TORONTO – Back in 2022, CNN’s Searching for Italy hosted by Actor Stanley Tucci was cancelled due to a cut back on original programming produced by outside production companies. The show followed food enthusiast Tucci as he travelled around Italy exploring its regional cultures, mainly through their culinary traditions. Tucci, whose grandparents were from Cosenza and Reggio Calabria, returned to his ancestral region as part of the show – his first visit back since he was a child. Tucci lived in Florence for a short stint when he was 11.
While it was a CNN travel and food show, Tucci’s series distinguished itself from the Anthony Bourdain experience – which was a more journalistic, raw look into some of the more unexplored regions of the world. Searching for Italy, which is now getting a revamp under the new title Tucci in Italy, [to be platformed on Disney+], played as one man’s love affair with Italian cuisine and his overuse of the word “delicious”.
But while some critics nitpicked on the Actor’s perceived “pompousness” or penchant to over-glamourize, the majority of audiences loved his enthusiasm. The original CNN series even received seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won Emmys for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series in 2021 and 2022.
Starting May 19th on Disney+, Tucci in Italy will return with 5 episodes exploring Tuscany, Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardy, Abruzzo, and Lazio. “The whole show is sort of predicated on the idea that you can’t tell any story without it being told through the prism of food, and yet that story can’t be just sort of food porn, which we see a lot of today. It has to have depth to it. It has to have some sort of resonance. So that’s the intention” – Tucci stated in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview.
Tucci may not be everyone’s cup of coffee, but his respect and appreciation for his Italian heritage is most certainly intact. Each of his four books have been an ode to Italy’s culture and cuisine: “Taste: My Life Through Food,” “The Tucci Table,” “The Tucci Cookbook,” and “What I Ate in One Year”. His knowledge of food is not expert nor trained, but predicated on passion. And while that may be a strike against the show for some audiences, it can be a refreshing departure from having to listen to Celebrity Chefs tell you what you don’t understand about their food.
“For those who do enjoy Celebrity Chefs talking about food innovation, watch Italian-American Chef Carbone’s latest appearance on the Andrew Schulz podcast “Flagrant 2”. Chef Carbone whose parents are from Naples, was born in Queen’s New York. And like Tucci, he spent some time in Tuscany. But unlike Tucci, Chef Carbone believes you can eat better Italian food in New York than in Italy: “I think the highest-level Italian food in New York beats the highest level in Italy. All day”. Yes, you read that correctly.”
(Images courtesy of Disney+)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix