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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown: Sicily
Aired December 22, 2015 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST: We go up this beautiful mountain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incredible town.
BOURDAIN: It goes back to the 12th century. People try to jump the hill to the beautiful church to take the walk that Michael Corleone took. Now and forever more it will be sort of the "Godfather" theme park where they're just playing the "Godfather" theme over and over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the most thoughtful Sicilians are disgusted by this.
BOURDAIN: Imagine not waking up every day.
As one bus after another filled with Japanese tourists go up there, oh, look, Michael Corleone got married there. Oh, it's so fantastic.
(MUSIC)
It's one of the most beautiful places in Europe, a place whose roots are very much the roots of the town where I live, but somehow I've never been able to get it right. To tell the story, any story of Sicily. It's the biggest island in the Mediterranean. Two main towns of Palermo and Catania on opposite sides.
I've done a show in Palermo before. It was an epic goat rodeo, a failure of humiliating scale. This time I was going to get it right.
There's the Sicily we know from films -- an evocative, deeply felt history that's not quite reality but cool anyway, right? There's the simple fact of its location, tucked away under the boot of Italy, part of but not really part of that country.
Its own language, culture, its own history of Norman, Arab, Spanish, Roman, Turkish, Egyptian interlopers, all leaving their mark and their influence.
I grew up in New Jersey which was pretty much Sicily on the Hudson. The Italian-Americans next door weren't from Milan, I could tell you that much. I guess what I'm telling you is I figured this will be easy. Villa Monaci delle Terre Nere, a certified Agriturismo, meaning it's a hotel, restaurant and working farm that in this case produces olive oil.
How many acres of property do you have?
GUIDO ALESSANDRO, OWNER, VILLA MONACI DELLE TERRE NERE: About 40 acres. It's one of the oldest organic farm mountains.
BOURDAIN: This is Guido, the proprietor.
Wow. So that's where potatoes come from.
How freaking hard can it be to make an awesome show in Sicily? Eat the nice food, drink the wine. In an idyllic villa in the countryside, outside Catania. How low-impact can it get?
So the plan was we go fishing. We get some fresh octopus, maybe some cuttlefish, explore the bounties of the surrounding waters, all while working on our tans. With a local chef, fishermen, man of the sea. He's experienced. He knows where to get it good.
TURE: You like the ocean?
BOURDAIN: I love it. How do you say it in Italian?
TURE: Ricci.
BOURDAIN: Ricci. Yes.
TURE: Ricci de mare.
BOURDAIN: It's one of my favorite things to eat.
This is Turin, my host.
What else is out there? Octopus?
TURE: Octopus, now it's cuttlefish and I like -- I want to try to find some small apalone, we call it (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: Nice.
TURE: And there's the clams. Here the water is still cold. I think they will be really full.
BOURDAIN: I'm thinking, really? Are these prime fishing waters? I don't know about this. With all this boat traffic and all these people, so close to the action I can't see much of anything living down there.
TURE: OK. Let's anchor. We anchor here.
BOURDAIN: But I am famous for my optimism so I dutifully suited up for what was advertised as a three-hour cruise. So I get in the water, and I'm paddling around. And splash. Suddenly there's a dead sea creature sinking slowly so the seabed in front of me.
Are they kidding me? I'm thinking, can this be happening? Splash, there's another one. Another rigor mortis half-frozen freaking octopus but it goes on. One dead cuttlefish, deceased octopus, frozen sea urchin after another, splash, splash, splash. Each specimen drops among the rocks or along the sea floor, to be heroically discovered by Turin moments later and proudly shown off to camera, like I'm not actually watching as this confederate in the next boat over hurls them into the water one after another.
I'm no marine biologist, but I know dead octopus when I see one. Pretty sure they don't drop from the sky and then sink straight to the bottom.
TURE: How many do we have? Three?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TURE: OK. I tried to get some patate now and also small (INAUDIBLE) abalone.
