Original subtitles

- Umbria,

il cuore verde d'Italia.

It means it's the green heart of Italy.

Not a jealous heart but a fertile one.

Arriving in early fall, I chart a course

through Umbria's ancient forests and misty mountains.

This is Italy before the Romans,

a place where families live close to the land,

a land of saintly legends,

impossibly perched hilltop towns,

and rustic cuisine.

Wow.

Stop filming and just eat it.

Cheers.

I'm Stanley Tucci.

I'm Italian on both sides,

and I'm traveling across Italy

to discover how the food

in each of this country's 20 regions

is as unique as the people and their past.

- Umbrian food isn't about expensive restaurants

or tricky techniques.

It's all about the skill and hard work

that goes into producing its precious raw ingredients,

from innovative farmers...

To noble hunters.

And let's not forget the chefs and butchers preserving

the traditional ways to cook these treasures of the land.

Si.

And a note for any vegetarians watching:

Umbrians eat a lot of meat, particularly pork...

Like, a lot of it, huge amounts of it.

- Mmm!

- I surrender... to the pork.

Umbria is named after the Umbri,

one of Italy's most ancient peoples.

Their landlocked homeland

is right in the middle of the country.

Bordered on the west by its more glamorous neighbor,

Tuscany, it's often overlooked.

But while the landscape here is similar,

the culture is very different...

Less fancy, if you will.

And I hear the locals like it that way.

They're like flames, aren't they?

I'm heading deep into the heart

of Sagrantino territory,

Umbria's luscious, world-renowned red wine,

to meet a man who fell in love with this rustic region

over 25 years ago.

We're going to meet Big George,

in Italian, known as Giorgione.

He's a chef and restauranteur

who lives at one with nature

on a secluded farm outside Montefalco

with an assortment of animals,

including the porcine pride of Umbria.

- Good morning!

- Oh, look, wine grapes.

Only the best for pigs around here.

- Ow!

- In addition to wearing all his other hats,

this rural Renaissance man also, somehow, finds time

to host one of Italy's best-loved cookery shows.

"E Cucina" takes in all aspects

of Giorgione's life on the farm.

But the heart of the action takes place here,

in this very kitchen.

- On the menu ismaialino cooked in porchetta style.

But instead of the rolled loin of pork,

we have a whole piglet, and nothing goes to waste.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Oh, nice. Yeah.

- So this is the lining that's inside,

that's lining all the organs?

- I'm beginning to feel like a guest on Giorgione's show,

not the other way around.

The piglet goes into this giant wood-fired oven

for 2 1/2 hours.

- Per favore.

- The beauty of slow cooking in a sealed oven

is, once that door is shut,

there's not really much more you can do

but sit back...

Eh?

- And wait.

- Cheers.

As the lovely Sagrantino opens up,

so does my new friend.

- Si, si.

- Si.

- Yeah.

Stanley, look there. - Yes.

Two hours have flown by,

and the moment we've been waiting for is upon us.

- Et voilà.

- Maialino alla Giorgione.

It's pork with pork inside and pork on top and pork...

It's a lot of pork.

Whoa.

- And a moment.

- Okay.

- Oh, yeah.

- Okay.

- Mm. - That's too much.

- Eh?

This is...

Giorgione's loving preparation

of the very best fresh ingredients

and the alchemy of the slow cook of the wood fire

have turned this dish

into something really quite spectacular.

Mmm.

- My God. Oh, my God.

- Nom, nom, nom!

- It's so good.

- Mmm!

- Si, perfetto.

You should stop filming and just eat it.

I surrender.

Literally, I surrender... to the pork.

- Like 5 million others who come here each year,

my journey has brought me to the mecca

that is Assisi

to pay homage to Umbria's most famous

and still vitally relevant saint, Francis.

Approaching the stunning 13th-century basilica,

I remember the first time

I came here as a young kid with my parents.

Being an art teacher, my dad wanted our family

to see the 28 frescoes inside

that tell the legend of Saint Francis.

And to help me, quietly, navigate the story today

is local historian Matteo Grandi.

- Probably, this is the most iconic one, the most famous.

You know, he had an incredible connection with the nature.

Probably he was the first environmentalist

of the history of the church.

- But I remember the first time I came here, I was 12,

but we didn't have this opportunity

to have it just to ourselves, I mean...

- Just for us. - Yeah, it's incredible.

I feel very lucky.

Legend has it that Saint Francis

renounced his privileged life

to instead walking penniless

among the poor folk of rural Umbria.

He was devoted to all God's creatures.

And where better to preach his message

than in the green heart of Italy?

Because of his connection with nature,

is he, like, the quintessential saint of Umbria?

- Yes, Umbria is really connected to nature, you know?

- Yeah. - Umbria is nature.

And that's why he's so representative of Umbria.

- I could stay in here all day,

but it seems Matteo's mind has wandered.

- Which is your favorite food?

- Mm, it's hard to say.

I do like salami.

In Italy, it's never long

until someone talks about food.

But here in Umbria, everything comes back to pork.

You could say it's like a religion,

not with its roots in the saints of Assisi

but out here

in the forest primeval.

Today is hunt day,

and I've been invited to tag along by Claudia Ferracchiato.

Wow.

We're hunting boar, but looking at this spread,

it's a wonder there are any left out there.

Claudia's hunting group

is the first all-female huntingsquadra in Italy.

But they're letting me and a few other fellows

in on the action today.

We have to be very quiet.

I guess because the boars

must have really good hearing.

And we're just waiting for the okay to go down...

to try to kill them.

People are starting to move forward.

I think we're on the way. Can you hear me?

The boar can't.

The hunters set out in groups

and take up positions in the valley below.

Claudia, who is six months pregnant, by the way,

and I will oversee the proceedings

from a suitable vantage point.

- Wild boar have roamed the Umbrian forests

and been a core part of the diet here

for thousands of years.

Long both revered and feared,

today they have no natural predators,

and the population has to be controlled.

- My God.

- Now, I'm under no illusion

where all that salami comes from.

- But witnessing that shot firsthand

really brings home the reality of our carnivorous ways.

- This boar will have to be hung for 28 days

before it's ready for the pot.

But luckily for us, Giuseppina, Claudia's mom,

and her brigade

have been working away on another beast,

following a family recipe for wild boar ragu.

The local boar is full of flavor

thanks to its foraged diet of roots, acorns,

and even truffles.

But to be at its best,

the meat first needs a slow cook

with herbs, lemon, and vinegar.

Then Giuseppina whizzes it up in a blender

before adding it to a tomato sauce

with salty green olives,

which is the perfect complement

to the boar's richness.

- Si.

Thanks to Claudia's hunting

and the traditional culinary skills

that Giuseppina will soon be passing down

to her grandchild,

no one is going hungry today.

- That's perfect.

- These two generations of Umbrian women

are a force of nature.

And they do their ancestors and the boar proud.

I'd like to make a toast.

Stop. I'm gonna make a toast to you.

Thank you so much, Claudia, for taking us...

I'm not gonna say it in Italian.

Inglese, okay?

Thank you so much for taking us on the hunt today

and all of you, for it was a great experience.

And congratulations, yeah.

- Grazie. - Cheers.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you. Cheers.

The ragu is rich and comforting

and tastes all the better after a day out in the woods.

I think if Umbria itself had a flavor,

this dish would be it.

- Thank you.

- I'm swapping Umbria's majestic forests

for the achingly beautiful

mountainous backdrop of Norcia.

This medieval city is blessed

with panoramic views of snowcapped peaks.

But it's a place torn apart by the volatile fault line

that runs beneath it.

A series of disastrous earthquakes

have battered Norcia.

The most recent, in 2016, demolished the city center.

Six years on, locals are still debating how best to rebuild

without changing the town's historic character.

Still standing amongst the rubble, however,

is one tradition

that's been synonymous with Norcia for centuries.

And of all the pork joints in all the towns,

this one reigns supreme.

Last night, I thought I was all porked out,

but my mouth is watering already.

Oh, oh, oh. Okay.

Mmm. That's so good.

- Si.

- Mmm. Mmm.

- Literally some of the best... Wow.

So you can see why they would be called donkey's balls.

You have to use your imagination

for the rest of the...

Rest of the package.

Putting innuendo to one side,

the salami here really is incredible.

The combination of wild herbs from the forest

and the fresh mountain air takes it all to another level.

I've got to meet the maker.

Maestro Pepe... That's him on the sign

manning the sausage machine...

Is the last truenorcino standing.

- Legend has it that during the Renaissance,

the master porksmiths of Norcia were so skilled

with the knife that on occasion,

they were even called upon to operate on humans.

And they've been revered ever since for their craft

and warrior-like work ethic.

But today the butchers here

are struggling to recruit futurenorcini.

- Mm.

- No? No, no, no.

I leave Pepe to get back to work.

Mind you, he never actually stopped the whole time

I've been here.

And I'm left hoping he finds a worthy apprentice.

Maestro Pepe's dilemma is echoed throughout the forests

and vales of Umbria.

And it seems as if the whole region

is at a crossroads between its proud ancient traditions

and the pressures of the modern world.

What's that?

Everything dings these days, doesn't it?

Everything.

Everything has to have a bell.

- Nice to meet you. I'm Carlo.

- Nice to meet you too.

- Please. - Thank you.

- I want to show you my valley.

- But some Umbrians, like farmer Carlo Caporicci,

believe there is a way

to combine this region's past with the present,

to fuse the best of the old with the best of the new.

This place is incredibly beautiful.

- Eh.

- So this is all the trees you planted?

'Cause you have, like... - Yeah.

These are 20, 21 years old.

- Each of these trees holds a secret.

What you see here laid out in a perfect grid

is a truffle plantation.

Yes, black truffles that are farmed, not foraged.

- 30 or so years ago, not many people

had ever really heard of this Umbrian ingredient.

But now Carlo can barely keep up with the demand,

and neither can Mother Nature.

So he's come up with a solution.

- Let's go.

To create the ideal conditions for truffles to grow,

Carlo has a special technique

for treating each acorn he plants.

You take the nut, a little bit of the truffle...

- Right. With this?

- Okay. - We put inside the ground.

- A year in the pot,

in the ground it goes,

five years of Umbrian sunshine

and some rain, and there you are.

Truffles on tap.

I wonder if this would work in my backyard.

- To showcase the flavor of all these truffles,

Carlo and his daughter Alice opened a restaurant

right here on the farm.

It's her skill and innovation in the kitchen

that brings out the best of each season's bounty.

- Mmm, mmm.

Like most young Umbrians,

Alice moved away in her 20s

in search of opportunity and new ideas,

first going to London, then Rome.

- Si, yeah.

- Alice combines

the distinctly Umbrian food tradition

with a more modern sensibility.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Si.

- Earthy and sweet, yeah.

The addition of beetroot is inspired,

but nothing upstages the true star of the show...

A mountain of truffle.

And now here it comes,

a fitting finale

in celebration of Carlo, Alice,

the future of the truffle,

and possibly the future of Umbrian cuisine.

- Yeah.

- Wait.

Wow. Yeah.

- Mm. - Si.

- As for Carlo's black truffle,

it tastes woody, nutty, and luxurious.

You'd never know it was farmed, not foraged.

- Wow.

- Hello.

- How are you? - Good. Nice to see you.

- Ah, chocolate. - For the kids.

- Everybody say it's for the kids.

- We know we can buy these Baci chocolates everywhere

and anywhere these days,

but this is their hometown, Perugia.

