December 5, 2025 • 45 mins
Writer Andrew Cotto grew up enjoying Sunday lunches around his nonna's table. Years later he found himself in Tuscany enjoying the same conviviality he missed from his childhood. He share the Italian meals and moments that shaped his writing and launched a new career creating Appetito Magazine specializing in Italian food, drink, and lifestyle.
Discover authentic Italy: untolditalytours.com
Read the full episode show notes here > untolditaly.com/302
NEW! - the Untold Italy app - access our entire podcast history ad free and searchable - DOWNLOAD FOR iOS • DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID
The app is FREE to download and check out our Milan guide and general travel content. Upgrade to PREMIUM for a one time fee to access Rome, Florence, Venice, Sorrento, Cinque Terre, Amalfi Coast, Capri, Ischia, Tuscany, Lake Como, Lake Garda, Veneto, Lombardy, Campania, Lazio, Puglia, Abruzzo, Calabria, Umbria, Molise, Sardinia with much more to come
Support the show
Editorial Information
The Untold Italy travel podcast is an independent production. Podcast Editing, Audio Production and Website Development by Mark Hatter. Production Assistance and Content Writing by the other Katie Clarke
Discover authentic Italy: untolditalytours.com
Read the full episode show notes here > untolditaly.com/302
NEW! - the Untold Italy app - access our entire podcast history ad free and searchable - DOWNLOAD FOR iOS • DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID
The app is FREE to download and check out our Milan guide and general travel content. Upgrade to PREMIUM for a one time fee to access Rome, Florence, Venice, Sorrento, Cinque Terre, Amalfi Coast, Capri, Ischia, Tuscany, Lake Como, Lake Garda, Veneto, Lombardy, Campania, Lazio, Puglia, Abruzzo, Calabria, Umbria, Molise, Sardinia with much more to come
Support the show
- Subscribe to our mailing list and get our FREE Italy trip planning toolkit - subscribe here
- Need help with your trip? Check out our Trip Planning Services
- Join us on tour. Browse our Trip schedule
Editorial Information
The Untold Italy travel podcast is an independent production. Podcast Editing, Audio Production and Website Development by Mark Hatter. Production Assistance and Content Writing by the other Katie Clarke
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What would your Italian travel experience be without food? Our
guest today is an author an online Italian food magazine
editor who draws inspiration from his American Italian family and
ongoing food adventures in Italy. Today we'll hear about some
unforgettable meals he's enjoyed in Italy and the power of
food to build community and lifelong memories.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Tawatuti and Benvenuti Tuan Told Italy. The travel podcast to
where you go to the towns and villages, montains, the lakes,
hills and coastlines of Bela, Italia. Each week, your host
Katie Clark takes you on a journey in a search
of magical landscapes, history, culture, wine, gelato, and of course
(00:48):
a whole lot of pasta. If you're dreaming of Italy
and planning future adventures there, you've come to the right place.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
C our friends, Welcome to the Untold Italy podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm your host, Katie Clark, and here at Untold Italy,
we love sharing our passion for Italy in many different ways.
We host intimate, small group tours across regional Italy off
of one to one trip planning services, and we also
built an app full of trusted recommendations. Every week on
this podcast we talk with locals, fellow travelers, and experts
so you can travel confidently and focus on the experiences
(01:31):
that matter to you. Let's get into today's episode now.
Over the past few episodes, and certainly over the life
of this podcast, we've heard from many different people about
what's motivated them to travel to Italy, usually beyond the
initial grand tour and iconic Rome Florence Venice experience that
most of us have on our first visit. Usually it's
(01:53):
a combination of culture, architecture and art, the beautiful landscapes
and charming people, but most often are hooked by Italy's
food and wine culture. And of course, if you've been
listening along to this podcast or what shows like Stanley
Tucci's Searching for Italy, you'll know that there really isn't
such a thing as Italian food, but rather it's at
(02:15):
least twenty regions of variations, recipe obsessions, and commitment to
local produce. Our guest today has made exploring this his
life's work. Hi John, for some Hey, and I say
that with the most utmost respect. Andrew Cootto's passion for
regional Italian cuisine led him to not only savor but
also write about the rich and diverse food culture from
(02:37):
Tuscany to Market, and how the Italian approach to food
and community continually inspires his storytelling. He has penned several
novels and is now the editor of Apotito Magazine, an
online space full of news, stories and recipes for anyone
who loves Italian food, wine, spirits and travel. So Andiamo,
let's welcome him on to the show. Benvenuto Andrew, Welcome
(03:01):
onto the Until Italy Podcast.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Hiy Katie, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, it's great to have you here, obviously looking forward
to chatting about your travels in Italy and what keeps
drawing you back there.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But before we start off, can you introduce.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yourself to our audience and let them know all about
you and your background and how you came to really
be traveling so much in Italy and loving your time there.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Well, I'm a novelist and a journalist and the editor
in chief and co founder of an Italian food magazine
called Appatito Italian Food in Drint. This all began for me,
you know, sort of on a faithful trip to Italy
back in the early arts. I guess it was, and
it was my first time on the grand in Italy.
I'm Italian American Italian on both sides, as we say
(03:46):
over here, but my family was very much immersed in
the Italian American experience as opposed to the original Italian experience.
My mother's family is Sicilian and my grandparents were immigrants.
My father's fauni is from Diamonte. But I grew up
very much with my mother's family, and Sicily was a
place that they left and didn't want to go back to.
I guess they sort of led us towards assimilation into
(04:07):
an Italian American experience here in the US, in the
New York City area. I grew up here immersed in
and the youngest of the eight cousins, the baby of
the family, very much immersed in food because we had
the Italian American food that my grandparents were preparing expertly
every Sunday. You know, it was mandatory. We went to
their house every single Sunday, the whole family.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
You know. There was like no soccer game or wedding.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Or there's something, you know, short of a broken bone
that would keep you from going there on Sunday. And
then my mother was a great cook too, and then
she sort of kept those traditions of food throughout the week. Yes,
the Italian American staples was. She was a little more
adventurous too. She loved French cooking and you know, you know,
more American stuff too. So I grew up with food
as part of my life, not particularly curious about, you know,
(04:51):
the country of Italy itself. You know, unawares of there
was twenty regions. You know, only when I was really
aware of was in Sicily. I knew that it existed,
but I didn't know much about it. I didn't even
know it was getting kicked by the boot until I
grown up, basically, which is not uncommon for Americans.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
You know, the Italian Americans are very distinct from their.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Regional Italian heritage, right culturally, cuisine wise in particular. I mean,
they're One of the things I talk about a lot
at Appatito magazine is that the foods are totally different.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
There are different cuisines.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
There's Italian regional cuisine and there's Italian American cuisine. And
we don't pick a favor, we do recognize the distinction.
I discovered the distinction when I finished college. I had
worked learned how to cook from my mother. I'd worked
at a really nice restaurant in college. Loved food, even
thought about it for a career until I remembered how
miserable it was at the restaurant when no one showed up,
(05:39):
or when too many people showed up. I couldn't handle
that stress, being behind the line, when people are begging
for their plates, you know, and waitresses and servers are
screaming at you. But I love food, and I gave
it some thought. But I went into the entertainment industry
out of college. My first goal was to be a
writer and an educator. Both my parents were teachers. My
father's a jazz musician. I love creativity. I discovered in
(06:01):
college that I knew how to write and tell stories,
which is probably more important.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
And I wanted to do it. I got back to
New York City and chickened out.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I have all these starving artists, cousins, you know, sleeping
on each other's couches, and I just didn't want to
do it.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I like nice things, and I like to eat well.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I like to have some money in my pocket when
I go out and you know, so I took this job,
and as a corporate job, but in the music business,
it was really fun and I liked it very much.
Right about this time, you know, it was when regional
Italian food started arriving in New York City. Restaurants Lydia
Bastiani shop in the restaurant Flydia Poe from Media Romagna,
you know, the Potra Valley inspired that one. There was
(06:40):
some Tuscan restaurants, there were some Roman restaurants, There's some
Pimonte restaurants. And that's how I started to discover that
there was all these different regions of Italy with distinct cuisines.
And that made me very interesting because food was a
huge part of my life, even though you know, I
was working in a different industry.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You know, I was entertaining all the time. That was
what I did. Some people took their clients all things,
Some took them to the clubs. I took them the
like really.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Great restaurants, and I think there was more meaning in
that than any other the experiences you have when you're
building relationships. That was in my personal life too. I
was throwing dinner parties. You know, I was the guy
that people called and say, hey, I'm going to be downtown.
I need an Italian place, you know, running the west village,
where do I go at a certain point? I go
so immersed in the regional Italian cuisine. I was watching
tons of food TV and learning how to cook regional
(07:24):
Italian food.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
And I went on a holiday.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
I was married at the time, without children, so I
was in my I guess my early thirties, and we
went to Venice, Florence in Rome, and Venice was amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
I thought that we were really interesting, you know, very typical.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
You know, Italy went on one type trip, right you do, Venice, Laurence, Rome,
And I thought, you know, Venice was surreal and magical,
but you know, not inspiring to change my life. After
a day in Florence, I was like, okay, I'm sorry,
I have to move here. I've been writing books on
the side too. I've been trying to complete my first novel.
And I decided sitting on this on the terrace of
a hotel right up the river Arno Piazza on Insanti,
(08:01):
a few bridges up from the ponte Vecchio, as the
sun was going down and dinner plans were waiting, and
we were sipping proseco, probably too much. I said, I'm
moving here, and my wife at the time it's like, okay,
keep drinking. It was like I was like, no, I'm
I'm not kidding, you know. And like three years later
we had a baby. We had a baby eighteen months later,
but three years later from that time were we took
(08:21):
the baby. We both got our jobs and we moved
to the hills south of Florence, where I finished my
first novel, The Domino Effect set in Italy. Has nothing
to do with Italy that they're Italian Americans and there's
food in it.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
That's what we did.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
It was quite the experience, you know, like we lived
in a renovated barn behind a villa in the middle
of an olive grove, you know. And it was just
south of Florence. I mean, like believes the name of
the Camoune could. You could be in Florence in fifteen minutes,
but it felt like you were in the middle of nowhere.
It was like a little village, you know. We went
every day to get my meat and my fish or
my fish or mostly me vegetables and talk to the
(08:55):
locals and come back up the hill.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
To the villa and cook, and we took.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Tons of trips around Tuscany during the week and then
further away on the weekends, and really immersed in the
country itself and got to understand what makes it so
distinct and so special. And after I got back, you know,
those experiences kept informing my writing. You know, my second
book is a noir, but the protagonist is a chef.