BOURDAIN: Strangely everyone pretends to believe the hideous sham unfolding before our eyes, doing their best to ignore the blindingly obvious.
TURE: (INAUDIBLE). Don't swim at it.
BOURDAIN: Then they gave up and just dumped the whole bag of dead fish into the sea. At this point I begin desperately looking for signs of life, hoping that one of them would stir, become revived. I'm frantically swimming around the bottom littered with dead things looking for one that's still twitching so can I hold it up to the camera and end this misery, but, no, my shame will be absolute.
For some reason I feel something snap, and I slide quickly into a spiral of near hysterical depression.
Is this what it's come to, I'm thinking, as another dead squid narrowly misses my head? Almost a decade later back in the same country, and I'm still desperately staging fishing scenes, seeding the oceans with supermarket seafood, complicit in a shameful, shameful incident of fakery?
But there I was, bobbing listlessly in the water. Dead sea life sinking to the bottom all around me. You've got to be pretty immune to the world to not see some kind of obvious metaphor.
I've never had a nervous breakdown before, but I tell you from the bottom of my heart something fell apart down there, and it took a long, long time after the end of this damn episode to recover.
TURE: (INAUDIBLE) longer, we don't need to boil. We'll be ready without it. (Speaking in foreign language). I'm cleaning it. Only the fish eat this part. Who wants to eat this one?
BOURDAIN: Raw clams, abalone and a heart-warming beet sea surrounded by a gaggle of curious and hungry kids. It was at this point about the only positive way for Turin to redeem himself.
You'll notice, I'm not there. I'm sitting in a nearby cafe pounding one Negrone after in a smoldering miserable rage.
Our evening meal will be at Ture's place, (INAUDIBLE), which is just up the hill in Turmina, but by the time dinner rolls around, I'm ripped to the -- did I mention it's my birthday? I've had three hours of bobbing around on a pitching boat, a couple
more hours getting looped, two more hours lying on the sidewalk outside the restaurant while the crew hangs light so I'm gone, baby, gone. I don't remember any of this. Any of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So how is your day today?
BOURDAIN: It's good. A nice boat trip. A little swim.
I would be told later that a gentleman named Tomaso that joined me for dinner. Also someone on the crew mentioned that his wife was present and that she didn't say much. Presumable because this was not her preferred way to spend her birthday.
TURE: Hi.
BOURDAIN: Hi.
TURE: Tony. This is my passion. I like to find that whole variety of olive and one of this is white.
BOURDAIN: So that's the original?
TURE: Yes, the original. You don't find it anyplace else.
BOURDAIN: Apparently there were these white olives harvested from some secret tree only Ture knows about. Maybe it's next to his secret fishing hole. There was great Sicilian wine apparently, and apparently I drank quite a lot of it.
There was bread and olive oil. Abalone served raw in the shell, baby sardine called vionata (ph), also served raw with a splash of citrus and salt.
TURE: And this is (INAUDIBLE), the baby sardine, totally raw without no match ingredients to taste better the fish. Salud.
BOURDAIN: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you ask a Sicilian, right, say where you come from? The correct answer should be I'm Italian.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. We say I'm Sicilian.
BOURDAIN: Why? Is Sicily, Italy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Should it be?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know, but we used to have influence from Britains, Normans, Arab, Spanish, so basically we are a mix. We're a blender.
BOURDAIN: Oh, look, my octopus. I remember personally catching that one. It was a mighty struggle, too. No, actually I don't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The octopus.
BOURDAIN: Really? Beautiful little shrimp. Very tender, the octopus, very nice.
And another traditional specialty. I'm told they call this tuna tartar. And cuttlefish, recognize you, my friend. Now (INAUDIBLE) like this, how traditional is this to Sicily?
TURE: I think from the part of the sea they almost eat a roll.
BOURDAIN: Always?
TURE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: But fisherman only, fishing communities only or in restaurants? Always since long as you've been alive. You go to a restaurant you see crudo like this?