It also happens to be where Matteo,

my friendly historian, hails from.

So who better to show me around Umbria's capital city?

- This is my city, Perugia. Perugia is a young city.

It's a city where we have two universities,

one for Italian people and one for foreigners.

And it's a city which is known for jazz.

We have an incredible jazz festival during the summer.

- This vibrant city is famous for its independent spirit.

If Umbrians like to do things their own way,

then Perugians multiply that by the power of ten.

Long, long ago, when Perugia was ruled by the pope,

things came to a head, shall we say.

- What you can notice on this square

is that the church is facing

the building of the mayor,

and it's not by chance, that.

- And this facing the government offices...

- Exactly. - And his hand is on...

- The griffin, which is... - The griffin.

- Yeah, which is the symbol of the city.

And that is a message that the pope want to send

to the people of Perugia, "Be careful, because"...

- He's silencing. - That's it.

- We are silencing. - Hmm.

This standoff reached a breaking point in 1540

when Pope Paul III hit Perugia where it really hurt.

- You have to know that one of the most popular food

in Umbria and in Perugia are the salumi.

- Yes. - Prosciutto, salami,

all those things, you use the salt.

- Yeah. - What did the pope do?

He said, "Okay, in Umbria, they use the salt.

Now I will put a tax on the salt."

- It's crazy. - It's crazy.

- The salt tax was the last straw.

Perugia declared war on the pope,

but the papal army crushed the insurgents

in these very streets, and the pope built a fortress

smack in the middle of the town

to show the people who was boss.

But that didn't stop the Perugians.

Their spirit of resistance lived on

with a cunning culinary plan

to rebel against their oppressor.

Matteo's taking me to one of his favorite hangouts,

La Prosciutteria.

It's a new take on the tradition bottega.

And amongst their bounty

of Umbria's finest meats and cheeses

is Perugia's secret weapon in the battle

against the salt tax.

Really?

- Nice. - Wow.

- Si.

- Mm-hmm.

Buon appetito.

- The nice thing, if you notice,

is that we have a lot of salt in this plate,

you know, because we have salami, we have prosciutto,

everything very salty.

And now this kind of bread is perfect to eat.

- Yeah, 'cause it doesn't get in the way.

- Exactly. - It accepts the flavors.

- The little appetizers, yes, they're delicious.

- That's really rich.

- Yeah, it is.

- Also, there's the poppy seeds on it.

- Yeah. - I like that.

- Yeah.

- Cheers. - Cheers.

- The food is as good and authentic

as I've had anywhere in Umbria.

But the service and setting is just a bit cooler.

So how old are you guys?

- Why did you end up working here?

- Ah.

- Yeah.

- Grazie. - Grazie.

- Thank you very much, thank you.

- Grazie mille. - And thank you.

Having made a good dent

in yet another mound ofsalumi,

it's time to move on from the hustle and bustle

of modern Umbria and head back to its ancient heart.

- Of all the fairy-tale landscapes

I've seen in Umbria,

this one may be the most breathtaking.

Perched atop a cliff of volcanic rock,

Orvieto is visible for miles in every direction.

Its ornate cathedral reaching up to the heavens

is one of the finest in Italy.

And beneath its dazzling duomo,

Orvieto has even more stories to tell.

Local chef Valentina Santanicchio

is on her way to give me the grand tour,

but I've got time to try a local delicacy

charmingly calledil baffo, meaning mustache,

because the strips of succulent guanciale

resemble one.

Sort of.

- Hi. - Hi.

- Hello. - Hi.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too. - How are you?

- I'm very well.

- It's a pleasure to see you here.

- Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Sorry, my mouth is full.

- Good.

- That's delicious.

- Yeah, it's traditional recipe.

It's done with vinegar and sage.

It's very easy.

It was my grandfather's breakfast when I was young.

- Really? - At 9:00.

- Thank you.

