Rick Steves: Italy for Food Lovers

Author (along with Fred Plotkin), Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers

This week, Ira, host of Ira's Everything Bagel Podcast, dives into the world of European travel with none other than Rick Steves, America’s most respected authority on European experiences. In this savory episode, Rick discusses his latest book, Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers, co-authored with Fred Plotkin and published by Avalon Publishing. The book guides travelers through the great sights, eats, drinks, desserts, and more in Italy, broken down town-by-town and course-by-course.

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A Mission to Make Travel Experiential

Rick Steves has dedicated his life to teaching people how to travel in a way that is more than just ticking boxes off a list. His mission is to empower travelers to connect deeply with the places they visit, encouraging them to be more than just tourists but to immerse themselves fully in the culture. Rick Steves refers to himself as a “cultural chameleon,” someone who adapts and absorbs the richness of each destination, allowing it to shape his understanding of the world.

The Culinary Regions of Italy

One of the key insights from Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers is how the book is organized by region, reflecting the way Italians themselves eat. Italians are known for their strong sense of regional identity, and this is particularly evident in their cuisine. Rick Steves and Fred Plotkin emphasize the importance of matching flavors and textures that are unique to each area of Italy, giving travelers an authentic taste of the local culture.

Rick also highlights why small businesses thrive in Italy, thanks to the country’s commitment to tradition and quality. This commitment extends to the food industry, where small, family-run establishments often provide the most authentic and memorable dining experiences.

The Evolution of Italian Travel

Rick Steves’ journey began in 1969 when he took his first trip to Europe with his father, a piano importer. This trip sparked a lifelong passion for travel, leading Rick to fund his subsequent travels by teaching piano lessons. His early experiences laid the foundation for what would become Rick Steves' Europe, a business dedicated to helping Americans have European trips that are not only fun and affordable but also culturally broadening.

Today, Rick Steves is known not just for his travel guides but for his philosophy of travel as "intensified living." This concept encourages travelers to engage fully with their surroundings, savoring each moment and each experience as a way to enrich their lives.

The Impact of Italian Residency

Rick Steves also discusses how Italy has become the residency capital of the world, particularly for entertainers. He explains how residencies in Las Vegas have allowed performers to connect deeply with their audiences, and how this concept can be applied to the Italian experience. In Italy, the idea of residency extends beyond entertainment; it’s about becoming a part of the community, understanding its rhythms, and contributing to its cultural fabric.

The Role of Production Designers

In the world of Italian travel, production designers play a crucial role in creating the ambiance and atmosphere that make each experience unique. Rick Steves points out that the best travel experiences are often the result of careful planning and design, ensuring that every detail contributes to the overall enjoyment and understanding of the destination.

Why Travel with Rick Steves?

Rick Steves is not just a travel guide; he’s a teacher, philosopher, and cultural ambassador. His books, including Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers, are more than just guides—they are invitations to experience the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. Rick’s knack for explaining things clearly and his ability to make complex ideas accessible have made him a trusted companion for millions of travelers.

Whether you’re planning a trip to Italy or simply dreaming of one, Rick Steves offers a wealth of knowledge and insight that can help you make the most of your journey. His emphasis on the importance of the resident artist, the role of small businesses, and the value of experiencing travel as "intensified living" are all reasons why he remains a respected authority in the field of travel.

The Future of Travel

As Rick Steves continues to explore the world, he remains committed to his mission of helping Americans travel in ways that are both enriching and enjoyable. His work is not just about seeing the sights; it’s about understanding the world and our place in it. For those looking to broaden their horizons and deepen their cultural understanding, Rick Steves is an invaluable guide.

Rick Steves Podcast Episode Conclusion

In this episode of Ira's Everything Bagel Podcast, Rick Steves offers a glimpse into his world of travel, sharing his insights on Italy, his experiences, and his philosophy on travel. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting your journey, Rick’s advice and stories are sure to inspire you to see the world with fresh eyes and an open heart.

