that means it s the green heart of italy. not a jealous heart but a fertile one. arriving in early fall, i chart a course through umbria s ancient forests and misty mountains. this is italy before the romans. a place where families live close to the land. a land of saintly legends, impossibly perched hilltop towns and rustic cuisine. wow. stop filming and just eat it. cheers. i m stanley tucci. i m italian on both sides and i m traveling across italy to discover how the food in each of this country s 20 regions is as unique as the people and their past. umbrian food isn t about expensive restaurants or tricky techniques, it s all about the skill and hard work that goes into producing its precious raw ingredients. from innovative farmers to noble hunters. and let s not forget the chefs and the butchers, preserving the traditional ways to cook these treasures of the land. and a note for any vegetarians watching, umbrians eat a lot of meat, particularly pork, like a lot of it. h
fertile one. arriving in early fall, i charter course through the ancient forests and misty mountains. this is italy before the romans. a place where families lived close to the land. a land of saintly legends, impossibly pernled uphill towns and perfect cuisine. i m stanley tuchy. i m italian on both sides, and i m traveling across the country to discover foods and their ties to the past. umbrian food isn t about expensive restaurants. it s all about the skill and hard work that goes into producing its precious raw ingredients. from innovative farmers to noble hunters. and let s not forget the chefs and butchers preserving the traditional ways to cook these treasures of the land. and a note for any vegetarians watching. they eat a lot of meat, particularly pork. like a lot of it. huge amounts of it. i surrender to the pork. umbria is named after one of italy s most ancient people. their land locked homeland is right in the middle of the country. bordered in the west by us
[ speaking foreign language ] umbrian food isn t about expensive restaurants or tricky techniques. it s all about the skill and hard work that goes into producing its precious raw ingredients. from innovative farmers to noble hunters. and let s not forget the chefs and butchers preserving the traditional ways of cooking. and a note for any vegetarians watching. umbrians eat a lot of meat, like particularly pork. like a lot of it. huge amounts of it. i surrender. to the pork. umbria is named after the umry, one of italy s most ancient peoples. their landlocked homeland is right in the middle of the country. bordered on the west by its more glamorous neighbor tuscany, it s often overlooked. but while the landscape here is similar, the culture is very different. less fancy, if you will. and i hear the locals like it that way. they re like flames, aren t they? i m heading deep into the heart of sagrantino territory, umbria s luscious wrld-renowned red wine, to meet a man
and his hand is on the griffin. the griffin. yeah, which is the symbol of the city. right. and that is a message that the pope want to send to the people of perugia be careful. he s silencing. that s it. we are silencing. this standoff reached a breaking point in 1540 when pope paul iii hit perugia where it really hurt. you have to know that one of the most popular food in umbria and in perugia are the salami. yes. prosciutto, salami, all those things, we use the salt. yeah. what did the pope do? he said, okay, in umbria they use the salt, now i will put a tax on the salt. it s crazy. it s crazy. the salt tax was the last straw. perugia declared war on the pope, but the papal army crushed the insurgents in these very streets, and the pope built a fortress smack in the middle of the town, to show the people who was boss. but that didn t stop the