Francis: 0:42

well we have, uh, coming up after the break we have Marianne Esposito, who is an expert in Italian food, who has a great cooking show. And actually there's a lot of lectures and you'll hear is a big voice for Italian. Food in America, but also knows a lot about Italian history. And, um, you know, you, you, your family is Italian. Mm-hmm. And I've had many Brooklyn Italian dinners with your family.

Mark: 1:01

Yes, you have.

Francis: 1:01

but I, I was, I was struck by a quote, which I'd like to read to begin today, Uhhuh. And now we're reading from the Star Ledger. this article was in last week, star Ledger. it was an article by Suzanne Zimmer Lauer. She said a renowned filmmaker, Frederico Fellini once said, life is a combination of magic and pasta. And then went on to say the simple form of sustenance Combined flour and liquid has fueled countless generations as a perfect backdrop for almost any type of food, be it sauce, cheese, meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables. If you can boil water your well on your way to a satisfying pasta dinner, it's fast, it's filling, it's readily available, and with a little common sense, it can be the perfect food to serve any number of people. And I will add it is also. Integral. Integral to our history.

Mark: 1:43

Let's go with integral.

Francis: 1:44

In integral to our history.

Mark: 1:45

How's that?

Francis: 1:46

Alright then.

Mark: 1:47

I'm just glad that everybody's back to eating macaroni again.

Francis: 1:50

Oh

Mark: 1:50

my

Francis: 1:50

goodness. It macaroni Brooklyn. Boy. Yeah, I'm, I'm glad they're back here too.

Mark: 1:55

I missed it. I mean, this whole Atkins South Beach zone. Carbs are bad. Carbs are killing you thing. No more fruit, no vegetables. Can't have a banana. It's too high in carbs. It just.

Francis: 2:07

It

Mark: 2:07

didn't make sense.

Francis: 2:07

You know what's really bizarre about this whole low carb thing is that, you know, it's sort of like the whole population in an in an era mirrored what people who have an unhealthy relationship with food do, which is to. Is to binge and swing and, have no moderation.

Mark: 2:21

But, I myself went, you know, went on Atkins for a little while, you know, you have, you have all your friends dropping 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds on this

Francis: 2:28

diet. Yeah. But then dropping dead on the floor and

Mark: 2:30

when be sick to the hospital, that's, uh, well, you know, I'll tell you a little bit about my experience, uh, on, I did the Atkins thing. I did it, uh, three different times in each time, about 10 to 12 weeks. And the first time I went on it. I guess I lost about 25 pounds or so, and I was on it for about 10 to 12 weeks, and at about 10 weeks I really started to feel lousy, you know? And everybody's like, oh, you lost 25 pounds, you feel better. I'm like. No, I, I actually feel worse.

Francis: 2:57

I get winded walking up the stairs,

Mark: 2:58

you know? No, I actually feel worse. You know, my clothes fit me better, but I feel worse. And so I went off the diet and I, you know, I put on about 10 of the, the 25 that I lost, and, you know, I guess about six months went, went on and I said, you know what? I put on about 10 of those 25 that I lost. And I went back on the diet again and again. I lost about 20, so I was now maybe 35 altogether. And. I said, you know what, again, at about eight, 10 weeks right in there, this time I started to feel lousy again and I finally, I said, you know what I got, I actually, actually, I believe it was my wife who begged me to go get off the diet.

Francis: 3:35

So let's see, you ate sausage and lip cream for, for 10 weeks and then you felt lousy. I wonder why that happened. Strange anyway.

Mark: 3:42

And no fruit or vegetables

Francis: 3:43

and Exactly. Hmm. Um, well if you take a step back, uh, and look at it, um. Societally over from the nineties to 2005, we as a society did what people who have an unhealthy relationship with food. Do, which is we went low fat, low fat, low fat. Everything has to be low fat, no fat in the, um, in the nineties, which is very hard to stick to. Mm-hmm. Such an austere spartan. An

4:07

it's

Mark: 4:07

an unreasonable diet.

Francis: 4:08

And then we, you know, we were told, okay, eat all the fat you want and don't have any lettuce, you know? Mm-hmm. And

Mark: 4:14

yeah.

Francis: 4:14

It's, it's unhealthy. I mean, as a society, we mirrored what people did overall. And when Marianne comes on the show, we're gonna talk about the kind of food you grew up with

Mark: 4:21

Sure.

Francis: 4:22

And the kind of food that. If I weren't Irish, I would've grown up with, um, but, but the

Mark: 4:26

kind of who you grew up with when you were in your twenties and you met me?

Francis: 4:29

No, when I, when I, I grew up in a town that was Irish and Italian. You, your thing you do at night was to get invited over your Italian friend's house for dinner. And that was, you're still doing

Mark: 4:36

that,

Francis: 4:36

aren't you? I know I am, but I learned how to cook from my Italian

Mark: 4:38

20 years later. I haven't given up on that one,

Francis: 4:40

but the point of it is, whether it's Italian food or whatever, ethnic food most. Traditions of food provide for a balance of foods. Mm-hmm. And a balanced life.