🔗 Useful Links:

Visit the Rick Steves Official Website for more information on his travel guides and latest projects.
Follow Rick Steves on Twitter for updates on his travels and tips.
Stay connected with Rick Steves on Facebook and Instagram to see his latest posts and insights.
Check out the Rick Steves Official YouTube Channel for videos of his adventures and travel advice.
Check out our previous conversation with Rick Steves

FAQS About Travel Writer Rick Steves

Who is Rick Steves?

Rick Steves is an American travel writer, television host, and travel guidebook author. He is best known for his popular travel show, "Rick Steves' Europe," which airs on public television. Steves is a prominent advocate for thoughtful and immersive travel, encouraging people to explore different cultures and destinations.

What is Rick Steves known for?

Rick Steves is known for his travel expertise, particularly in European destinations. He has written numerous travel guidebooks, produced a long-running television series called "Rick Steves' Europe," and hosts a public radio show called "Travel with Rick Steves." He is also an advocate for cultural understanding and encourages travelers to engage deeply with the places they visit.

Is Rick Steves Married?

Rick Steves was married to Anne Steves, but they divorced in 2010. They have two children together. As of the latest information, Rick Steves is not publicly known to be in a current relationship or remarried.

Where is Rick Steves from?

Rick Steves is from Edmonds, Washington, a suburb of Seattle in the United States. He was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and he continues to live in Edmonds, where he runs his travel business.

How old is Rick Steves?

Rick Steves was born on May 10, 1955. As of August 2024, he is 69 years old.

