Even if youve never been to rome, youve been to rome. Its stories have been told and retold on stage and screen. The city of togas and gladiators, power and intrigue, empire and ruin. And of course, la dolce vita, the good life. Im stanley tucci, im italian on both sides and im travelling across italy to discover how the food in each of this countrys twenty regions is as unique as the people and their past. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] the famous ancients of rome once ruled the world. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] but im here to discover how its the food of ordinary romans that has conquered our hearts. But im going to warn you, if youre on a low carb diet, beware. Here youre going to see a lot of pasta in this show. I mean like a lot of it, like a lot. Im sorry. Ive been visiting rome for decades. Its beauty and history still leave me breathless. But sometimes its difficult to find a good meal if you dont know where to look. Rome is situated in lazio, a region sometimes overlooked in favor of its grander gastronomic neighbors like tuscany and umbria. But lazio has fed rome for centuries. And every part of the sheep and pigs raised here is put to use in kitchens across the city to make deeply flavorsome food. To start my journey, im catching up with my old friend, claudia. Shes lived here virtually her whole life. There you are. And her Cardinal Rule for good food is, when in rome, eat as the romans do. Are you okay . Im good. You okay . Im good. Im so happy to see you. Yes, it was a long time. Was a long time. Somehow almost thirty years has slipped by since we first became friends, when we worked on a movie here together. I think that you came last time for well, the very first time was like 95. No, i think 93, because it was the undercover blues. Really . I didnt know i was that old. I know, me neither. Lets not mention it. Claudia wants to take me for a classic roman pasta lunch. But with an hour to kill, we decide to get a coffee and reminisce. Well, The San Calisto is a real institution. But thats where we went a long time ago. Yeah, we were there every evening, you know. Back in the 90s, we used to hang out in a great cafe in trastevere, a grimy part of town, very much on the wrong side of the river. Here we are. Yeah, and here we are. And i was pleased to hear its still going strong. So you remember marcello . Yes, i do, i do. Look, whats there, the picture you gave them in 93. Oh, my god. Its exactly in the same place, i think nothing changed with this place. No, it hasnt changed. A little espresso would be just enough to wet our appetites before we go to lunch, or so i thought. Oh. I know, i know. Whats that . Whos joining us . These are maritozzi, roman breakfast with a 2,000yearold history. You cannot resist one of these. In the middle ages, they were one of the few sweet things the church allowed you to eat during lent. It doesnt seem very saintly to me. Is it like a brioche . Yeah, its like a brioche. It looks like a brioche. And its even healthy as compared to this. This is a bomba crema, its fried. Its a sort of doughnut with egg cream. [ speaking universal language ] but italians dont Eat Breakfast like americans Eat Breakfast or the british Eat Breakfast, or the dutch Eat Breakfast. No, no. You know, because they dont do eggs and bacon. Its always something sweet. Yeah. [ speaking universal language ] as we staggered off our breakfast and headed through trastevere, i noticed that the area was much busier and hipper than years ago. This was the poor quarters. You see the buildings, as nice as they are, very small. Right. And then of course, as it happens, you know, the old quarters got very trendy and everybody wanted to live here. Yeah, and theyve become more gentrified, yeah. Yeah. The city may be changing, but one thing thats as constant as the ancient landmarks is how much people in rome love their pasta. Fourstar dishes, in particular, have become an emblem of the city. And claudia is taking me to find out more at a place she says is the pantheon of pasta. The restaurant is fully booked. But we dont care. No, we dont care. Well, tell me some more about the pasta in rome. The pasta in rome is like, you eat it every day. I mean you dont live without pasta. And everybody has its own recipe, and of course its the best ever, you know, and yours is nothing compared to mine. Yeah, its true. It does become very territorial, doesnt it . Yeah. Romans revere what they call the four pastas. Nice to see you, thank you for having me. Simple but iconic dishes of staggering deliciousness. They are creamy cacio e pepe, made with mainly sheeps cheese and pepper. The ancient gricia, which has added pork, its luxurious cousin, carbonara, with is elevated with egg yolks. And finally, our lunch today, amatriciana made with tomatoes, and this roman favorite, guanciale fatty pork cheek. The guanciale are a base for a lot of different dishes in rome. We would normally use pancetta, but the taste is totally different. Thank you so much. Its very good. Very good. Pasta is delicious, delicious. The sauce is actually quite light, which is nice, and the guanciale are really delicate. Yeah, it is. Its not heavy, its not no. I kept a place in my stomach for this. Ah, because we didnt eat the my god. No. Across this city, every single day, romans eat pasta that has ancient bonds to their surrounding countryside. Now, its hard to imagine, but this iconic food was once at risk of being banned in italy. Sitting at the big, warm, carbohydrateloaded heart of italian cuisine is pasta. And fittingly for the nations capital, rome is obsessed with the stuff. Ive been promised the best carbonara in the city and ive been