Mark: 4:49

Right.

Francis: 4:50

And that's what we've sort of gotten away from and with this great abundance that we have in America. If you eat a big pasta dinner and that's your meal for the day, that's, that's not bad. But if you eat a big pasta dinner, but then you have a, you know, four Pop-Tarts for breakfast and two candy bars in the afternoon, well all of a sudden you're not in balance anymore.

Mark: 5:05

We're Americans. If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

Francis: 5:08

Yeah, I know. Well, one of the things we strive for in our restaurant is, to have a balanced. balanced offering of food. And I remember reading in the eighties when we first got into this business that, uh, when they were talking about how restaurant meals are becoming a higher and higher percentage of what people eat. Mm-hmm. And someone very wisely wrote, and I can't remember what article it was in, but they said, we'll, know that restaurants have really come to be a significant part of the American diet when you see vegetables served in restaurants.

Mark: 5:32

Right.

Francis: 5:32

And what do you see now?

Mark: 5:33

Right.

Francis: 5:34

Vegetables. I mean, and we. go to the green market and

Mark: 5:37

mm-hmm.

Francis: 5:37

And the vegetables are seasonal whenever we can, but we have to provide, because people do eat out five nights a week and six nights a week.

Mark: 5:43

Well, you have to have vegetables. Well, that's, you know, that's, that is a reflection of our society though. You now have two parents working, you know, full time. You get home at six o'clock, you gather the kids, you try and spend as much time getting their homework done or taking them off the soccer practice or Mark, mark doing whatever. Yeah.

Francis: 5:57

Mark. I live alone in an apartment in Jersey City. I go out whenever I want.

Mark: 6:01

You do it for fun. Most people do it for necessity.

Francis: 6:04

I know. Isn't it great to be me? I'm very happy about that.

6:07

I've

Mark: 6:07

often said it's great to be, you get to be partners with me.

Francis: 6:09

I have. I have trouble keeping my plants alive. Nevermind you with your four kids. Um. The whole thing is balanced, and we're gonna be talking more about that, an ethnic cuisine with this very intelligent woman, Marianne Esposito, who knows all about Italian food, uh, the American food scene, and Italian history as well. So we hope you stay with us over the break. Don't you dare touch that dial. You're listening to the Restaurant Guy, central Jersey 1450. today we have a very special guest with us. And by way of introduction, just to let you know, if you don't know, and I'm sure that many of you do know who she is, it's a complex sentence. Um, we have Marianne Esposito about to join us. Marianne Esposito is host of a PBS program called Chow Italia, which you should all watch, and it's one of, she's one of America's most loved television chef programs, and an evening with Marianne is the next best, best thing to being in Italy. Uh, her family's Italian. She holds an MA in Italian history and is author of eight cookbooks and teaches in culinary schools throughout Italy. Marianne, hello.

MaryAnn: 6:59

Well chow you guys. I'm having a chuckle just listening to the two of you.

Francis: 7:03

Cia, Marion. Are

MaryAnn: 7:04

you Francesco and Marco today?

Francis: 7:06

I see. See,

MaryAnn: 7:07

let's make it real Italian.

Francis: 7:09

Uh, you know, well, mark can do that. I, I really can't. I'll just be as, I'm his little Irish sidekick. Well,

MaryAnn: 7:13

that's okay. We'll make you Italian today.

Francis: 7:16

There's always a place at the table, right? And on St.

MaryAnn: 7:18

That's right.

Francis: 7:18

And on St. Patrick's Day, Maryanne, you can be Irish as well.

MaryAnn: 7:21

Thank you.

Mark: 7:22

So Maryanne, I have to tell you, you got one of the greatest compliments from my mom and obviously, and, and my mom is my favorite cook. Well,

MaryAnn: 7:29

she should be definitely.

Mark: 7:30

You got one of my, one of my, one of, one of the greatest compliments you possibly could have gotten from my mother. She said, I told her, you're gonna be on a show and she said, Ooh. I like her. She makes real food. Not like that. Emerald. He just makes a mess.

MaryAnn: 7:44

Uhoh,

Francis: 7:46

bam. Hold

Mark: 7:47

your mom for me.

Francis: 7:48

Bam.

Mark: 7:49

I promise I will.

Francis: 7:51

Well actually, um. I was tempted to say, I didn't wanna interrupt, but when Mark said it and his mom was his favorite cook, I was gonna say, you're such a good boy. You would have to pinch my cheeks and you're too far away. But, um, you know, it's funny, we are Marianne actually opening, we run an American fine dining restaurant now. That's, that's,

MaryAnn: 8:06

oh, I know all about you because I was just in Madison and Chatham and I was in my hotel room reading about stage left.

Francis: 8:11

Oh,

MaryAnn: 8:12

your wine list. And they got to review of your restaurants. I know all about you people.

Francis: 8:17

You do your homework, man. She's on the pulse. Uh, well, we're opening a second restaurant called Catherine Lombardi's, which is named after Marsh's Grandmother.