You know, he uses food as a means of communication,
(09:20):
and he's Italian, so he's cooking Italian food and adapting it.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
It takes place in like a historic African American community.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
He starts to crease this menu at the restaurant where
he works, where he's blending Southern traditions with Italian regional traditions,
and that like helps him assimilate. After that book came out,
my agent said to me, you know, we're getting lots
of compliments on your food writing. And I said, oh,
I never thought of I didn't know food writing was
a thing. You didn't know you could be a food writer.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
And I guess I understood, because you know, one of
the truisms about writing is you can only write what
you know you have to write, you know, things that
you have intimate understanding of, and I guess i'd done
the work right from how I grew up, and then
my experience is it'll So I really leaned my age's encouragement.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I really leaned into Italian food.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
In the third and fourth books, which are called Cochina
Tipica and Kucina Romana, they're known as an Italian of
Entry series. They're related the same characters, and it takes
place in the very village where i'd lived and completed
the first book. So it's set just outside.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Florence in a barn behind a villa.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Though I fictionalized everything right, and I created his character
who gets there on holiday and he's depressed. He's having
a hard time in the US, he lost his job.
And he gets there and he's like, wow, this is
everything that I want. It's beautiful, serene, the light's amazing,
the architecture is amazing, the natural beauty, and but most
important is the food, right, the fact that he can
(10:39):
eat really really good food and drink exceptional wines at
a very very reasonable price. You know, the line that
sort of articulates his ethosis that, like in Italy, eating
well is not a privilege. It's a right, and I
sort of based a book on that, then the sequel,
and then I've had three other books since then, all
using food as a device. And along the way here
(11:02):
I started writing journalism about food too. I mean, I
was like, you know, if we're going to write books
about food, you're qualified to write. So I wrote extensive
for the New York Times Men's Journal other things besides food,
but all end up sort of coming back to food.
And then right around the pandemic time, I was writing
very extensively for Lacucina Italiana. So they had a USA
operation and they folded it during the pandemic, and I
(11:23):
took all my stories and my energy for Italian food
and tried to find other publications who would print my stories.
And I just was having a very hard time. So
I went back to the managing editor who had lost
his job when they closed Lakuchin Italiana USA, and said,
there's a space here that we can fill. You know,
there's no one doing just Italian food here in America.
Why don't you and I build this magazine together. And
(11:44):
that's how we launched Appatito in twenty twenty three, And
basically how I spend most of my time these days
is trying to spread the gospel of Italian food as
being something that's not just delicious, but good for our
mental health, our physical health, for our friendships, our family relationship, you.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Know, building community.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
No, we just had a brunch on Sunday at Potito
Brunch at a new restaurant, and we brought all these
influencers and food people out and it was just like.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
The best time.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Nobody was having so much fun, and we were staying
on the table for like three hours, you know, from
now until three you know, and I just love you
know what Italian food is a catalyst for, which is
relationship building, you know, joy.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
There is nothing I'd rather do with my friends than eat.
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I don't want to go to the theater or the
Yankee game, you know, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I've done all those things. And I'm like, I'm like,
you know, one dimension of what my favorite thing to
do with other people, friends, family, strangers, right is each
if you came to New York, k get first, and
I said, where we're gonna eat?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I think that's exactly what we did when we
came to New York and anyway. Really it's true, and
I think that's why when I, you know, first spoke
to you, which was only last week, I felt there
was a very similar connection, Like we have the same
you know, outlook on life in terms of eating and
sharing food and sharing conversation. And that's what Italy does,
(13:00):
doesn't it. It really pulls you together. And I was when
you were talking about your heritage. You may have done
these on purpose, but it came full circle when you
talked about your family and going to your grandma's house
you're nana his house and sitting around the table and
sharing the meal and then, funnily enough, that's what you
love most.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Now.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
It's funny because we actually ended up moving away from
the New Jersey area when I was like twelve, and
we buzzed around for like nine years of Saint Louis
boss at Chicago.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And that was the thing I missed.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
All my friends, I missed everything about my childhood, but
those Sunday lunches what I missed the most.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
To me.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
It was just like it was magic time, you know,
it was we were around the table. My grandfather was
so proud of himself for like having immigrated and made
had three daughters and puts food on the table every Sunday.
He spoke about a word of English, but he sits
at the head of the table and just be beaming
with pride, you know he was. He'd be dressed up right,
he'd have his nap and talked into his neckties to
(13:58):
his neck, and the kids were running around. We all
felt so loved and special. Like I just really adore
that experience. And I said, by the fact that my
family sort of we haven't had a fate. Everybody's moved
around and got married and moved other places, you know,
so we don't do that anymore, and I really miss it.
So I try to do it more with my personal life.
And now with the magazine. You're invited.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh I'm there, I'm there, I'm coming.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I'll send the Appetito jet to get you.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Well, we might have to just meet up in Italy,
I think.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So it's so interesting though, the heritage Italian heritage, and
maybe it's because of the food.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It keeps bringing people back.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Like I mentioned to you earlier, I'm like first second
generation Australian, so my heritage is actually British. Well, I
don't feel that pool there at all, and I feel
maybe it's because the food's not great, and it really isn't.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Let's take a quick moment. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Planning your own Italy trip. But feel overwhelmed. Our consulting
services give you personalized guidance based on years of insider
knowledge and local relationships.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Learn more in the show notes.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
I honestly believe that Italy has been able to contribute
so much to Western civilization because of the food. I mean,
I don't think the Roman Empire would have happened in Ethiopia,
you know, because there wasn't enough access to the quality
of foods. I mean, if you're starting the world, it's
a blank canvas right the planet. You're sitting there looking
down from heavens and saying, where am I going to
(15:33):
begin this experiment? Where am I going to plant my mistake?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Right? You look at it. This is there's this a beautiful.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Peninsula with mountains and volcanoes and seas on both sides right,
and islands and great temperature. You know, you have winds
coming off from the sea. You know it's hot during
the day and cool at night. You said, this is
where I'm going to build my empire, and I don't
think it's surprising that so much has come from the
Italian Peninsula and the subsequent islands, because you know, I
(16:00):
mean the Roman engineers used to march with like hunks
of peccorino in their pockets for nourishment, and that when
they can go further and further and further, you know
than other people. I mean, I just truly believe that
that emphasis on food is what defines Italian history, and
I think everything else that we associate with Italian history
are science accomplishment.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Is because they eat so well. That's my theory.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I mean, I don't know, there's definitely something in that.
I just think I need a hunk of pecorino. If
I need to be motivated to go for a long hike,
maybe I just need to take a big chunk of piccorino.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
It totally works.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Though it's funny that there's like this this Italian company
like trying to like get the Americans to like use
like parmagano as like they're like.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Power bar, you know, for athletes.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
They're at the fancy Food show here in New York
and they had this big display and there's like little packets,
you know, of chunks of parmagano. They're their idea is
to get the American athletes, you know, who would eat
a power bar.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Eat a chunk of parmagano instead.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
And I'm like, I think scientifically you might be on
this on it, You're just not going to get the
American athlete et a piece of cheese.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Before they workout.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
There's a lot of a lot of science they need
to to explain to the Americans to get their head
around the fact that the dunk of cheese. But it's
my snack, you know, four o'clock when I'm gona get
a litle bit longer, so good.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was talking to one about a team and she
has said, I'm just going to grab a little snack
and she just had like a little i don't know,
like a little it was like a baby bell, which
is disgusting, but that size, but it was a parmagando snack.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I was like, where are they in my life?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
You know, I think that's adorable. I still get American
athletes to do it, though.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I definitely think my kids would like it in their lunchbox.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
Yeah, it's my favorite dessert me too. I'm not a
big like sugary sweet guy. I'll have a bite of
rabys once in a while, but I love cheese for dessert.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, there's so many, four hundred I think four hundred
plus counting initially amazing. Well, yeah, I researched it recently
and I was like, yeah, there's over four hundred local
cheeses that have been documented, so there's probably thousands more.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
The fact that they do document that many also testimony
to the relevance of food and the remaining as it
is because they're so dedicated. I mean, I joke, if
we regulated our nuclear plants like Italy regulates Parmagano Reggiano,
we'd be safe forever.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Crazy.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
These guys come in with their quotes and they're like
you know, or Departama, and they're sticking these needles into
the prejudo and testing it, like you know.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I interviewed a guy from the Parmesiano Reggiano Consortium a
few months ago, and I asked him, do you ever
think robots could take over your job? I would never
seen anyone look so shocked in all his life that
I would even dare to ask that question. But he
was like, no, no, because it's all about the feeling
and there's also a lot of signs behind that feeling,
(18:45):
but it's very precise art slash science to get the.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Right and funny that in the Italians, even though maybe
they could robot could probably positive that the towns would
never let it happen. They wouldn't want to cut the
corners to see the money, you know, didn't make it
more efficient.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
They want to step a tradition.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I love that about them.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know, if you ever feel like technology is getting
in a bit much, you just jump on a plane
to Italy and just go take yourself out into the
countryside and it's all gone.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It just washes away because they don't care.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Yeah, I was just in. I was there September and
October both for white harvests once and pe a month
and then down through some regions to the central and
watching the harvest there was just so magical. It's been
a while since I've been there for a harvest and
be on a fay.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
A vineyard and it was just amassing.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
You know, there's trucks a load of grapes in the back,
you know, and then then bring it to the farmhouse
and opening up the shed and dumping the grapes into
the machine and it's just like it's just so much
fun and like pure and like just antiquated.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So take me back to your first trip when you
did the you know, the classic the Venice.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
To Rome and all of those.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Did you have those iconic get food experiences on that
trip or was that something that came later.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Well, no, Venice is always not renowned for his food.
I knew that I wanted, like, you know, Frito Misto.
I love fed off the street, the food in Florence.
I did a lot of research into Florence and we
had some great reservations and it was just sort of
like getting into like some of.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Their their So yes, I remember being marveled by it,
you know. And then Rome we.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Had Porquetta and the classic pastas, and yeah, I mean
I was knowledgeable enough at the time to know what
to look for.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
When I was there.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
There was lots of coverage, you know at that time,
you know, the food and wine magazines, the big publications
wrote a lot about Italy. They weren't doing so anymore
when I was trying to This is why I launched Appopito.