TURE: No. I see crudo in the poor families.
BOURDAIN: So it's not like this Japanese influence, but the Japanese sort of gave everybody permission to eat traditional foods, their own traditional foods. What are the great mother Sicilian classic dishes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The anchovy. Anchovy and parmegiana.
TURE: Pasta colisarde (ph).
BOURDAIN: OK, that's --
TURE: I think this is -- for me --
BOURDAIN: That's with the sardine.
TURE: Yes. But it's an explosion of flower, because at this plate -- there is Arab. Born in the period when Sicily was very poor.
BOURDAIN: This I like. I even remember it. Pasta (INAUDIBLE), actually a true Sicilian classic made with fennel, pine nuts, saffron and anchovy. Served alongside some sardines that have been curing in chestnuts and salt for days, then lightly fried in oil.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to use our hand. We have to use our hand to eat the fish.
BOURDAIN: No problem.
I must have slump back to bed somehow, collapsed in a sodden drunken heap of self-loathing. I would ordinarily have turned on the porn challenge and maybe loaded up on prescription meds. But there's no TV at the Agriturismo. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: I love the films "Godfather 1" and "Godfather 2" but they had nothing to do with any organized crime from reality. They're opera. Magnificent opera but basically a morality tale about loyalty and destroying the things you claim to love and want to protect.
Actual organized crime members generally speaking a bunch of spectacularly (ph) uneducated lazy ass sociopaths who have no problem stealing from their own harder working neighbors. Here in Sicily they are interested and less glamorous than gambling and prostitution. They are and have and traditionally have been a gigantic parasitical organization, one that has now grown to be of mere equal size as its host.
Mary Taylor Simeti is originally from New York, but she's been living here in Palermo for half a century now. She's a food writer and at one time a reformer for social justice which is a dicey thing to be here.
You've been here all this time? Well, why?
MARY TAYLOR SIMETI, FOOD WRITER: Well, I came for a year. So it's going to be a year between college and graduate school. I just finished college. I met a man, and therein lies the why. I married a Sicilian and have been here ever since.
BOURDAIN: Piccolo Napoli is a restaurant like a lot of others around here except for the quality of its food.
Tell me about where are, first of all.
SIMETI: OK. The father and mother of the present owner opened this in 1951 when there was a wonderful photograph there on the wall of the opening day. It started as really a tavern and has become a well- known and much appreciated restaurant now. Now it's very straightforward Sicilian cooking at its best.
BOURDAIN: We start with some typical things, the kind of things I deeply love, the kind of simple good things that make me happy. Panelli which is a fritter made from chickpeas, some caponata, a sweet and sour eggplant dish, kind of like ratatouille but more Arab in influence. A plate of olives husband white wine produced from a small batch vineyard run by Mary and her husband.
This is a panelli?
SIMETI: Panelli. Chickpea flour probably comes in with the Arabs, maybe even earlier, because chickpeas have been around for a long time.
And this is the famous caponata. About as Sicilian as it gets.
SIMETI: Yes. That's caponata canoli. Internationally known Sicilian dishes.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
This is what I've been waiting for. This is what I wanted Sicily to be, something to soothe my shattered soul. It doesn't take much, a bowl of good pasta. In this case the famous spaghetti al nero di sepia, spaghetti and cuttlefish, also some (INAUDIBLE) pasta with swordfish, eggplant and tomatoes. Oh, beautiful. Perfect. Perfect pasta. Very happy with that.
SIMETI: Good. I know you've been looking forward to it so I'm glad it's good. It's an expensive city for some things because the consumer is paying --
BOURDAIN: More.
SIMETI: More so that the store can afford to pay its extortion money. The big change that has happened is that up until the mid-'80s, the late '80s, there were a great many Sicilians who thought if they were honest and didn't have anything to do with the mafia, they could live without being affected by the mafia. Apparently 80 percent of the businesses in Palermo and 70 percent in the rest of Italy that pay extortion.
BOURDAIN: That's a lot.
SIMETI: That's a lot. That's a lot.
BOURDAIN: But not everybody pays the bite. A small but growing coalition of businesses have joined a group called Addio Pizzo (ph), a grassroots organization taking a stand against the mafia's traditional mere total control over the food chain, from farm to table.
I come out of the restaurant business in New York. You got taxed with every laundry order every time they took your trash away. It was built in to all your basic services.
SIMETI: Here it's much more going around. Christmas and Easter.
BOURDAIN: A guy comes by.
SIMETI: The guy comes by. I mean, it's plain and simple extortion.
BOURDAIN: Given that that's a pretty straightforward situation, some of these guys who banded together for Addio Pizzo, I mean, what happens, the guy shows up and says I'm not paying you. What happens next?
SIMETI: Well, apparently now the mafia has decided that it isn't worthwhile bothering with the people who belong to Addio Pizzo. There's so many others out there and why look for trouble. How true it is, I don't know.
BOURDAIN: Right.
SIMETI: To belong to Addio Pizzo, you have to sign a pledge that you will not pay and that if you are approached, you will go to the police. BOURDAIN: Right.
SIMETI: Then they send you to lawyers and to another organization which deals with the people who are actually having trouble. It's incredibly complicated. I mean, there are no easy answers.
BOURDAIN: Right.
SIMETI: What about big farm? What about some of the things that are -- that are happening on a much more legitimate level?
BOURDAIN: I mean, who is more destructive worldwide? I mean, yes, you can make a very good argument.
SIMETI: That's horrible. I'm upset because I sound as if I'm making apologies for the mafia. It's just I think what has happened, that having lived 50 years in Sicily, I'm much more skeptical than most Americans.
BOURDAIN: Right.
SIMETI: I don't know --
BOURDAIN: I know what you're saying. You're saying you're not so sure that a mafia-free Italy would be that much more functional?
SIMETI: Absolutely.
BOURDAIN: I'm not so sure.
SIMETI: I'm not so sure at all.
(LAUGHTER)
But I am constantly amused by the fact that 45 years ago, if I said to Americans, oh, I live in Sicily, how did a nice girl like you end up in a place like that?
BOURDAIN: Really.
SIMETI: Now it's oh, on a farm in Sicily, how romantic. Oh, I envy you. So perception of Sicily --
BOURDAIN: It has changed.
SIMETI: It has changed. Enormously.
BOURDAIN: In 2007 there were only 160 Addio Pizzo members, now over 800. Pretty cool considering we're talking about a group who have demonstrated no regret or hesitation in killing judges, politicians, police, prosecutors.
Back to Catania, and when you're talking late-night dining options, you're talking one thing. The enticing smell of smoke wafting through the streets, a smell that's enticingly equine. I smell rainbow dash.
Anthony and Marco, a couple of Sicilians and aficionados of (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's one of the older side, famous, you know, families of mafia, you know, that grows in crime organization here.
BOURDAIN: Oh, right here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now these things -- yes, yes, yes. Nowadays seems to be like a bit more quiet because they are all getting arrested so they prefer to sell meat against drugs.
BOURDAIN: So right over there you can bet on a horse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can bet horses, yes. People like to bet horse and you eat the one that lose.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The loser goes on the fire. That's not a nice thing, but, I mean, sometimes it happens for real.
BOURDAIN: Cycle of life. All right. So why horse? Where does this tradition come from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe also Egyptians, then we have Greeks, 750 years before Christ. Then we have Romans.
BOURDAIN: Because?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to say that Sicilians are big bastards.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course, we're being conquered by everybody. Also our dialect. There are many words that are understood by our people. If I say, yes, Sicilian dialect word, maybe an Arab can understand me, an Italian no, because Italian language comes from Latin, something different.
We are Sicilians before Italians.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember this.
