The Italian Feast Stanley Tucci Wants As His Last Meal

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Italian-American actor Stanley Tucci has become a sort of unofficial Italian ambassador to the United States, with various television shows about his travels and dining in Italy, as well as authoring "The Tucci Cookbook" based on Italian cuisine. Tucci wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his love for Italy, so it's no surprise that the actor's dream meal would be a plethora of Italian dishes. In an interview with The Guardian, Stanley Tucci describes his ideal final meal, to be enjoyed with good company and even better wines.

Tucci sets the scene, with the meal taking place on the shores of the gorgeous Lake Como, overlooking the water and the Alps in early fall, specifically, with classic jazz playing in the background. The meal would begin with icy martinis, later followed by Italian white and red wines. 

For starters, known as primi piatti in Italian,  Tucci wants tagliarini with white truffles, followed by a Venetian-style shrimp risotto. Tagliarini – also known as tagliolini and tajarin — are thin, flat noodles made with more eggs than most pastas from Piedmont. This region of Italy is also home to luxurious white truffles, making Tucci's choice a perfect example of a regional dish. 

For the main course dishes, the secondi piatti, Stanley Tucci envisions a whole branzino with a wide array of accompaniments. Branzino is best kept simple and cooked whole, and Tucci notes that he strives for simplicity, which is easy to do with the stellar ingredients available in Italy. To pair with the fish, Tucci wants a simple cucumber salad with olive oil, salt, garlic, and dried oregano; a tomato salad with basil; and lastly, a springtime salad of fresh peas and their shoots with mâche, a small, mild and nutty lettuce also known as lamb's lettuce.

While he mentions it as an aside, Tucci also yearns for a Florentine steak, a gargantuan and highly prized steak from Florence, as well as his mother's broad bean minestra. Minestra simply means a hearty soup or stew, usually with grains and vegetables. Tucci recalls his grandmother's recipe with potato and zucchini, which sounds similar to our favorite minestra verde with pastina recipe. To round out this rather decadent main course of branzino, steak, soup, and salads, Tucci also wishes for a simple side of freshly baked bread. For dessert, Tucci eschews sugary treats and opts for a spread of cheeses made from goat and sheep milk, like pecorino from Pienza and a soft goat cheese from France, with honey and bread, paired with Amarone, a luxuriously rich Italian red wine made from raisins.