But back then, you know, it was a big part
of their coverage, right, so I could find stories about
you know, Derri Chacchini in Panzana and Kianti Country, Fabio
(20:46):
Piki Gabreo in Florence. So we went to Gibreo and
we were there, so they were being celebrated in a
way that was more.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Profound than it was today. So yeah, I came ready
to eat and was not disappointed areas as I have
when I came back.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
You know, when we went to live there were much
different because it wasn't the famous restaurants it was.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It was way more off the beaten path.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, I think that's something that's quite interesting because I
know I do love a Michelin star every day and again,
but there's something like increasingly as I get older, like
I just think I just want something simple, like I
just want to taste the flavors, just very simple and
it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Fancy, and Italy just does that so well.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I mean, it's very hard to get a bad meal there.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I mean you can in Rome you can, and Florence
this has gotten so touristy twenty years ago though, So
I didn't have a bed, I'd go to the cafe
at the bar in the town, you know, and the
owner would be making.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Something for lunch for the local workers.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Right, I go in there and eat some pot like
a pasta put tenescas, and he made it. I was
like just so believable. Right, it's is so good. You know,
it's like, you know, four euros. You know, I took
half a carafa wine. I need a play a pasta
walk over like eight year old ten years. I mean,
it's they do have the home field advantage, as I acknowledged,
but they we also don't take it for granted. Right,
They're very sincere about like you know, ingredients, simple preparations,
(22:06):
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Good people say to me, I'm going to Italy, where
should I eat? I eat whatever. It's like the first
place you find, if there's a line around the corner,
don't go there. But it's hard not to find good food.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
And I always have to say that, you know, I
know that Florence and Rome have gotten a little bit overcrowded,
and that's you can get a place that's that's not great,
but chances are you're going to you're going to be successful,
and if you get out of the city, forget it.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
They're all amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, absolutely so tell us about some of the like
mind blowing food experiences, because I think sometimes in easily,
you know, it all kind of rolls into one and
I like lately been trying to think right well, which
were the meals.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That were really special to me?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I did a podcast episode about that before, but I
wanted to hear from you because you've obviously, you know,
you've done a lot of travel, You've been around, You've
you've done the high end, you've done the low end,
everything in between. What were the food experiences that were
special to you.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
My first time there, i'd been there with my wife
and we decided to move there. I went back with
my cousin to see the property because I found the
property online.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
You know, I had a little baby girl.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
I didn't want to like just move someplace to sight unseen,
so my cousin and I went.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
He's a musician, he's a food lover, great, great, great guy.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
He'd never been in Italy, so him and I went
over there, and i'd heard for the first time this
guy Dario.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Chichini, who's a butcher in Penzana right now.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
The world's famous now, but then it was like the
first story I ever read about him, came out around
that time, and it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Far from Florence, right down the Canty Jena Highway.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
So my cousin and I wrote trip down there, found
his little butcher shop, walked in. It was kind of
a revelation. You know, this guy was basically a rock
star butcher, right, you know, butcher's in America. Guys who
never see if you do there, they have APIs that
are covered in blood, and like they know, there's nothing
romantic or charming or you know, desirable about getting to
know them.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
They're just guys who cut meat for a living.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
But there's this guy in the in the little shop
in this tiny little town.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Doors are wide open.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
Right, there's there's fiascos of kianti all over the place
with cups. You can just help yourself. Right, there's a
poor cata laid out. There's he called sushi di Kianti,
which is like tatar all this other lardo.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
You know, there's a there's a buffet laid out, a.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Buffet of meat and and just kana right lardo colonata right,
other things too. There's like an ironic fennel bulb sitting there,
you know. Yeah, and then we walked in and he
was he was behind the counter talking.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
To everybody at once.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
It seemed like right, and everybody's there raising their glass
of Daddio daddy, and he's like, he's like, you know,
doing this thing.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
And the food was all free.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
So we went in there and stuffed ourselves and drank
too much, and we're like, this is amazing, right, met Darius,
and I'm from New York, are gonna be moving here?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
And he was so friendly.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
My time was bad then his English was worse, but
we figured out that I was coming to live there,
and we used to go there all the time.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
You know, when we when we were.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Finally settled, my wife and our daughter, he'd put my
daughter on his shoulders, right, he'd feed her Lardo colonatta
on bread. You know, she was eating the learner from
dari Jacchini. I mean that that to me sort of
epitomized like the spirit behind Italian food. You know, a
guy who's that joyous about serving people food and enjoying
food with them. It was really mind blowing. I could
do the tusting thing all day long. This is before
(25:17):
he had restaurants. So then he opened the State Restaurants
upstairs and next door, and I had a birthday, monumental
birthday with my family there, which was really special. But
you know, during the year we were living there, we
used to take trips around a lot on the weekends,
especially so with the Pimonte during the truffle season.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
And you know, I knew of white truffles.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
I used to get them in New York and on
my expense account because I couldn't I wouldn't pay out
of my own pocket. You know, in New York is crazy, right,
It's like truffle season. You're at You're at a restaurant,
you know, Pimonte's restaurant or somewhere New York, and you
want a little shaving of white truffles, and were like,
you know, you can see the ching, ching, ching ching,
the money just piling up a couple hundred dollars for
you know shaving, you know, maybe fifty for like a
(25:56):
really quick one. And there did bury you in the
up charge in New York. So I had them at
restaurants on my expense account, but they rode a month pocket.
We were up in Pimonte during the treffle season, in
a town of Pauba, you know, in a little little
osteria that I read about, you know, a guide like
a wine book that also recommended places to eat while
you're there. And I had the Targing pasta, you know
(26:17):
their egg fresh pasta, and I said, you know, I'm
going to go for it with the white truffles. Right,
I was drinking Barollo by the glass, you know, like
you know, like which you can never do in New York. Right,
it was always getting a bottle Barolo. And it's like
two hundred fifty dollars if you wanted at a restaurant.
So drinking barrella by the glass for like, you know,
fourteen dollars a fifteen euros of glass there is an
amazing price or a beautiful barrella. And they had the
white truffle and it was the mountain was huge. Was
(26:38):
it was more truffle than it was pasta. And it
was an eight euro up charge. They don't want to
make that food enjoyable into the wealthy again, back to
the it's a it's not a river, where's a right
to eat well?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And even the decad and things icedal to.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Go to the consortium in the village down and down
the hill from us and where we lived south of Florence.
I would fill a five bottle Giant jug with the
cap you know of wine at the Consortium storefront for
nine euros. So I think five bottles of Knatin Classic
for nine euros. If that was like here in the US,
I'd be so much more wealthy.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It is the democratization of food, though, isn't it? Because
you have it brings people together no matter what backgrounds
they're from. So you would always have people, you know,
even if they're super wealthy or they're from more humble origins,
they're all coming together over the table and they're all
sharing in that spirit of conviviality. And I think that's
a special thing when you know, people are becoming more segregated,
(27:37):
and you know, like they're doing a lot of more
online things and ordering things online. But when you come
together and you sit around a table, it's when your
humanity is there for everyone to see and enjoy, you know,
Like it's not a performative activity, it's a communal one.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. And I think
of the table as church. I don't mean that in
a sacrilegious way of moonym. I'm not diminishing the value
of church and sitting in pews and listen to preachers
and concermons, et cetera. But I also think when you're
sitting around the table with people sharing the same thing,
that's communing, right, it's communal and you know, and it
(28:15):
feels religious to me. It feels like gospel to me, right,
And it's just that experience I just described. We have
the Potito brunch. It was so much fun, right, there
was twelve of us. I was total sitting around his
table and it just felt like magic and we were
all we were sharing things and and there's no better
place to do that than Italy. And this is why
people go to Italy had their minds blown because they're
(28:37):
sitting somewhere at a table, enjoying incredible food.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And they might just be looking at a valley, you
know that.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Is covered in olive groves and vineyards with rolling hills
and colors, and the light is surreal, right, the light
is so much more distinct. You can see things better.
You're smelling the sage bush or the rosemary over there.
You know, there's like insects buzzing around because they're so
like it's like it's a fairy.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Tale for astronomy, but also all your senses.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Right, I think it's a sensory immersion, but it's just
it's the splendor of all that together. But I think
it's I think it's particularly meaningful and impactful when you're
eating the food because you're also seeing where that food
came from. Most likely that's the hell where the wine
came from. That's across that, and that hollow over there
is where they shot that chingali.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
But sure, we're about to make into a ragu.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
But like it's so immediate and local and simple and
makes everything else seem better.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And then if you have the opportunity to meet someone
that's being responsible for making whatever it is that they
you know from the abundance that all around them, so
you know, the produce of cheese or wine or or
a dish like the chinalle stew. Then it's the emotion
that comes out of them because they've been doing this
and perfecting these for years. And I think, you know,
(29:55):
in our society sometimes we're all rushing to just do
something different all the time. I'm really guilty of this myself,
you know, like I just want to try different things,
different things, And you know there's some beauty to be
had by just leaning into perfecting one thing or two
things and creating it from nature. We will return in
(30:15):
a moment with the rest of the episode, but on
the go curated travel tips, restaurant recommendations, and fun things
to do in classic and hidden spots across Italy. Download
the Untold Italy app link in the show notes.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
Yeah, I often say, like, so, I go on wine tours,
I go on food tours, and I know more about
food than I do about wine. I should be like
a consumed so much wine and just likes mostus. I
should know everything about it, but I don't. I don't
dig into my wines.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
I'll swirl right and I know appreciate them. I let
them read, but I'm not breaking them down right for
every single you know, flavor point or whatever, you know,
structural thing you know able to food even you know
I had a good palette, it's not a fabulous palette,
you know.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
I couldn't be a food critic, nor would I ever
want to be, And had never dreamed about saying something
bad about someone the food because I like everything. You
can feed me your shoe, and I'd be like thank you.
This is really the best shoe I've ever had. Right,
But I like the people behind the food. I'm a storyteller,
you know. I'm not a food writer. I became one.
I was a novelist, right. I have a master's degree
(31:24):
in creative writing. I like telling stories, you know, that
involve people, and I particularly became interested in telling stories
about people who love to feed other people or grow grapes.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
I think it's just so interesting that they dedicate their
lives to these things, and getting to know them means
the experience of their wine or their food all the
more valuable.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, okay, so you did mention. You've had some nice,
some interesting food experiences in marketing, and this is a
region that I think a lot of people are a
little bit curious about because it's very my off the
beaten path.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Is there something about Mark that really draws you in?
Speaker 5 (32:05):
I think Marcus beautiful and I discovered it when I
was living in Florence. You know, it's very close to
testany right, and then weekend Agutarismo there. To me, it
seems like California. You have the coast, you have the mountains.
