-[TUCCI] Oh yeah that's nice.

Don't forget about this bread.

-Oh wow, yeah, nice and hot too.
-[KATIE] So good. Yeah.

Mmm. That's great.

Thank you. [LAUGHS]

-Great.
-This is really special.

And I think it's
a really good demonstration

of what Sara does really well

which is taking Roman classic
flavours and combining them...

-Yeah. Yeah.
-...in a way that's new

but not like revolutionary
or extra contemporary

they just make sense
in the cuisine today.

Sara gets her scalpel
into some beef heart

and we take a seat
in the dining room.

What's that?

Really, this is a really
unusual texture too isn't it?

Alright so if we break down
what the offal are

we have heart, liver,
lungs, stomach...

-Brain.
-...brain,

-sweetbreads...
-...intestines...

-...intestines...
-...snout.

-Snout?
-Cartilaginous things

-on the face?
-Oh yeah.

The whole head really,
if you think about it.

The whole head. Yeah.

If pasta is the first pillar
of Roman food

the astonishing use of offal
is definitely the second.

Somehow poor Romans
turn these unpromising cuts

into sheer culinary poetry.

Yeah.

-[TUCCI] Dude, I love oxtail.
-[KATIE] I'm so into it.

-[KATIE] So tasty.
-That's really good.

And this is definitely a more
carnivorous city than it is

-a fish eating city.
-Without question, yeah.

-Even though we're 15 miles
from the sea...

-I know.
-That was really really far

in pre-1970s standards

before ice and refrigeration
became more common.

[TUCCI] Yeah.

[KATIE] So this is
that honeycomb tripe

with all those really
beautiful pockets.

[KATIE] Lots of nice stomach
geometry going on.

I've never heard it described
as stomach geometry.

It makes it sound much,
much more palatable.

-That is really good.
-It's boiled multiple times

often with vinegar, that
tenderises it and cleans it,

and then it's cooked
in tomato sauce

with pecorino and mint.

-So in Rome...
-Pecorino and mint?

Yeah. In Rome this is really
the only way you find tripe,

in fact the dish is called
''Trippa alla Romana'

and go to another place,
Florence included,

and the tripe
is prepared differently.

Stewed stomach may not sound
appealing, I know,

but believe me, these are
really tasty flavours.

The Roman poor didn't have much
to work with,

but against the odds,
they wound up

making some of the very
best food in the city.

What can I say? Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much Katie.

Thank you, thank you.

We're here in Rome

and it's the most wonderful
time of the year.

No, it's not Christmas,

it's artichoke season.

Right now, markets
across the city

are humming with the
sound of people

hacking away
at Rome's favourite vegetable.

So show me the artichokes.

As I've been finding out,
with Roman food,

you sometimes have
to dig a little

to get to the good stuff.

So this is for the
Carciofi Ro...

-Alla Romana.
-...alla Romana.

Or alla Giudia

Once trimmed, they
can be deep fried

to make one of my all-time
favourite Roman foods.

Carciofi alla Giudia -
Jewish fried artichokes.

You know my grandmother
and my mother would make these.

Ask anyone here
and they'll tell you

that this weird
looking vegetable

is a definitive Roman food...

-Thank you so much.
-Thank you.

-Bye-bye.
-Ciao, ciao, ciao.

...but what I love is that
under those rough outer leaves

it contains an entire history.

A story of how
society's outcasts

can change the habits
of an entire city.

These picturesque ruins

once contained the misery
of Rome's Jewish ghetto.

From the 1500s onwards,

the city's entire
Jewish community

was locked in this walled area,

only allowed to leave to do
menial jobs in the daytime

before being locked in
at night.

Italia Tagliacozzo
is in her 80s

and has lived here
her whole life.

When the Nazis seized Rome
in October 1943,

the ghetto was a sitting target

and it's 1,204 residents were
sent to the gas chambers.

Italia was one of just
a handful who escaped

when her uncle hid her
outside the city.

For the few who survived,

food became a vital link
back to their past.

The Jews of Rome had lived
in poverty for centuries

and were forced to rely on
the cheapest of ingredients.

Using typical Roman
inventiveness,

the Jews transformed
unloved ingredients

like anchovies, eggplants
and artichokes

into dishes that
the entire city

would eventually
take to its heart.

Alongside pasta and offal,
the influence of Jewish cooking

is the third pillar
of Roman cuisine today.

Italia set up a restaurant

serving the best Jewish food
in the ghetto.

In this kitchen, Italia
and her crack team

raise the humble artichoke
into food for the ages.

-Georgio.
-Georgio.

OK, so this is that

that was done yesterday -

cooked in the oil

and then refrigerated.

Alright so he's
spreading out the leaves.

So cooked, pre-cooked

Look at how beautiful that is.

That's the best one I've had.
That is delicious.

It's so addictive.
It's like eating candy.

You just can't stop,
it's so crispy.

That people love. Yeah.

This dish tells a story.

It has survived
the darkest of times

and links us to a past
that was almost wiped out.

To me it's a type of historical
monument in Italian cooking,

now beloved by everyone,

and proudly embraced
by the entire city.

It's my last night in Rome.

During my time here, I've
learned that, above all else,

food in Italy is about who you
are and where you're from.

But where does that leave you
if you're an outsider?

I've come to Bistro 64,

a restaurant that has won a
Michelin star for serving up

some of the best Italian food
in the city.

The surprising thing is

that the chef is an
out-of-towner...

...and no he's not
from Naples,

or even Milan,

he's from Japan.

-Stanley.
-Kotaro.

-Nice to meet you.
-Pleasure. Nice to meet you too.

Kotaro Noda was lured here
20 years ago

by his obsession with the
flavours of Italian cuisine.

Noda's food has won praise
for its creativity

but tonight he's making
the simplest Roman classic.

It's one of the famous
Four Pastas,

cacio e pepe,

literally 'cheese and pepper.'

There are just three
main ingredients

but it takes great skill

to make this Roman
favourite perfect.

Of course,
another Italian kitchen secret.

Could take a while.

I know you may be thinking
this is ludicrously simple food

but believe me,
it's extraordinary

and don't just
take my word for it.

Where's Karen? Karen? Come here.

Right.

-OK.
-OK. OK.

This is Karen who
works with us,

one of the producers.
She's from Rome.

-So you tell us what you think.
-OK. OK. No pressure.

No. No pressure, no pressure.
He's not nervous at all.

[NODA] I'm not nervous.

[TUCCI] He doesn't care
about our opinion.

-[NODA] Va bene?
-It's divine. Yes, it's so good.

It's perfectly creamy.

It's not too intense, it's not
overloaded with flavour.

-Yeah.
-It's the perfect

-amount of pepper...
-Yeah.

And it really respects,
you know,

how it would be cooked
in a family.

There's always a secret.

There's always a secret, that's
true. There's always a secret.

When it comes to food,

Romans know what they like
and like what they know.

Beyond his masterful take
on the classics

Noda's menu is full of
incredible innovations,

from sweetbreads with heart

to purple potato cream
with plum gelato.

I was curious how the city
had taken to his creations.

The downside of Rome
being so steeped in history

is that sometimes great things
are resisted

because they're new and not
what people are used to.

Missing food this good
is a real shame.

I'm sorry.

But here's the thing -

the one thing Romans can't
resist is a good meal

and I'm hopeful that soon

Noda's food will be another
culinary landmark

in this eternal city.