Carluccio and the Renaissance Cookbook

Directed by Spike Geilinger

Bartolomeo Scappi (c. 1500-1577) was arguably the most famous chef of the Italian Renaissance. As head chef for popes and cardinals throughout the middle decades of the sixteenth century, he prepared unashamedly decadent banquets for the most powerful men on earth. At the culmination of his prolific career he compiled the largest cookery treatise of the period to instruct an apprentice on the full craft of fine cuisine, its methods, ingredients, and recipes. Chef Antonio Carluccio goes to his beloved Italy with a Renaissance cookbook for a guide. He follows the trail of its author to discover more about a man who had an extraordinary career cooking for the cardinals, emperors and popes of the sixteenth century. Antonio resurrects 500 year old recipes, cooking eel in Venice, porcini mushrooms in Lombardy, and stuffing a suckling pig in Rome. He ends his journey with a banquet fit for a pope. Lush scenery and mouth-watering ingredients create a visually stunning feast.