You know, I have actually a really dear friend. So
I taught for a summer in Rome. I was brought
there by a friend of mine from my graduate program
(32:26):
here in New York City who was like the home
with the dean of the English Department and then just
ten year professor. But he moved to mont Gay with
his partner. They live near Escolipo, in a town called
sanvened Bright no water. And I think that eating on
the seaside in mart Gay, I mean you're looking across
the Croatia. It can be a Croatian like an hour, right,
(32:47):
I mean, and and so it's the Adriatic. I mean,
I love the other coast, see the Trannian going down
with the Mediterranean, et cetera. But the Adriatic is amazing.
And eating seafood on the sand basically they put restrets
from on the sand in Madke is one of the
best experiences of my life. When you're seeing the boats
come in, right, it's so fresh to me. I love
(33:07):
the countryside stuff and the wild war ragus and all that.
But like eating, you know, seafood on the Italian seaside.
I mean the opening scene in Cucin Titica they go
down to.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Rapollo in Liguria.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
They've just landed and they're gonna and they have a
meal like did some like you know seafood Oustodia hidden
around the corner, and it's just like, you know, like
that to me is like the quintessential. And I first
experienced that in Markey, and I go back and do
it as often as I can.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
But also in market like this amazing lamb.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
That's why I was making the California's mountains there sea
they have beautiful lamb. Really underrated wines in Madke, especially
the whites. You know, the the Pecorino why we think
of cheese was a white white from Pecorino, which is incredible.
I mean, they have really great red stow, the Rosso Canardo,
it was amazing Rosso Piccino. I mean, I just think
it's so underrated and so under visited, right.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I like Lumbria.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
I think it was a really great, you know, alternative
to like that southern Tuscan thing, southern eastern Tustine. But
Marcy also has to see and so if it has
the mountains and the sea, you could be at Florence
in an hour, I think.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And the train is a train to Florence, train to Bologna.
Really quick.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
Rome's a little less easier, just on direct train into Rome.
If you can take the train to Florence, then go
to Romework it's really reachable, and like that's what Pachina
is a very nice city, and Colna is a really
nice you know there. It's just I think it is
the hidden gym of central Italy at least I can't
start talking about Collabria or.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Maybe some one the one of the regions up north.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
I think of central Italy within easy access to Florence
or Rome or Bologna is definitely my gay is a choice.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Right, I think people have it in their mind if
it's not sort of like on the map that's close
to the Big Three, that it's harder to get to
so and you have to make a little bit more
effort and there may not.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Be that tourist infrastructure there.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
But then that's why it's special, right, because there isn't
that tourist infrastructure there to support you.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You have to have a little bit of an adventure.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
I think that, you know, we're finally getting to the
point now where people are probably tiring on the crowds
of Florence.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
And I was there in October. I couldn't walk.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Yeah, you know, it wasn't unbearable, you know, but you
couldn't pay me to go there in August, well, August empty, right,
you couldn't pay them to go there in June or July.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
You know. It's just too crowded.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Yeah, and that that really is starting to hamper the experience.
But I think that's what people say, you know what,
I want to go back to Italy, but next time
I'm going to try something different. And I've been talking
about this for ten years, like, you know, please, there's
other places to go besides Venice, Florence rom Definitely start there,
or Naples right or Northey Coast right. Definitely pay those
places a visit for sure, once or twice whatever. But
(35:39):
if you're like going to eat tell a file and
you want to be there all the time, you've got
to explore, you know, and there's so much more to
be found outside of the places. You could be adventurous
and try to speak Italian and the people are going
to be very accommodating, but you're also going to experienced
different experience with crowds, right and lack thereof. In this case,
you can sit in the beach and send Benedetta you
(36:00):
have nowhere near you. And they do beaches so well, right,
they had every beach has the chairs and the towels
and the umbrellas. It's like a club, like a private club.
And then there's restaurants right there on the sand.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I know, you're just sitting there ordering your cappuccino in
the morning if you have to get there early with
your kids, and then you can move on to your
prosecco and your the local specialty, which I think is
fantastic as well, when you go to these beach clubs
and they're rolling out the local specialty whatever it is,
and you just got to try it while you're there.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Just give me whatever you have, you know.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
I mean I always get like the seafood meat still
think the crustaceans and the shrimps.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
And whatever they got, you know. Or then then like
a whole.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Roasted fish, which is so I think that's where the
flavors peak. And then liam is not the most flavorful
things as fish as opposed to some gamey meat. But
I think you're getting the freshish stuff right. It's right
from the sea. They're always making fresh pasta with it, right.
I just love that experience, especially like during the day,
like luncheons, washing it down with a white wine.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
That's tough, isn't it. Andrew, You've been all around Italy.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Where where is somewhere you haven't been yet, or somewhere
that you just really want.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
To go back to and explore some more. Where are
you going to next?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Well?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
This is sort of embarrassing considering my family. It's fun,
but I've only been to Sicily once and it was
only there was just for a very short time. And
many of my contributors at at Patito take tours there
with people that bring people there for tours, and they
all rave about Sicily in ways that it's like so distinct.
It's not it's not even Italy. It's a different place.
And you know, I mean, I just feel like Italy
(37:34):
is calling me. The wines are familiar. I was drinking
Dona forgot the wine last night at an event. There's
a panatoni maker from from Sicily, fries Gerano had a
new shop and soho here and they had a party
last night and they were pouring down I forgot the
wines and so like the wines from not Etna, Sicily
seems to be like, you know, really evolving, you know,
(37:55):
and becoming a place you know. So there's that. The
same with Callabria. I've never been Collaborate, and I hear
wonderful things about that. I've never been to Pulia, so
Pulia is definitely on my list too. I mean, I
think I've been half the regions, so I want to
go to every single one.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, I'm on that trip as well, if I hadn't
got three to go now.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like, but it becomes like a little bit of an imbession,
doesn't it, because you really want to Once you find
out about this regional cuisine and the different culture in
each place, you just really want to go and see
it all and experience it for yourself because it's so special.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
I mean, I tell you one thing, and this is
not a diss of Asia, but I'm never going to
go to China nor Thailand because there's too many things
I still want to do in Italy that I haven't
done yet. Who knows, maybe I'll get that done at
a certain point when I'm you know, seventy five.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Maybe I'll take a trip to Japan. But like you know,
I'm even like Spain.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
If we forget Asia, like other countries in Europe, I
don't have any interesting ever going back to France again
the rest of my life.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I've been there. I was there right after the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
You know, in x and Provence, and I was like, no, oh,
I want is Italy If I went to Spain, went
to them. Never going to catch me in Denmark again
because I've just so immersed and enamored and there's.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Still so much there to explore. But it's twenty countries.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, that's true at least, you know, even because I
mean even like from town to town they're all arguing
about who's.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
The Oh yeah, I mean Florence and Siena are different places,
and they're all in Tuscane.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I mean, the cuisine is different down there.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
And I was happy to have been in Pimonte recently,
which was on my short list to explore further, and
I really saw a lot of it, and it was
We were in Rorero, which is a wine zone very
close to Lange and Montferrato.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So they're making.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Nebuolo grapes there and Arnaz grapes is beautiful white called arnaes,
which I had never heard of, even the wine writers
that weren't familiar with there, and we were all blown
away by both the Nebuolo red and then Arne's white
in Roerro.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, there's so many like the difference between Piedmont and
Pulia that you couldn't get bigger contrasting fact and so
it's really hard to, you know, not go back to Italy.
But I think you would like Japan because I actually
think there's a nice symbiosis between Italy and Japan. I mean,
Japan is much more organized and structured, but they do
(40:09):
have this commitment to excellent food and also just focusing
on that one thing to make it really special. And
they've they've got a really nice relationship happening there the
Italians in the Japanese and it's a beautiful thing to see.
But yeah, maybe one day when you've knocked off all
the twenty regions, huh.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
Yeah, and that your points will taking Because Japan and
a little bit of a great relationship, there's great symbiosis theirs.
I mean I have friends from Italy who went to
Tokyo and said they had the best Italian food of
their life there.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
But they really well, they bring over a lot of
Italian chefs.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
They pay so much they can't see, no, but their
emphasis and ingredients and technique are very similar, right, you know,
simple clean them. And yes, the Italian food and Japanese food,
even though they might seem quite different, really get along
very well. Yeah, lots of Japanese Italian. They call it fusion,
like that word. But I sort of influence here in
(41:02):
New York. Okay, it does work, I agree, and I
would let you in.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I think it might be the umami that you know,
that additional flavor, that might be the thing that's aligning them.
But I know the Consortium have a thing where they
do saque and Parmesano tastings together, which is like super interesting. Yeah,
because I don't think sarque is similar to Lambrusko at all.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
But anyway, give it a go.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
They've tried it and apparently it works. There you go,
Oh Andrew, this has been great. I love talking with
people about Italy and food and sharing stories and all
of those things. So thank you for joining us on
Untold Italy. Can you let everyone know how they can
stay in touch with you, Maybe read your books and
have a look around a potito because I have looked
(41:49):
around a potito and you know, I'm sorry I hadn't
found it sooner, So let's make sure everyone knows where
to find you.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
Yeah, so a Potito Magazine dot com is where you
can find the publication of a newsletter you can sign
up for.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
We have Also, we have a subscription box.
Speaker 5 (42:04):
We can't we can't ship it anywhere other than the US,
So if you're a US based we have a great
subscription box.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
You get a.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Beautiful organic award warding olive oil, You get a copy
of my novel tepe Cup, and get some of the little.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
Goodies in there. So there's those subscription boxes. They're more
more like gift boxes.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
You can you can look at the magazine all day long,
but we'd love for you just have for our newsletter
and follow us on Instagram and Facebook where we are
at a Potito Magazine dot com my own platform, which
is a little bit separate. I do other things, you know.
I have novels and I have just turned one into
a play. You can find more things about me and
my books at Andrew Coatto dot com and I'm on LinkedIn.
(42:41):
I guess I love hearing from people, So if you
follow me, I'll follow you back and we could be
in touch. And if you're in New York, you have recommendations,
you want me to take you outdi com.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You heard it here. I hype you're indicted with invitations.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Oh, thank you, Andrew, and let's harpe you bumping to
each other somewhere soon, maybe Italy, maybe in New York,
you never know, maybe Japan.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Anyway, thanks for joining us on Untold Italy today.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
All I can say is hooray for opera singing butchers
and long table lunches that stretch into dinner. Once upon
a time, I was a little shocked when some fellow
travel bloggers said they traveled solely for food. We were
talking about spending time in Florence and they flat out
said they had no interest in visiting any galleries because
they would just rather eat.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I have to admit I did get a bit judgy.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
About that, but these days I'm fully on board, and
in fact it's a driving force behind Untold Italy to
encourage everyone to travel and explore what suits them best.
And let's face it, you could do a lot worse
than making Italy itinery solely about trying iconic produce and dishes.