And just like that, Valentina whisks me away,

leading me downwards like Alice in Wonderland

into a labyrinth of tunnels and caves.

- We have to go down. - Down?

- Down, down.

- Down, down, down.

But unlike Alice, it's not a rabbit we've come to meet

but another small animal

that the people here have dined on for centuries.

- Here we are.

- Incredible. - Yes.

This is the house of pigeon, my favorite pigeon, you know?

- Your favorite pigeon? - After, you'll know why.

- Yes, yes. We're gonna taste it, yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

What we're looking at here are, in fact, dovecotes

carved into the walls by the Etruscans

who founded Orvieto over 2,000 years ago.

Wow.

Encouraging pigeons to nest here

gave the early townsfolk a source of nutritious meat

without having to stray outside the city walls.

They could just come and go,

but this is where they would roost?

- Yes.

- Well, when would they eat the pigeon?

What stage in the pigeon's life?

- Usually when they are ready to fly, when they were...

- When they're babies.

- Yeah, babies. The babies are for food.

- For food. Right.

Today pigeon is still an Orvietan staple.

Braised, it's one of the town's signature dishes,

and any self-respecting local

can recite the recipe backwards.

But at the restaurant Valentina's run since 2016,

she's pioneered a new approach.

- We are here with a pigeon. - Yes.

- Poor pigeon. That is so nice. - Yeah.

- Cut in this way.

- Because pigeon can be tough,

Valentina cooks the bird two ways,

ensuring it's moist and flavorful.

Half the pigeon is braised traditionally,

and the other borrows from far and wide.

So you never trained as a chef?

- Never. It's something that is my blood, I think.

I studied for... as accountant.

That is very useful for my job but not for cooking.

- Yeah.

- This is the breast. - Beautiful.

- And I put in the soya sauce marinade.

Marinade?

- Yeah, marinade. You put it in the soy sauce.

- Yeah. And then to cook in sous vide,

that is modern technique to cooking.

- Yes, to make it moist.

- And it's just easy. This is the easy part.

For the legs...

- Nice.

Just like most time-honored dishes,

no part of the pigeon goes to waste.

- This is... has to cook all together

in this pan with olive oil, and then...

- The heart and the liver. - Yeah, it's very bloody.

- Tutto. - Yeah, tutto.

- Everything. And go down.

- The kidneys, the liver, the heart, everything.

Yeah.

It's like you killed someone, yes.

- Yeah, someone.

- Carrots, onion, thyme, and celery go into the pot.

Then it all needs to cook low and slow for up to four hours

to make it meltingly tender.

Luckily, Valentina was up with the lark today

and started this one earlier.

- Okay.

- Wow.

Thank God for the Etruscans.

- I've always said that, yeah. - Right, right.

- I mean, come on. That's so good.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

The sous vide breast now gets what they call a reverse sear

in a little butter to crisp up the skin.

- Yes.

- Oh!

Wow.

- Okay.

Come on.

- Oh, I love that.

Wow. Grazie. Thank you so much.

Incredible amount of history in that little bowl right there.

And then a piece of it with something new.

You know, it's so delicious and nutritious.

- Thank you. - It's really good.

- Thank you.

- It's incredibly rich soil here.

It's really beautiful.

It's a perfect example right here.

We can see all that gorgeous soil that they've just tilled.

My time in Umbria is almost over,

but I can't leave without visiting a certain farm

on the Tuscan border.

My friends Colin and Livia Firth have a home here,

and Livia's twin brothers

have had a Saint Francis-like epiphany,

leaving their old careers behind to do something

very special with a plot of land next door.

Stanley.

- Together, the twins.

Ciao. Ciao. Welcome.

- Come through, come through.

- How beautiful. So I haven't seen you guys.

Last time, it was, like, 3 1/2 years ago.

- We changed our life, basically.

- You totally changed your life.

- Ah, totally. I was doing your job, actually.

- I know! And you were living... Were you living in Rome?