Speaker: 8:24

Yes.

Francis: 8:24

And so what we've done is we have spent the last, um, I don't know, year gathering. I

Mark: 8:30

was gonna say the last 40 years of my life.

Francis: 8:31

Right. But we spent the last year consolidating. All of Mark's family's recipes and, you know, testing them and changing'em for commercial kitchen and, and all that stuff, not changing them too much. Mm-hmm. But in a couple of the recipes that the files that we've gotten from Mark's mom and his aunt. Mm-hmm. What does it say?

Mark: 8:44

Well, I'm, I'm going through the recipes and, and my mother's very meticulous about where a recipe comes from. So, you know, this one comes from your godmother. This one comes from, you know, grandma's uncle. This one comes from wherever, and I'm reading through and I cape on. This one comes from Maryanne Esposito. You made, you made the Pascal family recipe pie. You're

Francis: 9:04

not related to him.

Mark: 9:06

Cap.

MaryAnn: 9:07

See, see, see. Yes. This is capon is what you eat at at Thanksgiving. Mm-hmm. Nevermind Turkey. Who would in an Italian family would eat Turkey when you can have cape on. I mean, if you've never a roasted, a capon, you don't know what you're in for. A Turkey is so common, it's so dry. It's uh, you know, so overdone. But capon is, uh, moist, delicious, and really. For your listeners out there and you too, you should probably add it to your menu and also try it next Thanksgiving.

Francis: 9:32

Really delicious. Well, we we're gonna add your recipe'cause that's what Mark got in the book. You can count on it.

MaryAnn: 9:37

Well now what part of Italy is your family?

Mark: 9:39

Uh, mostly from around the Naples area.

MaryAnn: 9:41

Okay, so you and I are cousins?

Mark: 9:43

Yes.

MaryAnn: 9:43

All right. Smo Kini. See?

Francis: 9:47

Marianne, I, I, we have to ask you now, we have started this radio show. We've only been doing it for about two months now. And, uh, we're having a ton of fun with it. You've been doing this for 16 years?

MaryAnn: 9:56

Yes. Uh, we're actually going to begin production for our 16th season in just a few weeks.

Francis: 10:02

That's a

MaryAnn: 10:02

lot, but I'll tell you, it takes all year just to plan.

Francis: 10:04

That's a lot of material, Marianne.

MaryAnn: 10:05

A lot of material. But, you know, uh, think about it. Italy is a country that has a huge, huge repertoire of. Uh, regional foods and, uh, in a lifetime you could really never cover it all.

Francis: 10:17

Mm-hmm. Marianne, you have a number of books out that people can easily find by, and we're gonna put some links up on our website later on, which is restaurant guys radio.com, where you can find some of Marianne's books and we can recommend some titles and we'll maybe even put, if with your permission, we'll put up that Caponi recipe, if that's all right with you. Um, but where should people go as a, do you have a main website where people can go find out about you?

MaryAnn: 10:36

We have a website that's just uhhow.com and, uh, they can get all the recipes that we've ever done on the last, uh, 15 years of shows. You can find out how to put in an Italian garden, where to get Italian seats, you can go to our wine page.

Speaker: 10:50

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 10:51

We have a very knowledgeable, um, wine expert, Tony, uh, Ventura. Showcases wines from all the various regions of Italy. You can get all kinds of tips. You can travel to Italy with me. You can find out how to do that. So there's all kinds of information on chow italia.com.

Mark: 11:08

So you actually do trips where you, where you bring people with you to Italy?

MaryAnn: 11:10

I take people with me and I put them in a cooking school with me so that they're doing hands on cooking classes. But I don't like to take 40 people.

Mark: 11:18

Right.

MaryAnn: 11:19

I like to take a dozen.

Mark: 11:20

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 11:21

So that they can get a real hands-on. Experience and we begin in the markets of Italy where this stuff comes from, or we take them to a farm or we take them to a, uh, a Pancho or a Casa Fiche. We show them how cheese is made or how pasta is made, and then return them to the classroom. And, uh, they're working with all of the indigenous ingredients from that particular region. It's really a lot of fun.

Francis: 11:44

That's really amazing. Now, if anybody's listening, I don't, you just heard Marianne Esposito say you can go with a dozen people and her to Italy and learn about food in Italy. Listen. I, I, I may go, Marco will gimme off.

MaryAnn: 11:55

When's the next trip? Sign up. Because this year's trip is Toya, which as you boys know, is the he of Italy.

Francis: 12:01

Yes.

MaryAnn: 12:02

And, uh, that trip is full, but the next one is going to Sicily next, uh, September Uhhuh. So you

Francis: 12:07

can

MaryAnn: 12:07

find out about that. Just going on the website

Francis: 12:09

and actually Sicily has a really tr I mean, what's going on in the food scene in Sicily right now is, is it's better now than it's ever been, is it isn't correct.