I would absolutely love it if one of our clients
came up with that challenge, But it also could make
(43:52):
a pretty good podcast episode, don't you think. But now
we've got plenty of inspiration. On our site, you'll find
all the places that Andrew men on the show, information
about a Potito magazine, and details on how you can
get in touch with him in our episode show notes
at Untold Italy dot com Forward slash three zero two, groatzimlu.
Thank you for joining us on this wonderful journey and
(44:14):
for supporting Untold Italy. If you enjoyed today's episode, we
would be very grateful if you could leave a rating
or review on your favorite podcast app, or consider upgrading
to our premium app for ad free listening and exclusive
travel content, including our favorite restaurants in Osteria in tiny
towns across Italy. Next week it's time for a bit
(44:36):
of festive Italian fun. But until then, it's chow for now.
Speaker 6 (44:41):
The Untold Italy podcast is an independent production podcast editing,
audio production and website development by Mark Hatter, Production assistance
and content writing by the are.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
They kJ Clark, Yes there are two of us. For
more information about Untold Italy, please visit Untold italy dot
com with
What would your Italian travel experience be without food? Our
guest today is an author an online Italian food magazine
editor who draws inspiration from his American Italian family and
ongoing food adventures in Italy. Today we'll hear about some
unforgettable meals he's enjoyed in Italy and the power of
food to build community and lifelong memories.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Tawatuti and Benvenuti Tuan Told Italy. The travel podcast to
where you go to the towns and villages, montains, the lakes,
hills and coastlines of Bela, Italia. Each week, your host
Katie Clark takes you on a journey in a search
of magical landscapes, history, culture, wine, gelato, and of course
(00:48):
a whole lot of pasta. If you're dreaming of Italy
and planning future adventures there, you've come to the right place.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
C our friends, Welcome to the Untold Italy podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm your host, Katie Clark, and here at Untold Italy,
we love sharing our passion for Italy in many different ways.
We host intimate, small group tours across regional Italy off
of one to one trip planning services, and we also
built an app full of trusted recommendations. Every week on
this podcast we talk with locals, fellow travelers, and experts
so you can travel confidently and focus on the experiences
(01:31):
that matter to you. Let's get into today's episode now.
Over the past few episodes, and certainly over the life
of this podcast, we've heard from many different people about
what's motivated them to travel to Italy, usually beyond the
initial grand tour and iconic Rome Florence Venice experience that
most of us have on our first visit. Usually it's
(01:53):
a combination of culture, architecture and art, the beautiful landscapes
and charming people, but most often are hooked by Italy's
food and wine culture. And of course, if you've been
listening along to this podcast or what shows like Stanley
Tucci's Searching for Italy, you'll know that there really isn't
such a thing as Italian food, but rather it's at
(02:15):
least twenty regions of variations, recipe obsessions, and commitment to
local produce. Our guest today has made exploring this his
life's work. Hi John, for some Hey, and I say
that with the most utmost respect. Andrew Cootto's passion for
regional Italian cuisine led him to not only savor but
also write about the rich and diverse food culture from
(02:37):
Tuscany to Market, and how the Italian approach to food
and community continually inspires his storytelling. He has penned several
novels and is now the editor of Apotito Magazine, an
online space full of news, stories and recipes for anyone
who loves Italian food, wine, spirits and travel. So Andiamo,
let's welcome him on to the show. Benvenuto Andrew, Welcome
(03:01):
onto the Until Italy Podcast.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Hiy Katie, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, it's great to have you here, obviously looking forward
to chatting about your travels in Italy and what keeps
drawing you back there.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But before we start off, can you introduce.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yourself to our audience and let them know all about
you and your background and how you came to really
be traveling so much in Italy and loving your time there.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Well, I'm a novelist and a journalist and the editor
in chief and co founder of an Italian food magazine
called Appatito Italian Food in Drint. This all began for me,
you know, sort of on a faithful trip to Italy
back in the early arts. I guess it was, and
it was my first time on the grand in Italy.
I'm Italian American Italian on both sides, as we say
(03:46):
over here, but my family was very much immersed in
the Italian American experience as opposed to the original Italian experience.
My mother's family is Sicilian and my grandparents were immigrants.
My father's fauni is from Diamonte. But I grew up
very much with my mother's family, and Sicily was a
place that they left and didn't want to go back to.
I guess they sort of led us towards assimilation into
(04:07):
an Italian American experience here in the US, in the
New York City area. I grew up here immersed in
and the youngest of the eight cousins, the baby of
the family, very much immersed in food because we had
the Italian American food that my grandparents were preparing expertly
every Sunday. You know, it was mandatory. We went to
their house every single Sunday, the whole family.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
You know. There was like no soccer game or wedding.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Or there's something, you know, short of a broken bone
that would keep you from going there on Sunday. And
then my mother was a great cook too, and then
she sort of kept those traditions of food throughout the week. Yes,
the Italian American staples was. She was a little more
adventurous too. She loved French cooking and you know, you know,
more American stuff too. So I grew up with food
as part of my life, not particularly curious about, you know,
(04:51):
the country of Italy itself. You know, unawares of there
was twenty regions. You know, only when I was really
aware of was in Sicily. I knew that it existed,
but I didn't know much about it. I didn't even
know it was getting kicked by the boot until I
grown up, basically, which is not uncommon for Americans.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
You know, the Italian Americans are very distinct from their.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Regional Italian heritage, right culturally, cuisine wise in particular. I mean,
they're One of the things I talk about a lot
at Appatito magazine is that the foods are totally different.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
There are different cuisines.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
There's Italian regional cuisine and there's Italian American cuisine. And
we don't pick a favor, we do recognize the distinction.
I discovered the distinction when I finished college. I had
worked learned how to cook from my mother. I'd worked
at a really nice restaurant in college. Loved food, even
thought about it for a career until I remembered how
miserable it was at the restaurant when no one showed up,
(05:39):
or when too many people showed up. I couldn't handle
that stress, being behind the line, when people are begging
for their plates, you know, and waitresses and servers are
screaming at you. But I love food, and I gave
it some thought. But I went into the entertainment industry
out of college. My first goal was to be a
writer and an educator. Both my parents were teachers. My
father's a jazz musician. I love creativity. I discovered in
(06:01):
college that I knew how to write and tell stories,
which is probably more important.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
And I wanted to do it. I got back to
New York City and chickened out.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I have all these starving artists, cousins, you know, sleeping
on each other's couches, and I just didn't want to
do it.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I like nice things, and I like to eat well.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I like to have some money in my pocket when
I go out and you know, so I took this job,
and as a corporate job, but in the music business,
it was really fun and I liked it very much.
Right about this time, you know, it was when regional
Italian food started arriving in New York City. Restaurants Lydia
Bastiani shop in the restaurant Flydia Poe from Media Romagna,
you know, the Potra Valley inspired that one. There was
(06:40):
some Tuscan restaurants, there were some Roman restaurants, There's some
Pimonte restaurants. And that's how I started to discover that
there was all these different regions of Italy with distinct cuisines.
And that made me very interesting because food was a
huge part of my life, even though you know, I
was working in a different industry.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You know, I was entertaining all the time. That was
what I did. Some people took their clients all things,
Some took them to the clubs. I took them the
like really.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Great restaurants, and I think there was more meaning in
that than any other the experiences you have when you're
building relationships. That was in my personal life too. I
was throwing dinner parties. You know, I was the guy
that people called and say, hey, I'm going to be downtown.
I need an Italian place, you know, running the west village,
where do I go at a certain point? I go
so immersed in the regional Italian cuisine. I was watching
tons of food TV and learning how to cook regional
(07:24):
Italian food.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
And I went on a holiday.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
I was married at the time, without children, so I
was in my I guess my early thirties, and we
went to Venice, Florence in Rome, and Venice was amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
I thought that we were really interesting, you know, very typical.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
You know, Italy went on one type trip, right you do, Venice, Laurence, Rome,
And I thought, you know, Venice was surreal and magical,
but you know, not inspiring to change my life. After
a day in Florence, I was like, okay, I'm sorry,
I have to move here. I've been writing books on
the side too. I've been trying to complete my first novel.
And I decided sitting on this on the terrace of
a hotel right up the river Arno Piazza on Insanti,
(08:01):
a few bridges up from the ponte Vecchio, as the
sun was going down and dinner plans were waiting, and
we were sipping proseco, probably too much. I said, I'm
moving here, and my wife at the time it's like, okay,
keep drinking. It was like I was like, no, I'm
I'm not kidding, you know. And like three years later
we had a baby. We had a baby eighteen months later,
but three years later from that time were we took
(08:21):
the baby. We both got our jobs and we moved
to the hills south of Florence, where I finished my
first novel, The Domino Effect set in Italy. Has nothing
to do with Italy that they're Italian Americans and there's
food in it.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
That's what we did.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
It was quite the experience, you know, like we lived
in a renovated barn behind a villa in the middle
of an olive grove, you know. And it was just
south of Florence. I mean, like believes the name of
the Camoune could. You could be in Florence in fifteen minutes,
but it felt like you were in the middle of nowhere.
It was like a little village, you know. We went
every day to get my meat and my fish or
my fish or mostly me vegetables and talk to the
(08:55):
locals and come back up the hill.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
To the villa and cook, and we took.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Tons of trips around Tuscany during the week and then
further away on the weekends, and really immersed in the
country itself and got to understand what makes it so
distinct and so special. And after I got back, you know,
those experiences kept informing my writing. You know, my second
book is a noir, but the protagonist is a chef.
You know, he uses food as a means of communication,
(09:20):
and he's Italian, so he's cooking Italian food and adapting it.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
It takes place in like a historic African American community.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
He starts to crease this menu at the restaurant where
he works, where he's blending Southern traditions with Italian regional traditions,
and that like helps him assimilate. After that book came out,
my agent said to me, you know, we're getting lots
of compliments on your food writing. And I said, oh,
I never thought of I didn't know food writing was
a thing. You didn't know you could be a food writer.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
And I guess I understood, because you know, one of
the truisms about writing is you can only write what
you know you have to write, you know, things that
you have intimate understanding of, and I guess i'd done
the work right from how I grew up, and then
my experience is it'll So I really leaned my age's encouragement.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I really leaned into Italian food.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
In the third and fourth books, which are called Cochina
Tipica and Kucina Romana, they're known as an Italian of
Entry series. They're related the same characters, and it takes
place in the very village where i'd lived and completed
the first book. So it's set just outside.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Florence in a barn behind a villa.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Though I fictionalized everything right, and I created his character
who gets there on holiday and he's depressed. He's having
a hard time in the US, he lost his job.
