Why Stanley Tucci loves Italy

Get in the mood for all things Italian. A new series of Tucci in Italy launches this month, where the 64-year-old explores the culture of Italy by way of its extraordinary cuisine. Here he talks about his Italian memories, the importance of food and what makes the country so special to him.

I believe that the best way to understand what makes the country and its people unique is through their food, where even the shape of your pasta and the sauce speaks directly to identity, and differentiates the character and history of each region sharply from the next.

Stanley Tucci in Lazio. National Geographic / Disney+

My favourite scene was filmed in Sicily. It was with the owner of a restaurant in Sicily who was raising pigs the way people used to do, hundreds of years ago. And his product was incredible. But he wouldn't export it. He said, 'I don't want to, I want it here. And I want it for the people who live here’.

Every region of Italy is beautiful. Tuscany is a masterpiece – the cradle of the Renaissance, whose art and ideas have shaped the way we see the world. But while this historic artistry is so clearly present in the region's grandeur, it is also reflected in Tuscany's food.

Florence is a city where I spent a memorable year of my childhood. The city blossomed in the 1400s under a family of impossibly wealthy bankers called the House of Medici, whose opulent tastes transformed it into an epicentre of art and culture. But despite the city's affluence, many of Florence's surviving recipes are peasant dishes such as lampredotto [made from cow’s stomach]. It's universally loved by the locals – inexplicably, for breakfast. It was incredible. At first I was nervous to eat it, but it’s like fish…the Italians always say the uglier the fish, the more delicious it is. That’s why my wife married me!

The first time I went to Siena I was about 12 years old with my family and I was awestruck – a medieval celebration that culminates in a dramatic three-lap horse race called the Palio di Siena around the Piazza del Campo, the central square. On the third night of the festival, it is traditional for the competitors to take back the streets of Siena and throw an auspicious feast in celebration of their district. They were kind enough to let us film that. A small army of cooks had been up since dawn.

There’s passion in Italian cooking. I think that’s partly because Italy wasn't a united country until 1861. Before that it was in essence a series of city states, so it's a young country, younger than America [1776]. But because Italy was invaded so often over millennia, the people in each region had to cling to each other. And so their world became very small and traditions became very important.

Stanley Tucci in Tuscany. National Geographic / Disney+

I feel more Italian now. I have been there so many times that I feel very comfortable and it has reconnected me to my roots. Doing this show has made me more and more interested in food and in Italy and I'm very curious to see what direction the country is taking.

I hope that viewers understand the complexity of Italy. It isn't just sunny all the time with everybody eating pasta and pizza and dressed in fancy suits and playing mandolins. And then there's the mafia, but this is a post-war Hollywood version of Italy. That is not what Italy is.

It’s been a busy few years. I have a little bit of down time before I make a couple of movies. But I like to do all those different things [acting, directing, writing]. I think actors become actors because they don't want to be themselves. They want to be different people. But I wanted to do more than that, so I started writing and directing. I want to tell stories in different ways. And as I get older, I find different ways of telling them. Movies are one way, books are another, and so is directing. And there are more ways to tell stories that I want to do in the next couple of decades, if I have that.

Tucci in Italy premières 21 May at 8pm on National Geographic; all episodes stream from 19 May on Disney+