MaryAnn: 12:16

It's better now than it's ever been because of course transportation has improved. Mm-hmm. Uh, in Sicily, um, food has, has traveled from the mainland to Sicily and from Sicily to the mainland. There's much more of an awareness. There are a lot more travelers going to Sicily today. So, you know, the Sicilians got the message, you know, we've got a beef up, uh, the restaurants, we've gotta beef up the hotels, and, uh, there. Lot of, lots of interest in Italian or Sicilian cooking so that there are cooking schools that you can go to, uh, in Sicily, because remember, Sicily holds the key. Sicily holds the key to all of Italian cooking. If we can say there is such a thing as Italian cooking,

Francis: 12:55

why is Sicily, why does Sicily hold the key?

MaryAnn: 12:57

Well, Sicily. The key, because of course this was the port of entry where all of these invading, uh, countries came first. They settled Sicily. Sicily was the bread basket, for instance, for the Roman army. This is where they went for the wheat fields that before Sicily became a very arid country, all the trees were, uh, fell and it became very arid. But before that, this is where most of the wheat came from, and Sicily was known as the bread basket. Of Italy. So from Sicily, they then went to the mainland.

Francis: 13:25

Wow. We're gonna talk more about this after a short break. For those of you who just tuned in, don't turn that dial. We're talking to Marianne Esposito, uh, who noted author and very famous chef and expert on Italian food in general. You're listening to the restaurant guys, You are back with the restaurant guys, Francis Shot and Mark Pascal, stage left restaurant talking with Marianne Esposito, who is a noted Italian, uh, food expert. Hello again, Marianne.

MaryAnn: 15:36

How are you?

Francis: 15:36

Before the break you were talking about how Sicily is the port of entry, is the key Yes. To to what binds Italian cuisine if there is such a thing. I remember from a little that I read just somewhere recently, um, about there being two different cuisines in Sicily. One sort of that came indigenously and one that's sort of the remnants of, of, of French cooking.

MaryAnn: 15:56

Yes.

Francis: 15:56

Left by the Monzo or the, or the,

MaryAnn: 15:58

by the Monzo. Ah, you did your homework. Very good.

Francis: 16:00

I, you know, I'm for an Irish boy. I read a lot about it.

MaryAnn: 16:02

You know, the Monzo, uh,

Mark: 16:04

he's just trying to catch up.

MaryAnn: 16:05

Was hired as, as someone who would, uh. Cook for the aristocratic Sicilian. So if you ever read the book, the leopard, uh, you get the, uh, you get the sense of what that, what that kind of aristocratic society in, uh, Sicily, uh, was like. And the Zo who was French trained, uh, came to Sicily. And, um, a lot of those dishes, Sicilians today would not recognize. But I remember being in a cooking school in, uh, Ali, where there was a Monzo and, uh, one of the dishes. I recall that he concocted that night was a chicken in champagne sauce. Now that would be nothing that an average Sicilian, um, right.

Speaker: 16:45

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 16:46

You know, would eat. So, but, but basically the underlying culinary history of Sicily is one is a hodgepodge. It's something based on one word. It's called agro dolce. Sweet and sour at the same time. And it comes from the Arabs because the Arabs had terrific influence in Sicily and they brought, uh, the whole idea of the open market to Sicily.

Speaker: 17:11

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 17:11

So that today when you go, uh, to Sicily, you can go to the Illa, which is a very famous open market that's, uh, based on the Arab tradition. And agro doce means that there are many Sicilian dishes that have both a sweet. And sour taste in them. And you know one very well, it's called capta. Of course, you know capta, don't you? Of

Speaker: 17:31

course, of course.

MaryAnn: 17:31

All right. The eggplant salad, it has, that has raisins in it. It has vinegar, it has sugar, it has tomato paste. The perfect example of this, uh, AGU doce, um, defining culinary, part of Sicilian cooking.

Francis: 17:46

These is the capta.

MaryAnn: 17:48

Capta. Yeah. And a wonderful dish with CAPTA is swordfish with a, uh, a sauce of CAPTA over it.

Francis: 17:55

You know, one of the things that's really very interesting is when you talk about people, you know, being a port of entry or a place where a lot of different cuisines came together. Today in a way, we, we, we can look at cuisines of different places, but things can become a little arrested going forward. In the back when you said the Arabs came to Sicily and cooked their food, they couldn't cook their food. They brought their traditions to Sicily. Right. But they dealt with Sicily ingredients. Mm-hmm. And there you have the birth of these new cuisines, which is what's so exciting about a place like Sicily. It's, it's neither Arab, nor is it what was there before the Arabs came.

MaryAnn: 18:25

Well, you had, you had, uh, the Greeks. You had the Venetians, you had the Normans, you had the French, you had the Spanish.

Francis: 18:34

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 18:35

All of them.

Francis: 18:35

And agro doche is, is what sort of separates or distinguishes Sicilian cuisine from maybe the rest of rest of Italian cuisine.

MaryAnn: 18:41

Uh, it has a, it has a, it has, yes. A, a permanence in Sicilian cooking. Yes.