And he gets there and he's like, wow, this is
everything that I want. It's beautiful, serene, the light's amazing,
the architecture is amazing, the natural beauty, and but most
important is the food, right, the fact that he can
(10:39):
eat really really good food and drink exceptional wines at
a very very reasonable price. You know, the line that
sort of articulates his ethosis that, like in Italy, eating
well is not a privilege. It's a right, and I
sort of based a book on that, then the sequel,
and then I've had three other books since then, all
using food as a device. And along the way here
(11:02):
I started writing journalism about food too. I mean, I
was like, you know, if we're going to write books
about food, you're qualified to write. So I wrote extensive
for the New York Times Men's Journal other things besides food,
but all end up sort of coming back to food.
And then right around the pandemic time, I was writing
very extensively for Lacucina Italiana. So they had a USA
operation and they folded it during the pandemic, and I
(11:23):
took all my stories and my energy for Italian food
and tried to find other publications who would print my stories.
And I just was having a very hard time. So
I went back to the managing editor who had lost
his job when they closed Lakuchin Italiana USA, and said,
there's a space here that we can fill. You know,
there's no one doing just Italian food here in America.
Why don't you and I build this magazine together. And
(11:44):
that's how we launched Appatito in twenty twenty three, And
basically how I spend most of my time these days
is trying to spread the gospel of Italian food as
being something that's not just delicious, but good for our
mental health, our physical health, for our friendships, our family relationship, you.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Know, building community.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
No, we just had a brunch on Sunday at Potito
Brunch at a new restaurant, and we brought all these
influencers and food people out and it was just like.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
The best time.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Nobody was having so much fun, and we were staying
on the table for like three hours, you know, from
now until three you know, and I just love you
know what Italian food is a catalyst for, which is
relationship building, you know, joy.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
There is nothing I'd rather do with my friends than eat.
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I don't want to go to the theater or the
Yankee game, you know, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I've done all those things. And I'm like, I'm like,
you know, one dimension of what my favorite thing to
do with other people, friends, family, strangers, right is each
if you came to New York, k get first, and
I said, where we're gonna eat?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I think that's exactly what we did when we
came to New York and anyway. Really it's true, and
I think that's why when I, you know, first spoke
to you, which was only last week, I felt there
was a very similar connection, Like we have the same
you know, outlook on life in terms of eating and
sharing food and sharing conversation. And that's what Italy does,
(13:00):
doesn't it. It really pulls you together. And I was when
you were talking about your heritage. You may have done
these on purpose, but it came full circle when you
talked about your family and going to your grandma's house
you're nana his house and sitting around the table and
sharing the meal and then, funnily enough, that's what you
love most.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Now.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
It's funny because we actually ended up moving away from
the New Jersey area when I was like twelve, and
we buzzed around for like nine years of Saint Louis
boss at Chicago.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And that was the thing I missed.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
All my friends, I missed everything about my childhood, but
those Sunday lunches what I missed the most.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
To me.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
It was just like it was magic time, you know,
it was we were around the table. My grandfather was
so proud of himself for like having immigrated and made
had three daughters and puts food on the table every Sunday.
He spoke about a word of English, but he sits
at the head of the table and just be beaming
with pride, you know he was. He'd be dressed up right,
he'd have his nap and talked into his neckties to
(13:58):
his neck, and the kids were running around. We all
felt so loved and special. Like I just really adore
that experience. And I said, by the fact that my
family sort of we haven't had a fate. Everybody's moved
around and got married and moved other places, you know,
so we don't do that anymore, and I really miss it.
So I try to do it more with my personal life.
And now with the magazine. You're invited.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh I'm there, I'm there, I'm coming.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I'll send the Appetito jet to get you.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Well, we might have to just meet up in Italy,
I think.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So it's so interesting though, the heritage Italian heritage, and
maybe it's because of the food.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It keeps bringing people back.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Like I mentioned to you earlier, I'm like first second
generation Australian, so my heritage is actually British. Well, I
don't feel that pool there at all, and I feel
maybe it's because the food's not great, and it really isn't.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Let's take a quick moment. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Planning your own Italy trip. But feel overwhelmed. Our consulting
services give you personalized guidance based on years of insider
knowledge and local relationships.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Learn more in the show notes.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
I honestly believe that Italy has been able to contribute
so much to Western civilization because of the food. I mean,
I don't think the Roman Empire would have happened in Ethiopia,
you know, because there wasn't enough access to the quality
of foods. I mean, if you're starting the world, it's
a blank canvas right the planet. You're sitting there looking
down from heavens and saying, where am I going to
(15:33):
begin this experiment? Where am I going to plant my mistake?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Right? You look at it. This is there's this a beautiful.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Peninsula with mountains and volcanoes and seas on both sides right,
and islands and great temperature. You know, you have winds
coming off from the sea. You know it's hot during
the day and cool at night. You said, this is
where I'm going to build my empire, and I don't
think it's surprising that so much has come from the
Italian Peninsula and the subsequent islands, because you know, I
(16:00):
mean the Roman engineers used to march with like hunks
of peccorino in their pockets for nourishment, and that when
they can go further and further and further, you know
than other people. I mean, I just truly believe that
that emphasis on food is what defines Italian history, and
I think everything else that we associate with Italian history
are science accomplishment.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Is because they eat so well. That's my theory.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I mean, I don't know, there's definitely something in that.
I just think I need a hunk of pecorino. If
I need to be motivated to go for a long hike,
maybe I just need to take a big chunk of piccorino.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
It totally works.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Though it's funny that there's like this this Italian company
like trying to like get the Americans to like use
like parmagano as like they're like.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Power bar, you know, for athletes.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
They're at the fancy Food show here in New York
and they had this big display and there's like little packets,
you know, of chunks of parmagano. They're their idea is
to get the American athletes, you know, who would eat
a power bar.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Eat a chunk of parmagano instead.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
And I'm like, I think scientifically you might be on
this on it, You're just not going to get the
American athlete et a piece of cheese.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Before they workout.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
There's a lot of a lot of science they need
to to explain to the Americans to get their head
around the fact that the dunk of cheese. But it's
my snack, you know, four o'clock when I'm gona get
a litle bit longer, so good.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was talking to one about a team and she
has said, I'm just going to grab a little snack
and she just had like a little i don't know,
like a little it was like a baby bell, which
is disgusting, but that size, but it was a parmagando snack.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I was like, where are they in my life?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
You know, I think that's adorable. I still get American
athletes to do it, though.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I definitely think my kids would like it in their lunchbox.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
Yeah, it's my favorite dessert me too. I'm not a
big like sugary sweet guy. I'll have a bite of
rabys once in a while, but I love cheese for dessert.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, there's so many, four hundred I think four hundred
plus counting initially amazing. Well, yeah, I researched it recently
and I was like, yeah, there's over four hundred local
cheeses that have been documented, so there's probably thousands more.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
The fact that they do document that many also testimony
to the relevance of food and the remaining as it
is because they're so dedicated. I mean, I joke, if
we regulated our nuclear plants like Italy regulates Parmagano Reggiano,
we'd be safe forever.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Crazy.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
These guys come in with their quotes and they're like
you know, or Departama, and they're sticking these needles into
the prejudo and testing it, like you know.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I interviewed a guy from the Parmesiano Reggiano Consortium a
few months ago, and I asked him, do you ever
think robots could take over your job? I would never
seen anyone look so shocked in all his life that
I would even dare to ask that question. But he
was like, no, no, because it's all about the feeling
and there's also a lot of signs behind that feeling,
(18:45):
but it's very precise art slash science to get the.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Right and funny that in the Italians, even though maybe
they could robot could probably positive that the towns would
never let it happen. They wouldn't want to cut the
corners to see the money, you know, didn't make it
more efficient.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
They want to step a tradition.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I love that about them.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know, if you ever feel like technology is getting
in a bit much, you just jump on a plane
to Italy and just go take yourself out into the
countryside and it's all gone.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It just washes away because they don't care.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Yeah, I was just in. I was there September and
October both for white harvests once and pe a month
and then down through some regions to the central and
watching the harvest there was just so magical. It's been
a while since I've been there for a harvest and
be on a fay.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
A vineyard and it was just amassing.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
You know, there's trucks a load of grapes in the back,
you know, and then then bring it to the farmhouse
and opening up the shed and dumping the grapes into
the machine and it's just like it's just so much
fun and like pure and like just antiquated.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So take me back to your first trip when you
did the you know, the classic the Venice.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
To Rome and all of those.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Did you have those iconic get food experiences on that
trip or was that something that came later.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Well, no, Venice is always not renowned for his food.
I knew that I wanted, like, you know, Frito Misto.
I love fed off the street, the food in Florence.
I did a lot of research into Florence and we
had some great reservations and it was just sort of
like getting into like some of.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Their their So yes, I remember being marveled by it,
you know. And then Rome we.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Had Porquetta and the classic pastas, and yeah, I mean
I was knowledgeable enough at the time to know what
to look for.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
When I was there.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
There was lots of coverage, you know at that time,
you know, the food and wine magazines, the big publications
wrote a lot about Italy. They weren't doing so anymore
when I was trying to This is why I launched Appopito.
