In my next life I am definitely coming back asStanley Tucci. Or Francesco da Mosto (that Venetian count with the exuberant hair who was all over the schedules a few years ago, do you remember?), or Steve Coogan or Rob Brydon or any celebrity, really, who is sent off to foreign parts on jollies disguised as work.
I am never going to be a world traveller. But if I were, I would, like most of the above, stop at Italy. Why, honestly, would you go further? Why would you not stay in the place that breaks your heart with its beauty everywhere you look? That is suffused with the confidence and style that screams “We owned the Renaissance! We proved ourselves once and for all. No need to sweat the small stuff now! Sit down, chill, and eat penne al’arrabiata until it’s time to prostrate yourself in awe before some ancient frescoes. And btw, the spirit of Michelangelo wants you to eat your body weight in gelato before bed. That’s why he released David from his marble. So you know you can never compete.”
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Stanley Tucci is Italian. The clue is in the name and in the previous travelogueStanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, a number of autobiographical cookbooks about pasta ’n’ that, and now Tucci in Italy, which is very like Searching for Italy, except, obviously, he’s found it.
Each of the five episodes purportedly set out to explore the connections between a region – Tuscany, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Aldige, Abruzzo, Lazio – and its food. In effect, however, it is simply a love fest between Tucci and everyone he meets, Tucci and everything he eats and, just possibly, for those of us who have started to feel that a little bit of Tucci goes a long way, between Tucci and Tucci.
Look, it’s not a grift, obviously. Making telly is not like going down t’pit but it’s hard work of a kind. That said, the absolutely minimal effort put into scripting the narration (Lombardy, for example, is “innovative”, “forward-thinking” and “industrialised” to an almost risibly repetitive degree) and the level of analysis by Tucci of the food disappearing down his gullet (“So fresh!” “This is the greatest day of my life”) feels borderline contemptuous of his audience.
But perhaps I am asking too much. We do, after all, get to gaze upon beautiful culinary creations and imagine what it would be like to taste them in ceaselessly inviting restaurants and against endlessly gorgeous backdrops (from every inch of Florence, to cooking fish on the banks of the Sarca River). Miniature amberjack taco with balsamic herbs picked on the kitchen premises, anyone? Or perhaps you’d prefer to keep it simple with a steak that could make the gods weep, from Maremmana cattle raised in northern Lazio by some of the last butteri (specialist cowboys), or with sturgeon caviar atop a simple shrimp and spaghetti dish? Remember – if it’s truly fresh, the caviar should have no smell! What about a revitalised vitello tonnato with an aerated tuna sauce? “I make the other dishes ugly deliberately,” says the chef as he finesses the plate. “So that customers don’t become intimidated.” You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what the Lombardians can do with tripe or the Florentines can do with tongue (make you want to eat it, basically), so I won’t try.
But it is by their service stations that you shall truly know them. Italians rejoice in the presence of hundreds of branches of Autogrill, a phenomenon that could exist only in a country that privileges la dolce vita beyond all things. What can I tell you? It’s a chain of motorway service stations that doesn’t think customers should be served fried rat. It serves meals you would be glad to have in any restaurant in England. In its test kitchen – test kitchen! – it is working on making a palatable vegan ragu for the masses. A customer explains how sometimes “you don’t want a full osso bucco” because you would need to pull over for a nap afterwards. Indeed. Indeed.
So Tucci and his Tucciness work their magic yet again, even if it is mainly by pointing a camera at Italy, letting Italians speak for themselves and their priorities shine through. Tutta bella.
Tucci in Italy is on Disney+ now.