BOURDAIN: I'll never forget.
(LAUGHTER)
Look at this side of the meat. It's yellow, it's not white. When it's yellow, it means that the horse has been breeded, eating fresh grass.
Perfecto. OK. Thanks.
BOURDAIN: Prepare and go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You like the faith?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you like the taste?
BOURDAIN: It's good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a bit sweet. You don't need nothing. Horse meat. Loved by quite everybody here, you know. We can have also meat balls, Anthony, we can have a horse meat ball.
BOURDAIN: As you wish. Whatever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
BOURDAIN: Whatever, I'll try anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some mix of different things, you know. Bread, parmesan cheese, pecorino.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Parsley, eggs, and, of course, horse.
BOURDAIN: Horse. It is very tasty.
Let's put it this way. When my daughter asks me for a pony, I'm bringing her here, pointing at that grill and saying here is your pony.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: Parco delle Madonie is a national park and within that is this free range pig farm. They breed these special heritage pigs here, the black boar of Nedbrodi. A combination of wild Sicilian boar and domesticated swine thought to have been brought here from Spain long ago, this breed of pig is raising the profile of the pig here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smell of shit everywhere, huh? Look, look, they're here now, the noise. They will arrive. Fantastica.
BOURDAIN: But any good-tasting high-quality pig, the secret is largely what were they fed? How did they live? Were they happy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a hunter. I've never seen so many in once. It's like I feel --
BOURDAIN: You should be shooting something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: A poorly fed pig who lived his life in squalor, stress and fear makes for bad pork. This is why we should treat animals well, not just because that's the nice thing to do, but because it makes them provably more delicious.
Chestnuts, acorns, roots and stuff foraged from the hills, supplemented by some nice fattening grain during the winter months when wild food is less easy and less plentiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They catch here the animal only with the traps.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a shame that they don't let you shoot.
BOURDAIN: I like pigs. Not to hang out with, to eat. I don't have a tattoo of a pig or anything, but I like them fine, and when given the opportunity to shoot one in the brain or see one shot in the brain so that I may suck on its entrails and other parts, I'm down. That's what is called cheering me up from some manic depression.
Bang, and this pig is like Pauly, you won't see him no more. Even with the brain dead, the heart still goes on beating, sort of like pick a Kardashian. In the case, however, the last few beats of the heart are absolutely necessary to pump all that red, red carve in a bucket for Sanguinacco. The salt helps keep it from coagulating prematurely.
There's a Kardashian joke there somewhere. Kim gets ready for the big day. It's date night at Khloe's house. Real housewife gets ready for summer. Grooming tips from Theresa Guidice. I got a million of them. Let's hope Kanye never has to see this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hang now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bye.
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Then get to work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very fast.
BOURDAIN: All those good bits, the lungs, kidneys, they get cooked slowly in fat with garlic, chili pepper, a little wine.
Is the meat also the liver? So it's interior with a little bit of fat?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The interior with a little bit of the fat.
BOURDAIN: It's a pork confit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:
BOURDAIN: Oh, that's pretty.
Meanwhile the intestinal casings get filled with blood and gently poached until creamy bloody delicious. And a nice spread of homemade cured meats, local cheese and homemade wine. Let the party begin.
So what do we have here? Let's identify these products. Capicolo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Capicolo.
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: That's the Spanish --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosciutto. Yes. Lardo.
BOURDAIN: Lardo. Pancetta. Oh, that looks good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cheese is local, it's provolone. This is the ricotta and just cooked in the oven.
BOURDAIN: The bread.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bread is from the ankle, and they have also salami and they have sausages.
BOURDAIN: And this cheese?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cannistrato.
BOURDAIN: And what do you call that dish?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just in the pan.
BOURDAIN: Right. Beautiful.
Oh, it's good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Best moment of the day.
BOURDAIN: Indeed. Oh, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you think about?