told to come to the Working Class back streets behind Termini Station and to ask for the don. Tell me what you do. Im a passionate of popular food and, for a long time, i make a show where i play vinyl music discs. Like a dj . Yeah, as a dj, yeah. As a dj. But, at the same time, i cook pasta as a grandma. Daniele de michele is a chef, historian and dj, who cooks italian food while he spins records. His stage name is don pasta. I have seen some of this stuff, its really fantastic. Yeah, its crazy. I was pretending for the audience that i didnt know, but why lie. Its really great. Don pasta has promised me the greatest dish of Spaghetti Carbonara ive ever tasted and, on the way, he tells me why pasta matters so much to him. I realized that italian food is popular food, roots food. And italian food is the resistance of the normal people, or the Working Class people that eat well. Because the Working Class people create the roots of italian food. Yes. Today, we may think of a bowl of pasta as the ultimate comfort food. But theres a distinctly uncomfortable history of italians fighting oppression through pasta. In the early 1930s, mussolini and his fascists imposed import bans on various foreign goods. This led to food shortages, malnutrition, and a lack of wheat, which raised the prospect of italian tables with no pasta. In typical style, rather than lifting the import bans, mussolini tried to convince italians that eating pasta would make them weak, lazy and even sexually impotent, and that a High Protein Diet would make them more productive and warlike. The campaign was clearly not a success. When the fascists arrived, a big part of the italian is with mussolini. But thirty Forty Percent is against mussolini. Yeah. In fact, pasta actually became a powerful symbol of the resistance against his fascist regime. Armed with their guns and sheets of pasta, many of the partisans who stood up to mussolini lived in these very streets. And the great Access Rail Yards from which troops and supplies are poured into Southern Italy are plastered by overwhelming during world war two, this area bore the brunt of allied bombings that aimed to disrupt the nearby rail hub. Tragically, over a thousand people were killed. This is, in essence, like a monument. Yeah, you can see the effect of the war. Yeah. People dead, their family dead. And all the area, all this area is bombing. This particular square was home to a hugely popular local trattoria before the war. The owners wife and all but one of their children died when their building was hit during the bombing. After the war, the local community raised funds for the surviving father and son to reopen the restaurant again. The boy started work here aged just eight, and amazingly, hes still here today. Hes the story of roman food, aldo pommidoro. Beautiful. Aldo now runs the restaurant alongside his daughter, rossana. People come from across the city, and apparently further afield, to enjoy the comfort of aldos family food. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] so tell me about so carbonara is a roman dish, but we dont know when it was invented, right . One story id always heard is that carbonara came about when the american soldiers in rome during the war started missing their bacon and eggs from back home and wanted them added to spaghetti. Aldo, however, has his own theory. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] but when i try it at home, its never this good. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] when i taste pasta like this, i understand why it remains so important to this city. Rome may be the seat of power and religion, but its overwhelmingly a Working Class town. This is simple food that has been elevated over centuries by people making the best of what little they had available. They are rightly proud that their humble food has come to define italy to the entire world. The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Home of the xfinity 10g network. Ive headed five miles out of the city center, using the newly extended metro line. Romans have a reputation for resisting change, and the arrival of this subway in 2014 has shaken up old poor neighborhoods of the city, nowhere more so than centocelle. Im meeting massimiliano whos the editor of italys most prestigious food journal, to find out whats going on. Gentrification is moving in on this neighborhood and food is on the front line. The neighborhood was born during the roman empire. Centocelle is a roman name. Centum cellae. Its One Hundred Jail in english. One hundred jails . Jails. Yeah, exactly. There may never have actually been One Hundred Jails here, but what this area does have is three new subway stations, all within close proximity. This thing changed the game. A lot of people came here to try to invest a bit. Yeah. Is this where were going . Yes, its here. Lets go in and see what hes got. Centocelle has long had a rough reputation. Thats changing fast though, and one place thats seen by some as ground zero for the transformation of the neighborhood is a deli. Vincenzo. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] vincenzo opened this place well before the metro arrived. He wanted to rehabilitate the surrounding lazio regions mediocre reputation for food and bring the best of the countryside back for his neighbors to enjoy at fair prices. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] can i taste some . Si. Pecorino cheese is made from sheeps milk, and rome is famous for it. Historically, the animals were raised all around lazio as a cheaper alternative to cattle and crops. Vincenzo goes a step further than most sellers and searches in some unlikely places for cheese that also helps his community. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] only in italy would an ancient Cheese Recipe be saved by prisoners. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] yeah. Thats delicious. Mm. As well as sheeps milk cheese, pork finds its way into almost every dish ive had in rome. Historically, pigs were raised all around the city because they need less space than other animals. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] to me, vincenzo is doing something amazing. Now people come here from around the city to this once overlooked suburb. But over the past few years, another fifty to sixty food places have opened up nearby. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] romans are renowned for their stubborn resistance to change, i guess its whats kept this City Standing for centuries. But massimiliano wants to show me another cafe in the area, one of many that have opened in recent years. I wasnt fully prepared for what we found. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] its hard to imagine, but a few months ago this place was a thriving cafe and bookshop called la pecora elettrica, the electric sheep. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] on the night of april 25th 2019, alessandras cafe was firebombed. She set about rebuilding her business, but shockingly, the night before she was due to reopen, the attackers struck again. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] three locals businesses have now been attacked like this here in centocelle, including a pizza place and this jazz bar. The police still havent found whos responsible. Because alessandra hosted Community Events at the cafe, including antifascist talks, suspicion has fallen on the far right. But others here blame local criminals protecting their old turf, or even anti gentrification campaigners. Is this happening in other parts of rome too . [ speaking in Foreign Language ] when change happens, romans resist. But whoever did this has made it dangerous to sell food. It seems brutal to attack restaurants and cafes in this city that is united in its love of eating together. Tucked in a curve of the river tiber is testaccio, once known as the belly of rome, home to the old slaughterhouses that supplied nineteenth and Twentieth Century romans with meat. So tell me about this place. This is the ex mattatoio, the retired slaughterhouse. Right. And for about a hundred years until the 1970s, its where most large roman animals were slaughtered, basically from lambs all the way up through steer. This foursquaremile sight will be redeveloped into a cultural area, but for now signs of its former life are everywhere. You can still see the tracks that the carcasses were hung from. Oh, yeah, the tracks for the carcasses, yeah. Katie parla is a Renowned Food writer who swapped new jersey for rome almost twenty years ago. Youve got the Veal Pavilion here. Oh, vitellaria. Skinning happened there. Right. The pelanda. Its an organized place with so many pavilions, covering a vast area, and really influencing the types of foods that would be eaten just across the street at the trattorias of the late nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. In butchery, the animal is quartered and those cuts went straight to the upper and middle class kitchens. Everything thats left over, the blood, brains and intestines, was called the Quinto Quarto the fifth quarter and those were left to the poor. Some workers were even paid in offal, instead of money, so they had little choice but to make the best of it. One restaurant keeping these historic flavors alive and taking them into the twentyfirst century is santopalato. If you know how to cook offal, you can turn the poorest cuts into the richest of dishes. Were hungry, right . Starving follow me. I havent eaten in like an hour. And katie wants me to meet sarah, a young chef with a growing reputation for doing Amazing Things with innards. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] shes gonna make a frittata for us. Right. And its topped with chicken innards. So everything we focus on here, in your restaurant, is offal. Yes. Yes, good. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] one egg per person, okay. Yes. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] oh, yes. Either for breakfast, lunch, dinner, yeah. I like it in a sandwich. Yes, in a sandwich. Thats what i used to take when i was a kid to school. Yeah, very down with that. Chef sarah gave up Medical School to pursue her dream of opening a restaurant. Oh, yes. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] in rome, you find frittatas and chicken organs, but separately. But separate. Yeah, and shes combined them. Yeah. [ speaking in Foreign Language ] oh, wow. Smell it. Oh, yeah. Thats nice. Dont forget about this bread. Oh, wow, yeah, nice and hot too. So good. Mm. Thats great. Thank you. That is great this is really special. And i think its a really good demonstration of what sarah does really well, which is taking roman classic flavors and combining them. Yeah, yeah. In a way thats new, but not like revolutionary or extra contemporary, they just make sense in the cuisine today. Sarah gets her scalpel into some beef heart and we take a seat in the dining room. Whats that . [ speaking in Foreign Language ] so delicious. It really is and really unusual texture too, isnt it. All right, so if we break down what the offal are, we have heart, liver, lungs, stomach. Brain. Brain, sweetbreads. Intestines. Intestines. Snout. Snout. The cartilaginous things on the face. The whole head really if you think about it. The whole head, yeah. If pasta is the first pillar of roman food, the astonishing use of o