Original subtitles

So we're coming down through Calabria,

on a train obviously.

We're going to Sicily,

the biggest island in the Mediterranean.

Because there is no bridge,

they take the train and put it onto a ferry.

Oh, we're getting on it! Well, that's exciting.

And you can see the tracks here, where the other cars will go.

I love trains, but I like the idea

that the train goes on a boat.

I think we should get a car on top of this

and be in a car on a train on a boat

and then have a horse on top of the car.

I'm Stanley Tucci.

I'm fascinated by my Italian heritage,

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.

Sicily is a mythical land of contrasts -

fire and water,

dry and fertile,

refined

That's very French.

And rough.

How did one of the poorest regions in Europe

- What do you think? - I love it.

Create the richest of cuisines?

That's so good.

Get ready

This is delicious. I want to take a bath in it.

Every mouthful here

Mmm, that's wonderful.

Is an eruption of flavor.

My god that's so good. Mmm, my god!

Before I arrive in Sicily,

there's one delicious food ritual

that I have to experience.

It's a tradition to eat these

while you're a boat passing this statue of the Madonna.

These are arancini.

Look at that.

These beautiful little cones

are rice with saffron, peas, meat.

The story goes that the Arabs brought these to Sicily

in the 9th Century.

Hand-rolled rice, with a meat filling.

Breaded and fried.

That's good.

The taste of arancini, I am told,

is the taste of home for all Sicilians.

Just a few miles off the toe of the boot of Italy

lies the island of Sicily

it's southernmost region,

and with volcanic soil so fertile,

it's nickname is God's Kitchen.

But Sicily is also said to be home to the gates of Hell.

Impoverished for centuries, conquered by everyone

from the Arabs to the French,

and haunted by its mafia connections.

The locals have learned to make the most

of what they've got.

In this fiercely traditional region,

things are changing.

And I want to discover the effect it's having on the food.

Classic Sicilian cuisine

is harnessing the power of simple ingredients

and allowing them to shine.

Don't mistake uncomplicated for bland.

Seafood, vegetables and pasta

only need a little local olive oil

and salt to reveal their sublime qualities.

Just outside the capital, Palermo,

in a seaside town called Bagheria,

an amazing self-taught chef

has built his reputation on the basics.

- Ciao. - Ciao.

Tony Lo Coco left school at 17

to work with his dad making stained glass for churches

but he fell in love with food

and now owns a Michelin-starred restaurant called I Pupi.

Tony is cooking his version of the Sicilian classic,

spaghetti alla bottarga.

Oh I see, it creates a little texture to it

which helps the sauce stick to it

which ends up giving everything a better flavor.

What could be more Italian than spaghetti, right?

Well, wrong.

It's said that spaghetti was invented by the Arabs

who brought it to Sicily a thousand years ago.

But the Arabs ate their spaghetti

with raisins and cinnamon.

Very different to the savory dishes of today,

like this one.

Bottarga is a solid block of dried fish eggs,

tuna in this case.

Tony is so proud of his signature dish

he has named it Spaghettony.

Garam. This is like what the Romans used to make.

Right. This is the secret to the flavor.

This gives it that intensity.

Garam was sort of like Roman ketchup

sort of, maybe.

Tony then adds lemon zest, Sicilian of course,

and an avalanche of bottarga.

On top he adds salted,

dehydrated fried capers for crunch

and dried breadcrumbs ground down with anchovies,

which is called mullica.

This is the mullica that people used to use who lived by the sea

because they didn't have cheese,

this in essence took the place of cheese.

Voila. Come on.

- Oh! - Oh no!

That'’s beautiful.

Goddamn it, mm!

Thank you. That's so good.

My god that's so good. Mmm, my god!

The core, the soul of your restaurant,

is taking really simple food of Sicily and elevating it.

Yes.

It turns out Tony is a culinary linguist.

Jesus, I feel guilty.

I just love this idea.

I want to live with you.

Tony created something

that a lot of people aren't able to create.

He's able to take these traditional foods

and elevate them.

He loves where he comes from

and he just wants to make everything better.

That's not a bad trait.

Look at that little cluster of buildings up there.

All these old abandoned farms.

In the south east of the island

the picturesque baroque town of Victoria

rises surrounded by stark, hilly fields.

This area is known for its grapes and I'm parched

so I'm in the right place.

Sicily has a reputation for being a traditional,

rather macho society

so until recently, wine-making, like many professions here,

was controlled by men.

But the wine-maker I'm about to meet

is definitely bucking the trend.

This is 38 year old Arianna Occhipinti.

So, tell me everything.

What is the grape?

And Nero d'Avola

is a very common grape in Sicily, isn't it?