Francis: 18:46

And, and, and does, does that sort of, does the Sicilian cuisine sort of bind all the other Italian regions?

MaryAnn: 18:52

No, not at all.

Francis: 18:52

Well, when we come back, I hope you'll stay with us through the news and when we come back, I would like to talk about some other Italian regions of food. And I would really like to talk about, uh, Italian cooking as it's interpreted by Italian Americans. I think that's a fascinating subject that a lot of our listeners would like to hear about.

Mark: 19:05

Marianne, you've been on, you've been on the air for 16 seasons before there was a TV food network. Yes. I know there was Marianne Esposito.

MaryAnn: 19:12

It's kind of dating me, isn't it?

Francis: 19:14

Wisdom, Marianne. Wisdom.

MaryAnn: 19:17

Yes. You know, when I started, there were no Italian cooking shows. There was the Julia Child mm-hmm. Um, the Frugal Gourmet and, uh, the Galloping Gourmet. And then, uh, a long came chow and I'm, I'm happy to say that it's now the longest running of any cooking show on television.

Mark: 19:37

All right. Congratulations to you.

MaryAnn: 19:38

We've got some really good viewers who've stuck with us, uh, these 16 years, but. Uh, but it just goes back to emphasize the point that I made earlier that, you know, we'll never cover

Mark: 19:47

mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 19:47

The whole topic.

Mark: 19:48

There's a lot, there's a lot of ground to cover.

MaryAnn: 19:50

Exactly.

Mark: 19:50

Well, you know, I wanna talk a little bit about, you know, contemporary Italian American food.

MaryAnn: 19:56

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 19:56

You know, our relatives came over, you know, at the turn of the century and they had their traditions and the foods that they cooked. Mm-hmm. And they adapted them to, you know, the foods that were available here. A lot of which were similar. Right. Uh, adapted'em to the foods that were here and that's kind of gone its own way and evolved its own way. But at the same time, Italian food has continued to evolve.

Speaker: 20:16

Yeah.

Mark: 20:17

And not necessarily on parallel lines. I, I'd love for you to talk to us a little bit about. Where you see, you know them converging and where you see them diverging?

MaryAnn: 20:26

Well, Italian American food I think really got, uh, its start not just with our immigrants coming over and making do with what they could find here, but also I think a big push for that came after World War ii. When the GIS returned home

Mark: 20:42

mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 20:42

Because they, many of them were, were stationed in Naples.

Mark: 20:46

Right. So they had a whole new exposure.

MaryAnn: 20:48

Right. So they had a whole new exposure and they were bringing home stories about the pizza that they had.

Mark: 20:53

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 20:53

Uh, with anchovies and with pepperoni and with, uh, and they were talking about spaghetti and meatballs. And of course when they got back, their families wanted to, you know, do these recipes.

Mark: 21:06

Right. Emulate as much as they could.

MaryAnn: 21:07

Right. And so this is how this evolved, but Italian American food is something that Italians would just not recognize.

Mark: 21:14

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 21:15

I'm convinced of that. For instance, whenever I see an Auntie Pasta in an Italian American restaurant, I want to gag because, uh, you know, nobody in Italy is going to serve you canned a black olives. You're not going to get a wedge of, iceberg lettuce.

Speaker: 21:30

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 21:31

You're not going to have chunks of cheddar cheese.

Speaker: 21:33

Right.

MaryAnn: 21:33

Things like this, this, and, and yet if you are not Italian or you have not had the experience of being in Italy, you accept this

Speaker: 21:42

mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 21:42

As what is Italian food and thereby, you know, the myth is created. One of my favorite foods that has gone awry in this country are cannoli.

Speaker: 21:52

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 21:53

As you know, cannoli are the signature queen of all the desserts in Sicily.

Francis: 21:58

I need, I need to interject an amusing story. You know,

MaryAnn: 22:00

mark. Okay, go ahead.

Francis: 22:01

Because Mark is on the quest, always on a quest for the perfect can. I mean wherever we go. Okay.

MaryAnn: 22:06

I, I hit on a good topic.

Francis: 22:08

You did.

Mark: 22:08

It doesn't always serve me well.

Francis: 22:10

And Mark is married to a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent white Anglo-Saxon Protestant woman who's a friend of mine, but whose family eats everything well done and broiled for a long time. May as well be Irish. Right?

MaryAnn: 22:20

Well, you know, people flock to these pastry shops in this country to buy cannoli. Mm-hmm. And they're these thick lead pipes. Yeah.

Francis: 22:26

And Mark.

MaryAnn: 22:27

You know, dark is dark and be,

Francis: 22:29

and Mark Mark's a debunker of the, of the good cannoli myth.

MaryAnn: 22:31

Right. And they're, they're loaded with some soupy pastry cream.

Francis: 22:35

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 22:35

Now a real cannoli is a thin blistered golden brown shell, I mean, really thin. And it's filled traditionally with sheep's milk. Were caught to cheese. Mm-hmm. Citrin, some pistachio nuts and maybe bits of chocolate. Now that's a real good leak, right?

