Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

Chef, TV Personality, Author

Widely recognized as the First Lady of Italian cuisine—she even cooked a meal for Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to New York last year—Lidia Matticchio Bastianich has been thrilling food lovers for decades through her restaurants Esca, Del Posto, Becco and Felidia in New York City, and Lidia’s in Pittsburgh and in Kansas City. Those who can’t come to her restaurants can experience Lidia’s down-to-earth, reassuring demeanor and genuine love of food and her homeland through her TV show on PBS, Lidia’s Italy.

TV REAL: How did the show come about?
BASTIANICH: In the late ’70s and early ’80s a woman in the restaurant business, cooking regional Italian food, raised interest in the press. All the popular “foodies” of the time, Julia Childs and James Beard would come to my restaurant. Julia Childs was a regular and she said, “I’m doing a master chef series and I would like you to do a couple of episodes.” We did two episodes, one in my house and one in the restaurant. I loved it so much. We got tremendous response and one of the shows was nominated for an Emmy. Then the producers said, “Lidia, you are good on camera, would you consider a show of your own?” So it was through Julia’s invitation that I first got into a full-time cooking show. It was not my intent. It was an opportunity that came along, and I took it with a lot of teaching from professionals.

TV REAL: Up to now, what have you wanted to offer your viewers?
BASTIANICH: I wanted to share with them my passion through my culture. I came to the U.S. quite young, I was 12, but I always longed for the grandmother I left behind, for the towns, the cornfields, the vineyards. So food was a way for me to retain my culture. I cooked and I remembered: I smelled and tasted the flavors of my childhood. And then I shared that with my own family and children. But what I noticed was that when people came over for dinner they really became part of the table, they loved it; they wanted to hear more. I was then able to share my passions through my restaurants then through the cookbooks and the show.

TV REAL: What more would you like to do with the show?
BASTIANICH: I want to get more into the social elements of food and of eating together at the table. It all has its basis in Italian culture. Americans, in particular, don’t know what a table can bring. I want to transmit the social and psychological aspects of communicating with food, of eating together and of being together around food. I would like to share with them information about nutritional values. And not in the sense of so many calories in this dish or that one, but just eating a balanced meal, eating all the vegetables, eating in season. The ratio of protein to vegetables on the plate in Italian cooking is lower than it is in the U.S. In Italy it’s about one-third protein to two-thirds vegetables. Here it’s basically all protein. I want to explain the courses of the meal, the pleasures of having a little antipasto, a “primo” [first course], the vegetables, and then the fruit. These are all pleasures we have eating while we are nurturing ourselves. I would like to share that.