Sicily is one of the oldest

wine-producing regions in the world,

but it's wine is often thought to be too bold,

perhaps fine to blend with other wines

but nothing to be celebrated on its own.

But Arianna is said to be producing

a more delicate vintage.

So what should it be?

- It should be brown? - Yeah.

It is sweet.

It's very sweet,

it's actually much sweeter than I thought it was going to be.

Next to Arianna's vineyard lie abandoned farms,

a reminder that Sicily has the worst unemployment rate

in Italy.

Thousands of young Sicilians

have left the island in search of work.

So you had a lot of friends who left,

and where did they go,

what did they end up doing?

So the farm ends up shutting down

or the vineyard ends up shutting down.

Yes.

Arianna was inspired

by the potential of the southern Sicilian soil.

Her organic vines produce lower yields but fruitier aromas,

and her varieties are deeply rooted in the local land.

So you're from here?

Arianna's dedication is evident

in every aspect of her business.

I always wondered how this was done.

It's your piece of art.

It's beautiful.

How many bottles do you make a year?

Wow.

- Yes! I thought you'd never ask. - Perfect.

Now I'm hardly a wine expert but I do know what I like

and that I like drinking it.

This is delicious and I want to take a bath in it.

- Yes, yes. - Yeah, yeah.

A lot of Sicilian wines are quite heavy but it's light...

Arianna's impressive achievements in the wine world

come from her steely determination

to choose the artisanal over the industrial.

That's really good.

And in a region where only a quarter of women

have joined the workforce,

her success is nothing short of revolutionary.

Did you find it difficult, particularly as a young woman,

to start a business?

And they respect you.

That's great. Well, thank you.

- You're welcome. - Thank you so much.

Arianna's wine is ground-breaking

and I have no doubt that in the hands of people like her

this land will certainly flourish.

Today I'm in Palermo, the capital of Sicily,

which is a kind of gritty city.

But in recent years it's seen gentrification

with the opening of new shops, restaurants and bars.

The architecture is extraordinary

and a lot of it is mostly old structures,

most of which are completely falling apart

but they're so beautiful.

It's not what I expected, it's kind of a revelation.

I'm excited to go through it and explore it.

Palermo was first settled by Venetian traders

in the 8th Century B.C.

Then the Arabs and the Normans

arrived, or conquered,

and these waves of migration

created an incredibly beautiful city.

It almost looks like New Orleans.

When you look down,

you see it's like the French Quarter, parts of it.

But Palermo's beauty has come at a cost.

This magnificent architecture

is the legacy of wealthy land owners

who built grand palazzo's on the profits of their estates

while their workers lived in poverty.

When this system collapsed in the 19th Century

workers moved out of the countryside and into the city

where poor and rich now live side by side.

Hidden behind this 400 year old door

is a world I've never encountered.

I've been invited to dinner by a real life princess.

Stanley.

Princess Stefania di Raffadali

is one of the last surviving members

of the Sicilian royal family.

Nice to see you.

Thank you very much.

I'm very happy to be here.

The princess became a royal

through marriage to a direct descendant

of the Norman conquest.

This palace has been in her husband's family

since the 16th Century

and is preserved like a living museum.

How long were you married?

We married in '57.

And when did he pass away?

Just 10 years ago.

He loved this house very much.

So the only thing that I could do

was to keep it and maintain it.

Well, it's absolutely beautiful.

But as thrilled as I am to meet the princess,

that's not the only reason I wanted to come here.

I'm on the hunt for the perfect timballo.

Look at that, so pretty.

A baked mold of pasta or rice with rich ingredients.

It's a dish I'm obsessed with.

Oh wow.

Every family has a different way of making it.

Yes.

And I've heard that Maria, the princess' chef,

is a much sought-after authority on timballo making.

In my family, we have our own version of this dish

and it's the centerpiece of a film I made

calledBig Night, back in the 1990s.

So it's macaroni

Macaroni

We had great fights

because the old recipe was sugar

but she doesn't like sugar.

She's always saying "Too much sugar."

Maria is making three very different versions

of her timballo for dinner.

One with eggplant

one with rice

and this one with a pastry crust.

The princess's son, Bernardo,

and her granddaughter, Alessandra,

are joining us for this rather formal dinner,

complete with a white-gloved butler.

Thank you.

So this is the first one, which is

Eggplants with cheese

- And the pasta. - Aneletti.

Tell me about the tradition of timballo.

They came from France.

All the families of the aristocracy

thought it was smart to have a French cook.

They brought with them, for example, bechamel,

that wasn't known here in Italy

because we had more Arab cuisine.

Is this like, what? How many years

- 1856. - 1850s.