Mark: 22:56

Yep. Right.

MaryAnn: 22:56

And when you bite into it, it should just shatter down the

Mark: 22:59

mm-hmm. It snaps. That's that, that's exactly the story

Francis: 23:02

forensic gonna tell. So we're, we're in, we're in Verona. We were to a wine conference called in Italy that. Seen Italy,

MaryAnn: 23:07

which is going on right now.

Francis: 23:08

I know, I know. We just, we missed this year. We couldn't go for a couple of reasons, but we go pretty much every other year to Italy. Most

Mark: 23:12

you, you're listening to One of the reasons Marianne, that we couldn't go

Francis: 23:15

the radio show. The

MaryAnn: 23:16

radio

Francis: 23:17

No.'cause we have a radio show now. So we, it was the first time or the second time we were ever in Verona together. Not Verona, New Jersey, but Verona in Italy. Oh, Italy, yes. And uh, we found this little pastry shop. And Mark, we get some cannolis and we were walking around in the afternoon and we had taken it an afternoon off from working and we're walking with Mark's wife and Mark and I are walking down the street and what we stop and we get some pastries and Mark takes a bite of a cannoli. And he's speechless and he and his mouth is full of cannoli and he keeps pointing at his face and he keeps pointing at his face. And finally what we realized is that Mark wants us to listen to his cheek so we can hear the crunch that's happening. Right. As if this is what a cannolis supposed to sound

Mark: 23:54

like because it's supposed to just crumble and fall apart.

MaryAnn: 23:56

Absolutely.

Mark: 23:57

That's what's supposed to happen.

MaryAnn: 23:58

That's exactly right. And you, so you would never fill a cannoli shell until you were just about ready to

Mark: 24:03

fill until you eat it. I still don't understand.

Francis: 24:06

Would you dress the salad six hours before

Mark: 24:07

you Exactly the same thing.

MaryAnn: 24:09

Yes. Well, you know, and, and that brings me to the, to what you were asking earlier about regional cooking, and I always tell people when you travel to Italy, eat what that region is known

Mark: 24:18

for. Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 24:18

You don't go to Florence to have pizza. You go to Florence to have BCA and beans.

Speaker: 24:23

Mm-hmm. You

MaryAnn: 24:23

don't go to Naples to have steak. You go to Naples to have. Pizza, eat what those regions are noted for. Right. At one time, you could divide the map of Italy into three distinct regions. You had the north, the center, and the South. Mm-hmm. The North Northerners were known as the the Manja polenta because they ate polenta and rice. That was the staple of their, uh, diet. This the central region of Italy, they were referred to as Manja fa Joli because they were bean eaters. They eat a lot of cantini beans. And the Southerners were known as Manja Macaroni because macaroni was the basis of that, uh, cuisine. But what what has happened over the last 20 years is that people have traveled and that the infra infrastructure of Italy has become better and better so that people from the north traveled to the south and vice versa. So now you find risotto in Sicily where at one time you could only find it in the north and you find Sicilian capta. In Tara and, and Southern, uh, specialties in the north were once you only found it in the south. So travel has made food, become kind of, all encompassing all over, uh, Italy and Sicily. Now,

Francis: 25:30

you were talking about. what's going on in Italy now is the advances in transportation there, it different Italian cuisines themselves are cross-pollinating and moving.

MaryAnn: 25:39

That's right.

Francis: 25:39

One of the things that Mark and I have talked about in the show a lot is how, when immigrants move to a new country, like Italian or Irish immigrants mm-hmm. You know, their, not their view of Italian cuisine may change a little for being here, but the vision that gets passed down generationally is a snapshot. Of something that may be a hundred year old picture of, in my case, Ireland and in Mark's case, Italy.

Speaker: 25:58

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 25:59

And you know what? People tend not to, to realize that the cuisine, the, their grandmother's cuisine continued to evolve in Italy. Mm-hmm. For the last a hundred years while we've changed over here. And if you were to go back. To the region where that, that food came from. It might, they, they're not gonna be cooking exactly the same way they were a hundred years ago.

MaryAnn: 26:18

Well, I think you've hit on something that's, that's a very disturbing factor in Italy right now, is that the, it's, it's very true. That, excuse me, the Nonas of the previous generations, they were home. They were, they were making food by hand.

Speaker: 26:32

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 26:32

But the subsequent generations are in the workforce. Women no longer are at home. They need, there's a need for a two paycheck, uh, in Italy. So the so families work so that they're out there in the workforce, that means nobody's home making tortellini, or, excuse me, homemade pasta or polenta. So now you go to the, excuse me, the super marto. The supermarket to buy these things.

Speaker: 26:57

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 26:57

And there's a whole generation of Italians growing up not knowing their culture.

Francis: 27:02

Sure.

MaryAnn: 27:02

And I'll give you a perfect example. In the city of Peja, which I know you have visited in Umbria, I was actually in a seed store and I was, I was looking for, um, semi zuka because I wanted to make, uh, something called tortilla deka, which is a, a ravioli filled with a sweet, uh, pumpkin, uh, filling.

