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If you can't travel to Italy, they bring Italy to you ...

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If you can't travel to Italy, they bring Italy to you ...

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Old Feb 6, 2021, 4:10 pm
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If you can't travel to Italy, they bring Italy to you ...

Or your TV at least.

CNN 6-part series on Italy starring Stanley Tucci, starting on Sunday Feb 14, 2021.

Sounds like they will feature food a lot. Well it is Italy after all ...
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Old Feb 7, 2021, 10:40 am
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Here’s to hoping that it becomes available on Netflix or something like that soon. I don’t know about you but I’ve been missing uncle Tony Bourdain a LOT lately. I’ve got all 12 series of Parts Unknown committed to memory but I’d love for somebody like him to surface out... could Stanley Tucci be it? Moderately hopeful.
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Old Feb 15, 2021, 10:27 am
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Originally Posted by 13901
Here’s to hoping that it becomes available on Netflix or something like that soon. I don’t know about you but I’ve been missing uncle Tony Bourdain a LOT lately. I’ve got all 12 series of Parts Unknown committed to memory but I’d love for somebody like him to surface out... could Stanley Tucci be it? Moderately hopeful.
You can buy the Parts Unknown, as individual shows or per series (seasons). At least in America. It's also available for subscribers of the HBO Max streaming service. Not sure if that's available outside of America but they sure have a lot of international shows such as Patria and Gomorrah.

This show if it proves popular, may follow a similar trajectory.

I was surprised to learn that they filmed it last summer. I thought maybe they had filmed it before the pandemic and they finally got it edited and ready for air. But I guess they allowed some Americans into Italy to film a TV show.

This webpage lists the places or restaurants featured in each episode:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/s...nts/index.html
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Old Feb 15, 2021, 10:37 am
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Gordon Ramsey and Andrew Zimmermann both have cable TV series that are a bit reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain. IIRC they're on NatGeo (not Travel or Food).
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Old Feb 15, 2021, 11:31 am
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Originally Posted by exp
You can buy the Parts Unknown, as individual shows or per series (seasons). At least in America. It's also available for subscribers of the HBO Max streaming service. Not sure if that's available outside of America but they sure have a lot of international shows such as Patria and Gomorrah.

This show if it proves popular, may follow a similar trajectory.

I was surprised to learn that they filmed it last summer. I thought maybe they had filmed it before the pandemic and they finally got it edited and ready for air. But I guess they allowed some Americans into Italy to film a TV show.

This webpage lists the places or restaurants featured in each episode:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/s...nts/index.html
Netflix here in the UK has all 12 seasons and I watch them over and over. I still quite haven't found anything as multi-faceted as Parts Unknown.
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Old Feb 15, 2021, 11:48 am
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I haven't watched every episode of Parts Unknown but he's trying to show experiences that he as an insider can have. He may know these people well or they made accommodations because he was famous and he was going to promote their business or their city as a tourist destination.

So he's often having private dinners with families, getting dishes that a typical tourist would not get in the places featured in the show. It's interesting but it's certainly not practical or representative to people who are watching to get a sense of these places, for potentially visiting themselves.

OTOH, they used to maintain websites with practical information, with list of restaurants and sample itinerary that isn't the one Tony took on the show. For instance, I recall reading these supplementary info about Portugal or Puglia and it gave trip ideas you could actually use.

You saw some of that in the first episode of this Searching for Italy show. For instance, a restaurant owner comes down to pick up Tucci from the port in Ischia and drive him up to their restaurant in the mountains, which he dines with the family which runs the restaurant. Obviously a typical tourist won't get that if they visit. Or in other segments, he got to see buffalo mozzarella being made or where San Maranzo tomatoes are grown. Or he got an audience with a famous pastry chef who shows how he makes his creations and they toast to locally made limoncello.

But they did feature him going to actual restaurants and the website above shows the places he visited -- they don't name them in the show. Some of them happen to be in very scenic settings so they'd be appealing even if the food wasn't as great as raved about.

The other thing is Bourdain's narration had some poetic flourishes that Tucci's narration didn't have, at least in this first episode. It was good but he wasn't trying to turn a phrase often.
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Old Mar 30, 2021, 9:21 am
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Recipes of dishes featured in season 1 of the show.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/s...pes/index.html

Looking forward to trying them, made at the restaurants, not made by me.
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Old May 20, 2021, 4:39 pm
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
Gordon Ramsey and Andrew Zimmermann both have cable TV series that are a bit reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain. IIRC they're on NatGeo (not Travel or Food).
Gordon Ramsey similar to Bourdain? Good god he must be spinning in his grave. Not by a long shot. Zimmermann is a bit more so though his approach differs quite a bit from Bourdain, especially if you watch Bourdain's later shows. Not to say I dislike either of them I just don't see even a glimmer of Bourdain's insight into the people in Ramsey. Zimmermann shies away from it a bit but from the glimmers I've seen in his shows he definitely shares it.
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Old Sep 29, 2022, 8:13 pm
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Stanley returns on Sunday October 9th….
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Old Dec 16, 2022, 1:56 pm
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Originally Posted by BoredBiz
Gordon Ramsey similar to Bourdain? Good god he must be spinning in his grave. Not by a long shot. Zimmermann is a bit more so though his approach differs quite a bit from Bourdain, especially if you watch Bourdain's later shows. Not to say I dislike either of them I just don't see even a glimmer of Bourdain's insight into the people in Ramsey. Zimmermann shies away from it a bit but from the glimmers I've seen in his shows he definitely shares it.
Anyone who hasn’t already feasted on them should dig into Bourdain’s books, not the cookery books, the real ones. Utterly brilliant 🤩
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