But back then, you know, it was a big part
of their coverage, right, so I could find stories about
you know, Derri Chacchini in Panzana and Kianti Country, Fabio
(20:46):
Piki Gabreo in Florence. So we went to Gibreo and
we were there, so they were being celebrated in a
way that was more.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Profound than it was today. So yeah, I came ready
to eat and was not disappointed areas as I have
when I came back.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
You know, when we went to live there were much
different because it wasn't the famous restaurants it was.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It was way more off the beaten path.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, I think that's something that's quite interesting because I
know I do love a Michelin star every day and again,
but there's something like increasingly as I get older, like
I just think I just want something simple, like I
just want to taste the flavors, just very simple and
it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Fancy, and Italy just does that so well.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I mean, it's very hard to get a bad meal there.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I mean you can in Rome you can, and Florence
this has gotten so touristy twenty years ago though, So
I didn't have a bed, I'd go to the cafe
at the bar in the town, you know, and the
owner would be making.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Something for lunch for the local workers.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Right, I go in there and eat some pot like
a pasta put tenescas, and he made it. I was
like just so believable. Right, it's is so good. You know,
it's like, you know, four euros. You know, I took
half a carafa wine. I need a play a pasta
walk over like eight year old ten years. I mean,
it's they do have the home field advantage, as I acknowledged,
but they we also don't take it for granted. Right,
They're very sincere about like you know, ingredients, simple preparations,
(22:06):
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Good people say to me, I'm going to Italy, where
should I eat? I eat whatever. It's like the first
place you find, if there's a line around the corner,
don't go there. But it's hard not to find good food.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
And I always have to say that, you know, I
know that Florence and Rome have gotten a little bit overcrowded,
and that's you can get a place that's that's not great,
but chances are you're going to you're going to be successful,
and if you get out of the city, forget it.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
They're all amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, absolutely so tell us about some of the like
mind blowing food experiences, because I think sometimes in easily,
you know, it all kind of rolls into one and
I like lately been trying to think right well, which
were the meals.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That were really special to me?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I did a podcast episode about that before, but I
wanted to hear from you because you've obviously, you know,
you've done a lot of travel, You've been around, You've
you've done the high end, you've done the low end,
everything in between. What were the food experiences that were
special to you.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
My first time there, i'd been there with my wife
and we decided to move there. I went back with
my cousin to see the property because I found the
property online.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
You know, I had a little baby girl.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
I didn't want to like just move someplace to sight unseen,
so my cousin and I went.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
He's a musician, he's a food lover, great, great, great guy.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
He'd never been in Italy, so him and I went
over there, and i'd heard for the first time this
guy Dario.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Chichini, who's a butcher in Penzana right now.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
The world's famous now, but then it was like the
first story I ever read about him, came out around
that time, and it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Far from Florence, right down the Canty Jena Highway.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
So my cousin and I wrote trip down there, found
his little butcher shop, walked in. It was kind of
a revelation. You know, this guy was basically a rock
star butcher, right, you know, butcher's in America. Guys who
never see if you do there, they have APIs that
are covered in blood, and like they know, there's nothing
romantic or charming or you know, desirable about getting to
know them.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
They're just guys who cut meat for a living.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
But there's this guy in the in the little shop
in this tiny little town.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Doors are wide open.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
Right, there's there's fiascos of kianti all over the place
with cups. You can just help yourself. Right, there's a
poor cata laid out. There's he called sushi di Kianti,
which is like tatar all this other lardo.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
You know, there's a there's a buffet laid out, a.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Buffet of meat and and just kana right lardo colonata right,
other things too. There's like an ironic fennel bulb sitting there,
you know. Yeah, and then we walked in and he
was he was behind the counter talking.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
To everybody at once.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
It seemed like right, and everybody's there raising their glass
of Daddio daddy, and he's like, he's like, you know,
doing this thing.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
And the food was all free.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
So we went in there and stuffed ourselves and drank
too much, and we're like, this is amazing, right, met Darius,
and I'm from New York, are gonna be moving here?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
And he was so friendly.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
My time was bad then his English was worse, but
we figured out that I was coming to live there,
and we used to go there all the time.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
You know, when we when we were.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Finally settled, my wife and our daughter, he'd put my
daughter on his shoulders, right, he'd feed her Lardo colonatta
on bread. You know, she was eating the learner from
dari Jacchini. I mean that that to me sort of
epitomized like the spirit behind Italian food. You know, a
guy who's that joyous about serving people food and enjoying
food with them. It was really mind blowing. I could
do the tusting thing all day long. This is before
(25:17):
he had restaurants. So then he opened the State Restaurants
upstairs and next door, and I had a birthday, monumental
birthday with my family there, which was really special. But
you know, during the year we were living there, we
used to take trips around a lot on the weekends,
especially so with the Pimonte during the truffle season.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
And you know, I knew of white truffles.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
I used to get them in New York and on
my expense account because I couldn't I wouldn't pay out
of my own pocket. You know, in New York is crazy, right,
It's like truffle season. You're at You're at a restaurant,
you know, Pimonte's restaurant or somewhere New York, and you
want a little shaving of white truffles, and were like,
you know, you can see the ching, ching, ching ching,
the money just piling up a couple hundred dollars for
you know shaving, you know, maybe fifty for like a
(25:56):
really quick one. And there did bury you in the
up charge in New York. So I had them at
restaurants on my expense account, but they rode a month pocket.
We were up in Pimonte during the treffle season, in
a town of Pauba, you know, in a little little
osteria that I read about, you know, a guide like
a wine book that also recommended places to eat while
you're there. And I had the Targing pasta, you know
(26:17):
their egg fresh pasta, and I said, you know, I'm
going to go for it with the white truffles. Right,
I was drinking Barollo by the glass, you know, like
you know, like which you can never do in New York. Right,
it was always getting a bottle Barolo. And it's like
two hundred fifty dollars if you wanted at a restaurant.
So drinking barrella by the glass for like, you know,
fourteen dollars a fifteen euros of glass there is an
amazing price or a beautiful barrella. And they had the
white truffle and it was the mountain was huge. Was
(26:38):
it was more truffle than it was pasta. And it
was an eight euro up charge. They don't want to
make that food enjoyable into the wealthy again, back to
the it's a it's not a river, where's a right
to eat well?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And even the decad and things icedal to.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Go to the consortium in the village down and down
the hill from us and where we lived south of Florence.
I would fill a five bottle Giant jug with the
cap you know of wine at the Consortium storefront for
nine euros. So I think five bottles of Knatin Classic
for nine euros. If that was like here in the US,
I'd be so much more wealthy.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It is the democratization of food, though, isn't it? Because
you have it brings people together no matter what backgrounds
they're from. So you would always have people, you know,
even if they're super wealthy or they're from more humble origins,
they're all coming together over the table and they're all
sharing in that spirit of conviviality. And I think that's
a special thing when you know, people are becoming more segregated,
(27:37):
and you know, like they're doing a lot of more
online things and ordering things online. But when you come
together and you sit around a table, it's when your
humanity is there for everyone to see and enjoy, you know,
Like it's not a performative activity, it's a communal one.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. And I think
of the table as church. I don't mean that in
a sacrilegious way of moonym. I'm not diminishing the value
of church and sitting in pews and listen to preachers
and concermons, et cetera. But I also think when you're
sitting around the table with people sharing the same thing,
that's communing, right, it's communal and you know, and it
(28:15):
feels religious to me. It feels like gospel to me, right,
And it's just that experience I just described. We have
the Potito brunch. It was so much fun, right, there
was twelve of us. I was total sitting around his
table and it just felt like magic and we were
all we were sharing things and and there's no better
place to do that than Italy. And this is why
people go to Italy had their minds blown because they're
(28:37):
sitting somewhere at a table, enjoying incredible food.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And they might just be looking at a valley, you
know that.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Is covered in olive groves and vineyards with rolling hills
and colors, and the light is surreal, right, the light
is so much more distinct. You can see things better.
You're smelling the sage bush or the rosemary over there.
You know, there's like insects buzzing around because they're so
like it's like it's a fairy.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Tale for astronomy, but also all your senses.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Right, I think it's a sensory immersion, but it's just
it's the splendor of all that together. But I think
it's I think it's particularly meaningful and impactful when you're
eating the food because you're also seeing where that food
came from. Most likely that's the hell where the wine
came from. That's across that, and that hollow over there
is where they shot that chingali.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
But sure, we're about to make into a ragu.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
But like it's so immediate and local and simple and
makes everything else seem better.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And then if you have the opportunity to meet someone
that's being responsible for making whatever it is that they
you know from the abundance that all around them, so
you know, the produce of cheese or wine or or
a dish like the chinalle stew. Then it's the emotion
that comes out of them because they've been doing this
and perfecting these for years. And I think, you know,
(29:55):
in our society sometimes we're all rushing to just do
something different all the time. I'm really guilty of this myself,
you know, like I just want to try different things,
different things, And you know there's some beauty to be
had by just leaning into perfecting one thing or two
things and creating it from nature. We will return in
(30:15):
a moment with the rest of the episode, but on
the go curated travel tips, restaurant recommendations, and fun things
to do in classic and hidden spots across Italy. Download
the Untold Italy app link in the show notes.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
Yeah, I often say, like, so, I go on wine tours,
I go on food tours, and I know more about
food than I do about wine. I should be like
a consumed so much wine and just likes mostus. I
should know everything about it, but I don't. I don't
dig into my wines.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
I'll swirl right and I know appreciate them. I let
them read, but I'm not breaking them down right for
every single you know, flavor point or whatever, you know,
structural thing you know able to food even you know
I had a good palette, it's not a fabulous palette,
you know.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
I couldn't be a food critic, nor would I ever
want to be, And had never dreamed about saying something
bad about someone the food because I like everything. You
can feed me your shoe, and I'd be like thank you.
This is really the best shoe I've ever had. Right,
But I like the people behind the food. I'm a storyteller,
you know. I'm not a food writer. I became one.
I was a novelist, right. I have a master's degree
(31:24):
in creative writing. I like telling stories, you know, that
involve people, and I particularly became interested in telling stories
about people who love to feed other people or grow grapes.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
I think it's just so interesting that they dedicate their
lives to these things, and getting to know them means
the experience of their wine or their food all the
more valuable.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, okay, so you did mention. You've had some nice,
some interesting food experiences in marketing, and this is a
region that I think a lot of people are a
little bit curious about because it's very my off the
beaten path.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Is there something about Mark that really draws you in?
Speaker 5 (32:05):
I think Marcus beautiful and I discovered it when I
was living in Florence. You know, it's very close to
testany right, and then weekend Agutarismo there. To me, it
seems like California. You have the coast, you have the mountains.
You know, I have actually a really dear friend. So
I taught for a summer in Rome. I was brought
there by a friend of mine from my graduate program
(32:26):
here in New York City who was like the home
with the dean of the English Department and then just
ten year professor. But he moved to mont Gay with
his partner. They live near Escolipo, in a town called
sanvened Bright no water. And I think that eating on
the seaside in mart Gay, I mean you're looking across
the Croatia. It can be a Croatian like an hour, right,
(32:47):
I mean, and and so it's the Adriatic. I mean,
I love the other coast, see the Trannian going down
with the Mediterranean, et cetera. But the Adriatic is amazing.
And eating seafood on the sand basically they put restrets
from on the sand in Madke is one of the
best experiences of my life. When you're seeing the boats
come in, right, it's so fresh to me. I love
(33:07):
the countryside stuff and the wild war ragus and all that.
But like eating, you know, seafood on the Italian seaside.
I mean the opening scene in Cucin Titica they go
down to.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Rapollo in Liguria.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
They've just landed and they're gonna and they have a
meal like did some like you know seafood Oustodia hidden
around the corner, and it's just like, you know, like
that to me is like the quintessential. And I first
experienced that in Markey, and I go back and do
it as often as I can.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
But also in market like this amazing lamb.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
That's why I was making the California's mountains there sea
they have beautiful lamb. Really underrated wines in Madke, especially
the whites. You know, the the Pecorino why we think
of cheese was a white white from Pecorino, which is incredible.