Mark: 27:20

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 27:21

And I'm already crushed up. I'm already cookies. Now I'm in the store and I'm talking to the woman and I'm telling her what I want. So finally she gets these seeds for me and she says, now what are you going to do with that? And I said, well, I'm gonna make the the torte Zuka. And you know what she says to me? Now, this is a native.

Speaker: 27:36

Which,

MaryAnn: 27:36

how do you do that? Only reinforce what I have known for a long time.

Speaker: 27:41

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 27:42

That the Italians are losing part of their traditional culture.

Speaker: 27:46

Mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 27:46

They're losing part of their cuisine as the influences of our country are there and other countries as fast food moves into Italy. Right. You know, at one time, all the little mom and. Supermarkets, the little stories that you would go to individually, they were all there. Now they're being just, they're being destroyed because the super meti, the cop, the big, you know, like the BJs and the, and, and the Sam's Clubs

Francis: 28:08

mm-hmm.

MaryAnn: 28:08

Are coming to Italy, which is sad. So, uh, when that woman said that to me, I realized, you know, that I still have a mission with Calia and that is to preserve traditional foods.

Francis: 28:18

You know, one of the interesting things about. Italy is, is that, uh, it's the, it's the place where the Slow food movement was founded, and that's an organization that we support and you can find out more information about slow food. Uh, on our website, we, we have it up there. That's a great, uh, organization of like-minded people like Marianne and like we who believe, even though I'm not Italian, I believe in trying to preserve traditional to keep differences because with all this great abundance and transportation that we have, there is a danger that comes with that. Not that the best foods can make it to you wherever you are, but that all foods will start to taste alike as things sort of homogenize. And that's something that we've, that we really fight against. One of the things that we've noticed in this country, Marianne, is we own a, a fairly urban restaurant. We're right in the middle of downtown New Brunswick. And

MaryAnn: 29:00

I know I'm gonna come there when I come to state theater.

Francis: 29:02

You can't wait. Oh, terrific. Well, we'll keep after the break. We'll, we'll talk about when you're gonna come. We'd love to sit with you and, uh, maybe take this further without a microphone. Break

Mark: 29:10

some break.

MaryAnn: 29:11

Okay, good.

Francis: 29:11

Um, but one of the things that we've noticed being, you know, we have friends who own sort of more country restaurants, like the Ryland Inn is a beautiful country restaurant, but we were always like in the heart of downtown New Brunswick, a very kind of urban, slick restaurant. Hopefully we're slick. Um, and so we never got, 13 years ago when we began, we didn't get the Easter business. We didn't get the Christmas Eve business so much. Mm-hmm. We didn't get the Thanksgiving business. We thought about not even being open on those holidays, but now. We're full on those holidays,

MaryAnn: 29:38

right? Yeah. That's because nobody cooks.

Francis: 29:39

That's because the grandmother or the great-grandmother finally said, you know what? I'm too old. I'm not gonna cook anymore. And there was no one to take it up.

MaryAnn: 29:46

That's right. Or, or they've passed away and there's no one to take it up. Mm-hmm.

Francis: 29:48

And so, and so we feel with Americana, we get involved in, in the ARC project of slow food around here and we get the point of our restaurant in our show is. We try to keep the culinary American culinary traditions alive.

Mark: 30:00

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 30:00

And it, it's fallen on people like us because people do turn into the, the, the television food network and, and to watch your show or to come to our restaurant.'cause people are curious about this and it's not in their own families anymore. So we have a pretty weighty responsibility.

MaryAnn: 30:12

That's right. I think that's, uh, another reason why the show has survived so long is that when people see me making bread or pasta by hand, it's a connection for them. Mm-hmm. It, it, it stirs something up in them because of their response is, oh, you know, when you did that, I remember my mother doing this, or I remember my grandmother doing this. Um. It's a connection to the way things were, and that's not a bad thing.

Mark: 30:35

Mm-hmm. No, I, I, you know, but like Francis was saying, as a restaurant, I, I almost feel a responsibility now to, to maintain some of the traditions of my family and, and you know, we're open opening this restaurant, Catherine Lombardi. I. And I feel great about that. I feel great that, that some of the traditional handmade methods of, of making some of these things are, are gonna continue because the, because in, in the home they can't continue like, like, like we talked about, you know, there's two people working, you're running from event to event and it, it's very, very difficult to, for people to make these things on a regular basis. Obviously we all can make, you know, the occasional, you know. Bread at home or the occasional recipe at home, but it, but it's becoming more and more difficult.

MaryAnn: 31:16

Well, you know, I, I can forgive people the. Aren't making bread at home because I understand, you know, the time consumption for making bread. Mm-hmm.

Mark: 31:24

But

MaryAnn: 31:25

to make a simple meal,

Mark: 31:26

right? We

MaryAnn: 31:26

can find a lot of excuses why we don't have the time to cook. We have time to watch tv, go to the movies, do other things. If you were organized and knew how to multitask, you could make a meal. And, and it's short order. And that is the topic of my new cookbook, which is coming out this fall.

