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I remember my acting teacher George Morrison telling us that audiences love to watch people eating, drinking, or smoking on stage and screen. This always stuck with me. As usual, he was more than right. Having seen countless films and plays since my college days, I know there is indeed something very compelling about watching someone carry out a very necessary mundane task. It humanizes them and therefore allows us to connect to them. It’s probably one of the reasons why people love food movies and there are so many cooking shows on television now. Also, we want to see the process, either because it’s something we love to do ourselves or because it’s something we aspire to do. But we also want to see the reaction to the result of the process because we aren’t there to taste it ourselves. Was all that effort worth it? Could I do that? Does it taste as good as it looks? Or, perhaps most important, does it really taste as good as they’re saying it does?
This is a bit of a bugbear of mine. Whether it is an actor, a chef, or a cook, I think you can always tell when someone isn’t really tasting something. You don’t even have to look that closely to see that this happens too often on the excessive number of cooking shows that inundate today’s television. It seems that before whatever is being eaten has touched the tongue of the chef/host/cook, they are rolling their eyes in ecstasy, moaning and shaking their head as if it’s the most delicious thing ever to have crossed their lips. To make matters worse, before they have even finished swallowing, the word “perfect” is sanctimoniously whispered.
All I can say is, no. No. Sorry. I don’t believe you. There is no possible way that you are actually tasting whatever you ate that quickly and that whatever the hell you made is actually that extraordinary. And who the fuck ever, even brilliant chefs, makes something that is “perfect” right out of the gate every time? More often than not, there is something not quite right. It’s too sweet, or not sweet enough, or needs more salt or pepper or oil, or there’s too much… whatever! To see someone adjust seasoning or comment on what has worked or doesn’t work in a dish is a thousand times more interesting and instructive than their giving themselves a clearly false pat on the back for their culinary genius.
When someone really tastes something, whatever process happens in their mouth triggers a reaction in their eyes as well as the rest of their body. First, the body almost freezes, as though it were on high alert, and then people will often tilt their head to one side, usually to the left, and look like they are listening very carefully to something as they are chewing. Often their head will nod slowly, their eyes darting back and forth. At times their eyes will lock, staring straight ahead for a moment, and then they’ll glance down to the left and then to the right. After all of this, which can happen in an instant or take quite some time, they will utter a sound of approval or disappointment, such as “Mmmm,” if they like it, or “Mnnnn,” if they don’t. They will then say something like, “Good. I like it,” or “I should have ordered the steak.”
Watch Julia Child taste something and you’ll see what I mean.
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Inspired by these two multitalented pioneers, I recently embarked on a project in which I tried to put their teachings to good use, Searching for Italy. If you haven’t seen it, I of course take umbrage but will rise above your insult, ignore your ignorance, and give you a quick synopsis. The show is a documentary series filmed on and off during 2019 and 2020. Each episode focuses on the food of one Italian region and the forces that helped shape it, in order to show the extraordinary diversity of the country’s cuisine. Because of where Italy sits geographically, it has been invaded and controlled by countless cultures over the past two thousand years. Those cultures have influenced the cuisine as significantly as the widely varied topography of the peninsula, which stretches from the Alps to the southern Mediterranean. （For instance, Punta Pesce Spada, which means “Swordfish Point,” on the island of Lampedusa is only ninety-six miles from the coast of North Africa. In Val d’Aosta, one of Italy’s regions on the Swiss border, is its most northern point, Westliches Zwillingsk?pfl, which in German means “Jesus Christ, is it cold here, or is it just me?!” It doesn’t actually mean that, but you take my point.）
During the shoot I encountered some extraordinarily talented people, from chefs, to home cooks, to farmers and purveyors, not to mention an endless supply of delicious dishes. I would like to include them all here, but this book would end up as a six-volume set. Besides, I don’t have the time to write it because I have to go out and make a living, so you’ll just have to tune in to the show. （Please check your local listings for viewing times.） However, I have chosen three different dishes, one from the north, one from the middle of the country, and one from the far south. I have done so because I believe they represent the wonderful diversity of the Italian table. Their only commonality is that they are all made with some type of pasta.