BOURDAIN: It's good. For me the ricotta, it's really good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a confused country, this place. You discover Sicily, and I expect that that very few people know this is incredible, even the bread is the old lady that she made.
BOURDAIN: You think of Sicily, you think of family, you think of food. This is more like it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll stop here.
BOURDAIN: Catania, the early morning market. It's been going on for longer than America has as a country. It's old, old Italia.
Do they know you here? Do you shop here often?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: This is not Tomaso's first trip to the market by a long shot. His mom is a regular. She comes here almost every day.
Thanks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is the next stock market you can find here everything. Each butcher, more likely they have their own specialty. Fresh ingredients, you know. You know, they --
BOURDAIN: They do lamb?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they do lamb, sausage, the hamburger, the (INAUDIBLE). This is (INAUDIBLE), at least six months old, at least. Over here. This is the place where she buy the spices for her home, and the veggies.
BOURDAIN: This is what the market is best known for, seafood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one is one of the biggest sellers that we have in the fish market. You can see also the variety.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We consider the tuna like a pig. We don't throw away anything. See, this is typical. You can find it here.
BOURDAIN: Oh, those are the tiny, tiny little clams.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. In Sicilians they're called (INAUDIBLE). You can see the shrimp are still alive.
BOURDAIN: So I see sepia? Baby --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, baby sardines.
BOURDAIN: Swordfish.
I'm joining Tomaso for lunch today. Mom's cooking, so we've got to do some shopping.
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: They look beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: The color is beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we'll go have some today, so shrimp. And --
BOURDAIN: And baby sardines. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gracias.
BOURDAIN: I'll tell you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you want to try? The blood sausage?
BOURDAIN: Saukernaut? Just blood, no onion, no spice, nothing? A little salt. A little pepper. You squeeze it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no.
BOURDAIN: No, open. Oh, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Interesting runner up.
BOURDAIN: Oh, that's good.
Usually I don't like it plain, I like it in a sauce and spicy. That's very tasty. Looks like hell. Tastes like heaven. If you like this, you're Sicilian.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very, very.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: I don't have any grandparents. My mom, I guess she cooks, but the last time she ever invited me for dinner was like 1972 so given that tragic, dysfunctional, too much information kind of history is it any mystery why I'm always on the lookout for grandma? Anybody's grandma will do.
Hell, I've been known to cruise rural state highways looking for hitch-hiking grannies to abduct so they'll cook for me. And given my fragile emotional state it makes perfect sense that I'd dragoon Tomaso's mom into making me a nice lunch. Is that heartwarming or like creepy and sad?
Hey. It smells good in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go open a wine. All right.
BOURDAIN: Cheers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers.
BOURDAIN: Need any help chopping parsley? Oh, perfect.
For lunch we've got the shrimp and sardines from earlier at the market, but first this. Just grab one? It's like Arancini but with hole owed out potatoes. Filled with cheese, breaded and fried.
Delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically when it finish the bread is ready and you fill it with all the cheese.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And deep in and sealed the potatoes and then fried.
My mother cooks for everybody, even if it was midnight. My parents (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So when we have to share all together and they have a dinner, my mother is cooking for everybody. Because the problem is when she cook, even if she know it's only for five people, she cooking for ten.
BOURDAIN: Just in case.
This is Sicily, after all. And this is the classic starter. Also a bread and tomato salad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to try something?
BOURDAIN: That's old school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of the bread. We use bread that a harder. We usually do bread that is two days old.
BOURDAIN: Right. It's really good. Really, really good. That's Sicily right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Yes.
BOURDAIN: Fresh shrimp sauteed in garlic, butter and herbs.
That every great and enlightened culture, when they are confronted with the shrimp or a prawn, fry away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the way you see if it's fresh or not.
BOURDAIN: Yes. So typical day, when you were 15 years old what did you eat for lunch?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never missing a pasta for lunch.