Mark: 31:43

Great.

MaryAnn: 31:43

What's the name of your new cookbook? Chait Pronto. And it particularly hits this segment of society. Mm-hmm. People who are overstressed, overworked, don't know where to begin. When they get in the kitchen at night, they're too tired. How can you turn out decent good food in a short amount of time? I wrote this book to show you how

Mark: 32:01

that's great. You know, I, I never understood why someone will go and buy a, a Domino's pizza instead of, you know, throwing a, a pound of pasta on and, and tossing some tomatoes in it and some fresh basil, little garlic and, you know, in, in almost a time, it clean takes you to clean up the pizza box. You can have something that's, that's good and tasty and real.

MaryAnn: 32:22

That's right. And you know what's in it. You know what's in it. I, I think that that's so true. I think it comes down to how you organize in your mind, what you do in the kitchen and can you be a multitasker and do you think ahead, I think part that's all part of cooking, thinking ahead, knowing how to multitask. Having certain ingredients on hand at all times that are there right at the ready that you can just grab and make something very quickly.

Mark: 32:46

I mean, my mother and grandmother, they always had certain staples in the kitchen.

MaryAnn: 32:49

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 32:49

Well, and there are other things. We, we put a lot of fruit up in the, in the summertime mm-hmm. To have for the winter. And when you start putting things away, you can make things in fairly large batches that are good for you.

MaryAnn: 32:57

That's right.

Francis: 32:57

It takes, you know, a weekend to make enough stuff for to last you six months.

MaryAnn: 33:01

That's right. You know? Or if you are home on the weekend, try to think about cooking for a few days during the week.

Francis: 33:06

Exactly.

MaryAnn: 33:06

Even if you had to succumb to getting a rotisserie chicken in your grocery store that's already cooked, think of what you can do with that chicken,

Francis: 33:13

right? Mm-hmm. Right. You can

MaryAnn: 33:14

make chicken salads, you could do a chicken pot pie. You could use the bones to make a very quick stock. Right. There's many things you could do with it. People just need to think, you know. It. They need to multitask.

Francis: 33:26

we need to take our leave of you. Maryanne, thank you for taking time, talking with

Mark: 33:29

us, us

MaryAnn: 33:29

today, Mary, you chow Chao Chow

Francis: 33:32

Chow Damo. Uh, you'll be back with a restaurant, guys and an Irish guy trying to talk Italian, uh, in just a moment.

Mark: 34:30

and today we had the delightful Marianne Esposito of the PBS series. Chow Italia been running for 16 years.

Francis: 34:37

you know, when I was talking to Marianne about family traditions and about you and your family traditions, I'm reminded of Dale Degra, who we had on the show just recently, who's probably the preeminent barman well in the world, probably. And, uh, I was out to dinner with Dale. We were out on Long Island with our friends, Barbara and David, who all have also been on the show And we were talking about putting up stuff. We put things up in the summertime, we put up fruit and tomatoes, et cetera, and so forth. Mm-hmm. And we were sitting around the dinner table, and of course, you know, David's a chef and Barbara, they made me this fabulous dinner and Dale was making cocktails. And we were talking about putting up fruit. And Dale told this wonderful story about his Italian grandmother who put up fruit while raising all these kids and their grandkids. And then when they moved away, she still had this big garden in the back where she grew tomatoes. And every year she would put up tomatoes and she'd put up tomato sauce and she, our tomato sauce. And she passed away. And what Dale said was, you know, this stuff gets better if you do it right. Mm-hmm. As the years go on, it not only keeps, it improves, like one,

Mark: 35:28

well it won't go on forever, but

Francis: 35:30

Right. But for a while. Anyway, Dale uh, told us that they, they got to the last jar of his grandmother's tomato sauce like seven years after she passed away. And the whole family got together and opened the last star of tomato sauce. That's awesome. And said it was the best tomato sauce they ever had in their life.

Mark: 35:44

I

Francis: 35:44

almost cried. Of course, I'd had four Manhattans, so maybe that's why I almost, it just was much more touching.

Mark: 35:49

my aunt had some, some eggplant Parmesan in the freezer, uhhuh, kind of a different story.

Francis: 35:54

Okay.

Mark: 35:55

From my, from my grandmother about seven years after she passed away.

Francis: 35:58

In the freezer.

Mark: 35:59

In the freezer. And she said, what should I do with it? It's like, was like something out of sopranos. She's like, it was her last egg plant. Parmesan. I'm like. You gotta throw it away.

Francis: 36:07

Is it still there? Did she throw it away? No,

Mark: 36:08

it's gone. It's gone. Thank goodness.

Francis: 36:10

Well, we hope that you've enjoyed your last hour talking with Marianne Esposito about Italian food and Italian American food. I am Francis Shot.

Mark: 36:17

And I'm Mark Pascal.

Francis: 36:17

We are the restaurant guy, central Jersey 1450.