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Rick Steves Podcast Epsiode Full Transcript
Ira: Welcome to Ira's Everything Bagel, where I talk with intriguing people about everything — their passions, pursuits, and points of view. If you look up "travel" in the thesaurus, you'll find synonyms such as "excursion," "sightseeing," and "Rick Steves." Okay, I made up the last one, but he should be in there. Rick Steves is a public TV host, author of dozens of guidebooks, and America’s most respected authority on European travel. He’s the author, along with Fred Plotkin, of Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers, published by Avalon Publishing, which guides travelers through the great sights, eats, drinks, desserts, and more in Italy, town by town and for each course. The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all the usual places. For everything about Rick Steves, go to ricksteves.com, and you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Rick, welcome back to the show.
Rick: Ira, nice to be with you again. It’s a pleasure.
Ira: Your introduction in the book says, and I quote, "This is a guide to Italian food, but it’s also a book about the Italian people, their ingenuity, their traditions, and their evangelical zeal for quality. It’s about the sensuality of Italy, expressed through its food, wine, and culinary philosophy. It will lead you to the Italy that you can see, taste, smell, touch, and hear, where flavors, fragrances, scenery, art, music, and people are all sources of pleasure, known in Italy as piacere." Sounds like you found your favorite country.
Rick: I love that piacere. A moment ago you said it’s a pleasure to have you here, our pleasure, and I don’t know much Italian, but I do know when you shake hands, you say piacere — it’s a pleasure. But there’s more to pleasure than shaking hands, and as you just read there, piacere is a sort of a philosophy of life. It’s a sensuality, and in Italy, you can be poetic, and you can appreciate those little fine extras, and just put yourself in a situation where you say, "Life is good." I just really love to teach people to travel, and to travel in a way where it’s more experiential and more rewarding and more broadening. Food, especially in Italy, is a big part of that. So to have this new book, Italy for Food Lovers, for me is so key to our mission because we’re helping Americans reach out and embrace other cultures. I always think the more understanding you bring to the travel experience, the more you’ll get out of it. And that’s certainly true when it comes to food in your travels and especially food in Italy.
Ira: This new book is a reincarnation of Italy for the Gourmet Traveler by Fred Plotkin. How did you meet Fred, and how did this book come to be?
Rick: I believe I was interviewing Fred about his book, Italy for the Gourmet Traveler, years ago, and he’s just a delightful man. He’s very smart. He loves to do, like I do, he’s very sophisticated. You know, he’s an expert in opera, and wine, and cuisine, and he speaks the language, and he lives there a good part of the year, and otherwise, he’s in New York. And to be honest, his book was the best book anywhere for Italian cuisine, but it was way too sophisticated for my [audience], and I wanted to—and I know he’s a down-to-earth guy, but he’s just so smart, he’s way up there in the clouds, right? We can get together here, and we’ll make this book, which is a handbook on—an everyman’s guide to Italian food, just like my TV shows or my guidebooks would be, because I’m all about accessibility. I don’t want people to have to speak the language and have a lot of money and experience and sophisticated understanding of wine in order to enjoy a nice glass of wine at an enoteca in Siena. So with this book, we’ve got the basic information. I always say a good guidebook, whether it’s a food book like this or a regular guidebook, like my 50 other guidebooks, $25 tool for a $3,000 experience. If it’s any good, it’ll pay for itself on your first meal or from the shuttle in from the airport, and so on.
Ira: Was he happy to collaborate with you on this project? I assume so, since otherwise...
Rick: Yeah, he’s so much fun. We’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve done several talks together. We did an hour on...if people go to my website at ricksteves.com, there’s a—we just had our 100th episode of something we’ve done through COVID called Monday Night Travel, and every Monday, we get together and we just have a travel party, and there’s a different theme. We talk about this or that slice of Europe, and we got together with Fred and had Italy for Food Lovers night, and it was so much fun. And, oh, I guess my point is anybody can go to ricksteves.com, and right on the homepage, you see Monday Night Travel. Click through there, and you can actually—they’re all banked in an archive of these shows, so you could watch any of the 100 shows, but one of them is specifically what we’re talking about now, but with Fred and spending a whole hour talking about, well, eating our way through Italy, basically.
Ira: I think last time I asked you how you retained your passion for traveling, and you pretty much exude passion for travel. But I have a better question for you, which is: How do you retain the energy for travel? How do you maintain it, and how do you expend it? Because you’ve been doing this a long time, and you are always excited when you travel, when you write, when you’re on the air. Where does that energy come from?