I find it fascinating that even this most Sicilian of dishes

has origins elsewhere.

Yeah, it's a huge amount of work.

You need to make it with somebody. Yeah.

This one is with rice, with bechamel, cheese and ham.

That's very French.

Which is the best one for you?

The eggplant. I could eat the entire thing.

- It's very funny this. - Which one is yours?

I prefer the rice one.

It's certainly fitting to be eating this dish

in such an opulent and unique setting.

I feel like I've stepped into a time machine

to experience the origins of timballo.

So tell me how Palermo has changed.

Now it has become an international town.

Everybody's coming.

I did notice when I went out last night

all these young people out

and it was much more youthful

than I thought it was going to be.

I have a lot of friends

that come from France or Germany

and I've seen people falling in love with Palermo

in a moving way.

There's something in the light of Palermo.

One of the reasons for Palermo's regeneration

is the decline of the infamous Cosa Nostra.

The Mafia.

And the connection between the Mafia and the government

is not as great as it once was?

- Yeah. - Of the judges.

Falcone and Borsellino were judges

who brought large-scale legal action

against the mafioso,

exposing the government's support for the Mafia.

They paid the ultimate price for their bravery.

Both men were assassinated within months of each other

in Palermo in 1992.

To change.

That was a turning point.

- Yeah. - Right.

It's been a very memorable evening.

But Palermo's ancient aristocratic families

are a dying breed,

however much we might want to preserve the past.

The heart of this beautiful city has moved elsewhere.

To the young. To the new.

And to the future.

Thank you very much, thank you.

If you thought Sicily was Italy's southernmost island,

you'd be wrong.

Because 173 miles even further south

is the beautiful island of Lampedusa.

With just 5,000 inhabitants,

this paradise island was famed

for its waters chock full of fish.

Situated 70 miles off the African coast,

it's become a beacon for migrants and asylum seekers

trying to get to Europe.

Thousands arrive on these shores every year.

I've come to the port to meet third generation fisherman

Beppe Billeci, who's bringing in the daily catch.

Beppe's been fishing here since he was nine,

catching anchovies and alacce,

a type of sardine that was once

the main form of sustenance in Lampedusa.

He's invited me for lunch.

His wife Rina is rumored to be one of the island's best cooks.

Rina's preparing some traditional Sicilian dishes

with her daughter Enza,

using some of the fish that Beppe's just caught.

It's so simple.

All she does is dress the dish with a simple salsa verde

which is made of parsley, capers, olive oil

and bread soaked in vinegar.

Her second dish is more elaborate.

Rina is making sarde a beccafico

which literally means, fig-pecker sardines.

But the fig-pecker is a bird, not a fish.

For me, this dish embodies the whole philosophy

of Sicilian cooking,

if you can't afford the food of the aristocracy,

make do with what you've got.

Thank you for having us.

It's so good.

With the salsa verde, it's so simple.

It's absolutely delicious.

She just said "The fish is good."

It's delicious.

But the sea that has provided us with this feast

is also the arena of an ongoing tragedy.

Over the last six years it has claimed the lives

of an estimated 18,000 migrants fleeing poverty and war.

As a fisherman, Beppe has first-hand experience

of this crisis.

I just want to ask you about the immigrant situation,

the migrant situation.

In a country where migration is the leading political issue,

Lampedusans stand out for their compassion.

The whole island was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

in 2014.

Beppe has bravely saved migrants in the past,

pulling them from the sea,

but after a government clampdown,

captains who saved them faced fines and even imprisonment.

The situation for refugees remains extremely precarious.

I've come to what's known on the island

as the boat graveyard.

A place where refugee boats are discarded.

The desperation

has to be so profound

to come across the ocean in a boat like that.

You still see everybody's clothing left, shoes left.

The integration of immigrants into a society

makes that society so much better

and stronger and richer and more interesting.

To turn people away is not natural.

I'm back in mainland Sicily and I'm heading east.

I'm going to Catania,

an ancient and beautiful port city.

It's a bustling vibrant metropolis

and the island's second largest city.

But it does have one problem.

It sits right in the shadow of Mount Etna,

one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

Don't you wonder who said

"I have an idea, let's just build a house up here

at the base of the volcano."

"Don't you want to be closer to the sea?"

"No, no, no, no. I want to be right at the fiery maw of it."

But there's a very good reason why Catanians risk

living so close to this volatile volcano.

Because centuries of eruptions have created mineral-rich soil

which grows some of the finest

fruits and vegetables in the world.

I'm here to visit a restaurant

that uses this beautiful local produce

to make classic Sicilian dishes.

It's owner is Roberta Capizzi.

- We can come this way. - OK.

Roberta's chef is making pasta alla norma,

a Sicilian favorite made with eggplant.