BOURDAIN: Pasta and meat --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Pasta and fish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And fish. Of course something local. Basically you have to go right behind the corner to find your products. So whatever we could produce in Sicily, that's what we choose to buy.
BOURDAIN: Watch this. Zip the bone right out. Out comes all the bone. Who needs a knife?
Sardines filleted neatly, sauteed in garlic and oil. A little red pepper.
That's a beautiful thing right there. I'll tell you, another two hours here I'll be speaking Italian. Well, speak Sicilian. Yes, you have to eat it hot. This is very nice. If you don't like this, there's really no hope for you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there's something that you don't like it.
BOURDAIN: Everything is --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell her. Tell her because --
BOURDAIN: So happy. This is a delicious meal. And to eat in this beautiful home with some really good home cooked food.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: My last night in Sicily. And after this I'm going back to New York, crawling under my bed and adopting the fetal position for, like, six weeks. I may look normal -- OK, I don't exactly. But I'm not barking uncontrollably or running around shrieking with my pants wrapped around my head which is what my instincts are telling me I should be doing.
To me one of life's great joys is cheese. No, I'm eating cheese. Which makes me happy. Always. And drinking wine. Good wine. And a hell of a lot of it. And I'll just make it over the hump with any luck at all.
We have a mozzarella here, a (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Ture joins me for a final meal along with Antonio, Guido and Guido's girlfriend Ara.
This is an Agriturismo. This is not a concept that exists in America, but it is a concept that should exist. OK, now please explain what it is.
ALESSANDRO: Agriturismo is a hotel linked to the territory. You have to use local product, local recipe.
BOURDAIN: Penne, sun dried tomatoes, zucchini, all from the farm. Oh, man that looks good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. Fantastic.
BOURDAIN: Whoa, some nice rabbit, olive oil, also from the farm. More wine. I might just make it.
This is called (INAUDIBLE). It's bitter. If you talk about Italy, it is the most interesting aspect of Italian cuisine. I mean, that's just gastronomically but philosophically because it is a philosophical thing. Life is too good. I need a little bitterness to remind myself of the internal tragedy of our existence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, right. The sweet and sour of the life.
BOURDAIN: One final attempt before I go to extract something meaningful on what it means to be Sicilian.
What's wrong with these people in the north?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People from the south are coming from these Greek culture where the philosopher while in the north came through and --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: That's the meanest thing anyone can say.
ALESSANDRO: And the last century, the three best writers in Italy are from Sicily.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they consider us a weight like problems.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But finally on summer, they all come here to make (INAUDIBLE). It's a good thing for us, you know?
BOURDAIN: In the end, it all comes back to the "Godfather." We go up this beautiful mountain, this incredible town. It goes back to the 12th century. There are few places on earth more beautiful. But we are sitting in one of the -- it was like a "Godfather" theme park.
Look, Michael Corleone got married there. I want --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: you know, we just look at these people with the "Godfather" T-shirt.
(CROSSTALK)
ALESSANDRO: And say oh, my god. Why people get stuck on this, the "Godfather" movie because there is this big sense of (INAUDIBLE).
BOURDAIN: Michael had many options. He destroyed his family. Then everybody, everything he touched.
ALESSANDRO: In a way it's fair.
BOURDAIN: It's fair?
ALESSANDRO: A good movie, for sure.
BOURDAIN: He didn't -- it up. No.
ALESSANDRO: No. No.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper. It's been three months since George Zimmerman was cleared of murder charges in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and allowed to walk freely from the spotlight. Instead he appears to be unable to escape that spotlight. He's helped a family from an overturned car, been pulled over for speeding while carrying a gun, and is now involved in an ugly divorce played out before the public in a nasty confrontation caught on camera.
What emotions and circumstances have contributed to making him one of the most recognized men in America today?
David Mattingly puts it all in perspective in this investigation into the case and the trial that riveted a nation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: There's a real suspicion guy that looks like he's up to no good.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: 911, do you need police, fire or medical?