- Yes. - You were living in Rome.

And you were living in...

- Between London and Milan, kind of fashion entrepreneur,

playing the big manager... - Yes.

- And now became a farmer.

- This is no run-of-the-mill farm, though.

The twins have a passion for sustainability

and love to experiment

by cross-pollinating long-forgotten varieties

to create supercharged new vegetables.

- So taking a flower from a tomato, which is good,

but it's not really resistant to climate change,

to the summer, it was 45 degrees...

- Yeah, yeah. - And just go to another plant

who's got these tomatoes

which are really resistant and crossed them.

And as an example, this is what came out.

- Oh, my God, look at that color.

- This is a mix between a black one

and, actually, this one.

And this one is much more resistant

than this one, and it's sweeter.

- To the heat. - To the heat.

- That's good.

What began as a childhood dream

has evolved into a very real 60-acre farm

and extensive seed library.

- We start cultivating

all these wild kind of mustard, wasabi, edible flowers.

- Oh, wow, yeah.

I love that you can eat that.

- And you guys eat meat. I mean, you're not...

- Of course. We didn't turn vegetarian for this.

You know, in Umbria, it's... - Well, in Umbria,

if you don't love your meat, you better move.

- Exactly, you better move.

- I have to stand up. My knees are killing me.

- Yeah, me too. I mean, we squat a lot.

- Yeah, I know, I know. - But we're getting much older.

- If I were 40, I could squat a little longer.

Alessandro and Nicola's inventory now extends

to over 1,000 varieties of fruit and vegetables.

But keeping this many different plants healthy

without using any pesticides is no easy feat.

What was the word before that... You developed a word.

- "Agriconcura," which come from agricultura,

which is agriculture... - Right.

- But curais that using of care.

So it's agri with care.

That actually then pays you back with that taste,

with those colors, with those consistency.

- Yeah.

The twins' nurturing philosophy

doesn't just apply to plants but to people too.

There's a sense of community and a family feel on the farm.

- Stanley, we're gonna start picking up some ingredients

for our lunch.

We're gonna get some aubergine.

- Lookit, it's an ostrich egg.

- It's called dragon egg, actually,

and we got this

because they've got a very special, special taste.

They don't get soggy.

I put them on the fire like that, burn them a bit,

then cut them in half, and with a spoon.

Like a little dessert.

- Farm in-house chef Davide is fanning the flames

to make one of the specials of the day,

eggplant caviar.

Pulled straight from the ground

and simply pricked with a knife,

these are going to be delicious.

While they roast, it's time to start the pasta course.

This is aglione?

- This is one of my favorite things.

- Agliois garlic, right? - Yes.

- Aglione, big garlic.

And that's that.

All right, go ahead, put it in.

The Tuscans next door like to claim

this mellow-tasting garlic as their own.

But don't tell that to the Umbrians.

Its classic partner is a simplepassata

made from tomatoes harvested just a few weeks ago.

Thick enough to hang on to the sauce,

these pici are the perfect pasta to go with it.

Oh, look at that. Oh, gorgeous.

- Now you see why they call it eggplant caviar.

- What is that, tarragon? - Tarragon.

The secret ingredient is a bit of Davide's fingers.

- A little touch of humanity in there, yes.

- If you happen to have a bruschetta...

- Oddly enough, we do.

More salt.

- More salt? - No.

- Stanley, would you mind helping me?

- Of course, yes.

Go, eat, eat, eat, eat.

Mangia, mangia. Pass those down.

This rustic open-air feast...

Wait, I need a fork.

Umbria's answer to fine dining.

Guys, this is incredible.

The twins and this farm...

- Buon appetito.

Buon appetito.

- Really encapsulate Italy's green heart

and its strong independent culture,

cherishing the past while embracing the future,

always on their own terms.

And given that,

you have to agree with Big George:

viva l'Umbria,

viva la cucina Italiana,

e viva noi.