It was named after the opera, Norma,

composed by one of Catania's most famous sons,

Vincenzo Bellini.

So pasta alla Norma is a very famous Sicilian dish.

And the recipe we're gonna make today is from your family?

Eggplants are a gift

left by the Arab domination in the 9th Century

and in Sicilian cooking they often replace meat

because they're cheaper and they grow everywhere.

And then tomato?

What kind of pasta are you using?

Of course, homemade, fresh cut macaroni. What else?

And it wouldn't be a Norma

without salty baked ricotta on top.

- What do you think? - I love it.

I love it, it's so simple and it's really delicate.

- Thank you. - Oh my god, it's so good.

For the next dish, Roberta's promised me something special.

I never imagined myself, or anyone else, eating donkey.

- It's a donkey. - Yes.

- It was a donkey. - Yes.

Donkeys are a favorite around here

This is delicious.

Because they've always been

hardworking companions for Sicilian farmers.

The meat is sweet.

Yes.

Believe it or not, it's really good.

It's like beef carpaccio but even sweeter.

Tell me about the big change you made in your life.

- Wow. - Yeah.

And the name of the restaurant,

tell me the name of the restaurant.

Which means?

- Everything from Sicily. - Everything.

True to its name, the restaurant,

like the house of a good friend,

stays open all day.

Which isn't usual in this part of the world.

Most places close between lunch and dinner.

Are Sicilians different than other Italians?

Grazie, thank you.

Like a true Sicilian,

Roberta's passion for life, for family and for this island

has found a perfect expression in her food.

It's just extraordinary.

It's some of the best food probably that I've ever had.

The food is great, but the magic ingredient

that makes this restaurant so special

is the wonderful Sicilian hospitality,

which also helps take your mind off

that active volcano looming nearby.

I'm staying in Catania to explore some more.

A busy industrial hub, once known as the Milan of the south

it has a growing migrant community.

Catania is the main reception center for newcomers in Sicily

and this new wave of migration

is already changing the city and its food.

Emmanuella and Mimmo Pistone run a supper club

where young refugees and migrants

cook the food from their homelands

and share their stories.

- Mustafa, ciao. - Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too. - Hi. Joy.

Hi Joy, how are you?

Joy, from Nigeria, is now a close family friend

and Mustafa, a young migrant from Egypt,

has become their foster son.

And I've heard they're both amazing cooks.

This one, we have carrots, green beans, and the shrimps.

And little shrimps? The little

They are fried already.

- Oh delicious. - Yeah.

Oh I can't wait. It's very exciting.

Tonight they're making a fusion of African dishes.

This one is called Nigerian fried rice.

Joy's special rice is being served alongside

spicy chicken flavored with curry, ginger and rosemary.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, yeah. For you.

- Plantains -And plantain.

It's my favorite.

A type of banana fried in coconut oil.

I can see that Nigerian and Italian hospitality

have a lot in common.

Oh that's wonderful. That's delicious.

Emmanuel and Mimmo took Mustafa under their wing

shortly after he arrived in Sicily six years ago.

He was only sixteen when he left his family

to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

- How did they arrive? - With a small boat

on the main beach of Catania,

which is called Playa.

It was the 10th of August in 2013.

How big was the boat?

- The boat stopped. - It hit a sand bar.

- Yes. - Yeah.

They started walking.

Just in front of the shore.

It was terrible. Yeah.

They couldn't swim.

This is the thing. So many people imagine

that people leave their countries

to come and take advantage

when, in fact, they're just coming

because they live in fear - Yeah.

They're incredibly poor.

They need somewhere safe as well.

Yes, they need somewhere safe and they want to work hard.

- Yeah. Yeah. - To have a good life.

So when people say that we are good because we help them

but I always say it's not true

because they are helping us

in finding a reason to give a sense to this moment,

you know, that the world is living.

So we have to thank them.

The story of immigration seems to have changed very little

over the years.

And one of its most beautiful consequences

is the imprint it leaves on the cuisine.

The spices that are part of all this,

from Egypt have been in Italy for centuries.

It's what created Italian food.

It's why Italian food in Sicily is completely different

than the Italian food in Piemonte or in Rome.

Well I really want to thank you so much.

You're pretty great parents, that's all I can say.

Even if from time to time we quarrel.

Throughout history, Sicilians have shared the bounty

of their generous land with newcomers,

evolving the culture,

and creating new culinary traditions.

Cheers, cheers. Cheers, cheers. Thank you.

Every new arrival brings change

and the opportunity for regeneration and renewal.

But one thing that won't change here

is that, at the home of a Cumpari,

the door is always open

and you are always welcome to join the feast.