I mean, they have really great red stow, the Rosso Canardo,
it was amazing Rosso Piccino. I mean, I just think
it's so underrated and so under visited, right.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I like Lumbria.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
I think it was a really great, you know, alternative
to like that southern Tuscan thing, southern eastern Tustine. But
Marcy also has to see and so if it has
the mountains and the sea, you could be at Florence
in an hour, I think.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And the train is a train to Florence, train to Bologna.
Really quick.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
Rome's a little less easier, just on direct train into Rome.
If you can take the train to Florence, then go
to Romework it's really reachable, and like that's what Pachina
is a very nice city, and Colna is a really
nice you know there. It's just I think it is
the hidden gym of central Italy at least I can't
start talking about Collabria or.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Maybe some one the one of the regions up north.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
I think of central Italy within easy access to Florence
or Rome or Bologna is definitely my gay is a choice.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Right, I think people have it in their mind if
it's not sort of like on the map that's close
to the Big Three, that it's harder to get to
so and you have to make a little bit more
effort and there may not.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Be that tourist infrastructure there.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
But then that's why it's special, right, because there isn't
that tourist infrastructure there to support you.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You have to have a little bit of an adventure.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
I think that, you know, we're finally getting to the
point now where people are probably tiring on the crowds
of Florence.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
And I was there in October. I couldn't walk.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Yeah, you know, it wasn't unbearable, you know, but you
couldn't pay me to go there in August, well, August empty, right,
you couldn't pay them to go there in June or July.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
You know. It's just too crowded.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Yeah, and that that really is starting to hamper the experience.
But I think that's what people say, you know what,
I want to go back to Italy, but next time
I'm going to try something different. And I've been talking
about this for ten years, like, you know, please, there's
other places to go besides Venice, Florence rom Definitely start there,
or Naples right or Northey Coast right. Definitely pay those
places a visit for sure, once or twice whatever. But
(35:39):
if you're like going to eat tell a file and
you want to be there all the time, you've got
to explore, you know, and there's so much more to
be found outside of the places. You could be adventurous
and try to speak Italian and the people are going
to be very accommodating, but you're also going to experienced
different experience with crowds, right and lack thereof. In this case,
you can sit in the beach and send Benedetta you
(36:00):
have nowhere near you. And they do beaches so well, right,
they had every beach has the chairs and the towels
and the umbrellas. It's like a club, like a private club.
And then there's restaurants right there on the sand.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I know, you're just sitting there ordering your cappuccino in
the morning if you have to get there early with
your kids, and then you can move on to your
prosecco and your the local specialty, which I think is
fantastic as well, when you go to these beach clubs
and they're rolling out the local specialty whatever it is,
and you just got to try it while you're there.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Just give me whatever you have, you know.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
I mean I always get like the seafood meat still
think the crustaceans and the shrimps.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
And whatever they got, you know. Or then then like
a whole.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Roasted fish, which is so I think that's where the
flavors peak. And then liam is not the most flavorful
things as fish as opposed to some gamey meat. But
I think you're getting the freshish stuff right. It's right
from the sea. They're always making fresh pasta with it, right.
I just love that experience, especially like during the day,
like luncheons, washing it down with a white wine.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
That's tough, isn't it. Andrew, You've been all around Italy.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Where where is somewhere you haven't been yet, or somewhere
that you just really want.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
To go back to and explore some more. Where are
you going to next?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Well?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
This is sort of embarrassing considering my family. It's fun,
but I've only been to Sicily once and it was
only there was just for a very short time. And
many of my contributors at at Patito take tours there
with people that bring people there for tours, and they
all rave about Sicily in ways that it's like so distinct.
It's not it's not even Italy. It's a different place.
And you know, I mean, I just feel like Italy
(37:34):
is calling me. The wines are familiar. I was drinking
Dona forgot the wine last night at an event. There's
a panatoni maker from from Sicily, fries Gerano had a
new shop and soho here and they had a party
last night and they were pouring down I forgot the
wines and so like the wines from not Etna, Sicily
seems to be like, you know, really evolving, you know,
(37:55):
and becoming a place you know. So there's that. The
same with Callabria. I've never been Collaborate, and I hear
wonderful things about that. I've never been to Pulia, so
Pulia is definitely on my list too. I mean, I
think I've been half the regions, so I want to
go to every single one.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, I'm on that trip as well, if I hadn't
got three to go now.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like, but it becomes like a little bit of an imbession,
doesn't it, because you really want to Once you find
out about this regional cuisine and the different culture in
each place, you just really want to go and see
it all and experience it for yourself because it's so special.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
I mean, I tell you one thing, and this is
not a diss of Asia, but I'm never going to
go to China nor Thailand because there's too many things
I still want to do in Italy that I haven't
done yet. Who knows, maybe I'll get that done at
a certain point when I'm you know, seventy five.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Maybe I'll take a trip to Japan. But like you know,
I'm even like Spain.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
If we forget Asia, like other countries in Europe, I
don't have any interesting ever going back to France again
the rest of my life.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I've been there. I was there right after the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
You know, in x and Provence, and I was like, no, oh,
I want is Italy If I went to Spain, went
to them. Never going to catch me in Denmark again
because I've just so immersed and enamored and there's.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Still so much there to explore. But it's twenty countries.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, that's true at least, you know, even because I
mean even like from town to town they're all arguing
about who's.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
The Oh yeah, I mean Florence and Siena are different places,
and they're all in Tuscane.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I mean, the cuisine is different down there.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
And I was happy to have been in Pimonte recently,
which was on my short list to explore further, and
I really saw a lot of it, and it was
We were in Rorero, which is a wine zone very
close to Lange and Montferrato.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So they're making.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Nebuolo grapes there and Arnaz grapes is beautiful white called arnaes,
which I had never heard of, even the wine writers
that weren't familiar with there, and we were all blown
away by both the Nebuolo red and then Arne's white
in Roerro.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, there's so many like the difference between Piedmont and
Pulia that you couldn't get bigger contrasting fact and so
it's really hard to, you know, not go back to Italy.
But I think you would like Japan because I actually
think there's a nice symbiosis between Italy and Japan. I mean,
Japan is much more organized and structured, but they do
(40:09):
have this commitment to excellent food and also just focusing
on that one thing to make it really special. And
they've they've got a really nice relationship happening there the
Italians in the Japanese and it's a beautiful thing to see.
But yeah, maybe one day when you've knocked off all
the twenty regions, huh.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
Yeah, and that your points will taking Because Japan and
a little bit of a great relationship, there's great symbiosis theirs.
I mean I have friends from Italy who went to
Tokyo and said they had the best Italian food of
their life there.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
But they really well, they bring over a lot of
Italian chefs.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
They pay so much they can't see, no, but their
emphasis and ingredients and technique are very similar, right, you know,
simple clean them. And yes, the Italian food and Japanese food,
even though they might seem quite different, really get along
very well. Yeah, lots of Japanese Italian. They call it fusion,
like that word. But I sort of influence here in
(41:02):
New York. Okay, it does work, I agree, and I
would let you in.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I think it might be the umami that you know,
that additional flavor, that might be the thing that's aligning them.
But I know the Consortium have a thing where they
do saque and Parmesano tastings together, which is like super interesting. Yeah,
because I don't think sarque is similar to Lambrusko at all.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
But anyway, give it a go.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
They've tried it and apparently it works. There you go,
Oh Andrew, this has been great. I love talking with
people about Italy and food and sharing stories and all
of those things. So thank you for joining us on
Untold Italy. Can you let everyone know how they can
stay in touch with you, Maybe read your books and
have a look around a potito because I have looked
(41:49):
around a potito and you know, I'm sorry I hadn't
found it sooner, So let's make sure everyone knows where
to find you.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
Yeah, so a Potito Magazine dot com is where you
can find the publication of a newsletter you can sign
up for.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
We have Also, we have a subscription box.
Speaker 5 (42:04):
We can't we can't ship it anywhere other than the US,
So if you're a US based we have a great
subscription box.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
You get a.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Beautiful organic award warding olive oil, You get a copy
of my novel tepe Cup, and get some of the little.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
Goodies in there. So there's those subscription boxes. They're more
more like gift boxes.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
You can you can look at the magazine all day long,
but we'd love for you just have for our newsletter
and follow us on Instagram and Facebook where we are
at a Potito Magazine dot com my own platform, which
is a little bit separate. I do other things, you know.
I have novels and I have just turned one into
a play. You can find more things about me and
my books at Andrew Coatto dot com and I'm on LinkedIn.
(42:41):
I guess I love hearing from people, So if you
follow me, I'll follow you back and we could be
in touch. And if you're in New York, you have recommendations,
you want me to take you outdi com.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You heard it here. I hype you're indicted with invitations.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Oh, thank you, Andrew, and let's harpe you bumping to
each other somewhere soon, maybe Italy, maybe in New York,
you never know, maybe Japan.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Anyway, thanks for joining us on Untold Italy today.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
All I can say is hooray for opera singing butchers
and long table lunches that stretch into dinner. Once upon
a time, I was a little shocked when some fellow
travel bloggers said they traveled solely for food. We were
talking about spending time in Florence and they flat out
said they had no interest in visiting any galleries because
they would just rather eat.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I have to admit I did get a bit judgy.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
About that, but these days I'm fully on board, and
in fact it's a driving force behind Untold Italy to
encourage everyone to travel and explore what suits them best.
And let's face it, you could do a lot worse
than making Italy itinery solely about trying iconic produce and dishes.
I would absolutely love it if one of our clients
came up with that challenge, But it also could make
(43:52):
a pretty good podcast episode, don't you think. But now
we've got plenty of inspiration. On our site, you'll find
all the places that Andrew men on the show, information
about a Potito magazine, and details on how you can
get in touch with him in our episode show notes
at Untold Italy dot com Forward slash three zero two, groatzimlu.
Thank you for joining us on this wonderful journey and
(44:14):
for supporting Untold Italy. If you enjoyed today's episode, we
would be very grateful if you could leave a rating
or review on your favorite podcast app, or consider upgrading
to our premium app for ad free listening and exclusive
travel content, including our favorite restaurants in Osteria in tiny
towns across Italy. Next week it's time for a bit
(44:36):
of festive Italian fun. But until then, it's chow for now.
Speaker 6 (44:41):
The Untold Italy podcast is an independent production podcast editing,
audio production and website development by Mark Hatter, Production assistance
and content writing by the are.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
They kJ Clark, Yes there are two of us. For
more information about Untold Italy, please visit Untold italy dot
com with
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.