Rick: Well, if I didn’t honestly love it, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I think I’ve only done two things in my life as a profession—teach piano and teach travel. And I love teaching piano. I would have done that all my life. And even more, I love teaching travel. It’s a real blessing to find your niche because then when you do it, working hard is just—it’s just very gratifying. And I’m a lucky guy that I get a lot of direct feedback from people. I was just in LA last week at the travel show and got to meet all sorts of people who—I was a big part of their trips. And they’d come up, and they’d go, "Oh, thank you for assisting. Thank you for Ireland." As if I made Ireland, you know? Well, I wrote a book about it, and they used the book as a handbook for visiting that. And for me, that’s just a lot of fun. And I’ve got a mission. We kind of joke, but it’s kind of serious with my 100 workmates here at Rick Steves Europe in Seattle—our mission is to equip and inspire Americans to venture beyond Orlando. You know, we need to get out there and see the rest of the world. We’re just 4% of this planet, and we’ve got to get out there. And there are too many Americans without passports who want to build walls when we really got to get a passport and build bridges if we want to be safe and happy. So that’s part of our mission, and for me, Italy—or Europe—is the wading pool for world exploration. And in Europe, Italy is my favorite country. And this has been just a delightful collaboration with Fred Plotkin to write this book, and already, lots of people are grabbing this and then traveling to Italy with a better understanding of the opportunities to be a cultural chameleon, you know? I like to be a cultural chameleon. When I cross the border, I change. Suddenly, I’m looking for a full-bodied glass of red wine. I’m not looking for a full-bodied glass of red wine in Germany, but when I cross the Alps and get to Italy, hey, vino rosso.
Ira: Do you get recognized over there by now, I would think, after all these decades?
Rick: Oh, I get—you know, in certain places, I get recognized a lot, and in other places, I don’t get recognized at all. The Nascar race, nobody would know who I am. If I was doing something for travelers, everybody knows me. So it’s a fun, fun world to be in. And you know, for me, it’s just really fun to have this extended family of travelers from 30 years of making TV shows on public television and so on. So we all feel like family, and when people have one of my guidebooks, I can tell people with my guidebooks just from a distance where they present themselves in Europe, we’re just all like wide-eyed children. Melt into the culture and be temporary locals and have a fun time.
Ira: I want to go a little bit more into the book, but based on what you just said, how do you keep your feet on the ground? You’ve been so successful, and you’re so well-known, and you’ve produced so much material, both video and books. How do you stay grounded? You just seem to be a very down-to-earth guy.
Rick: You know, part of it might be to measure your profit not in dollars but in how many people’s trips you impact. For me, that’s my profit—helping somebody have a better trip. And with this book, thousands of people are going to have a better time eating in Italy. That’s, for me, profitable. I don’t know if I’ll make any money on this after all the money we put into producing it, but I’ll be okay. I just have fun talking about it.
Ira: Hold the book up again and hold it steady for just a second because you brought it up—there you go—Italy for Food Lovers. All right, I love it.
Rick: Yeah, it’s been—you know, it’s a full-color book with photographs, and just paging through it makes me hungry.
Ira: I know, I was going through it the other day, and I was starving. So you break it down by region, don’t you?
Rick: Yeah, well, that’s the thing. In Italy, there’s—we have 50 states, Italy has 20 regions, and when I travel from Washington State to Oregon State, I don’t have a radical change in cuisine. But in Italy, you know, Italians don’t eat Italian—we think of eating Italian, but Italians eat regionally. So this is a Tuscan restaurant, this is a Sicilian restaurant, this is a restaurant from Veneto, and that would have a little bit of a different focus, shaped by the ingredients that are best in that area and the heritage and the history, the terroir.
So for us as travelers, it’s good to know that when you’re in Umbria, this is wild boar country, and you’re going to have one game worked into the cuisine, whether it’s on the pasta or the secondi. And then you’re going to want a wine that matches that heavy game, so you probably have a full-bodied wine. When you go to Sicily, you’re going to have that sort of Arab influence from all of the cultural waves that have come across from the Middle East and North Africa. And you’re going to have—in Tuscany, they celebrate their red meat; in Venice, they celebrate their seafood; in Naples, they celebrate their pizza. In Campania, the area south of Naples, they’ve got all the water buffaloes, so they’ve got wonderful mozzarella cheese. And because of the volcanic soil near Vesuvius, their tomatoes are so tasty.
Ira: You’re making me hungry, Rick. You’re getting me hungry.
Rick: I know, but if you planted a tomato here—
Ira: Oh, I know, it’s cardboard. It’s not much, it’s like cardboard.
Rick: And it looks good, maybe, but if you bite into a tomato in Greece or in Italy, you go, "Wow, I didn’t know this existed!" With some nice olive oil on it and some mozzarella, buffalo, oh! And then a glass of wine that is properly matched, you know? In Italy, they’ve got a word called abbinamento. Abbinamento is matching, matching flavors and matching textures, and that’s a very important word to know because the food is artfully matched, and then with the wine. And I just can’t get enough of that.
Ira: You said about the regions being so different. Is there a parochial version from each region? What I mean by that is does Region A not want to try the foods of Region B or Region C? Are they all within their own region and don’t want to venture out, just as you mentioned earlier Americans don’t want to go past Orlando? Are regions in Italy reluctant to go into other regions and try their cuisine?
Rick: Oh no, I’ve never found that. They’re very enthusiastic about the food culture, and they know it. They talk about it, you know? That’s what’s interesting. If you see two Italians at a restaurant, they’re talking about the food. They’re talking about the fava beans—well, the fava beans were ripe early this year, what’s going on? We never had fava beans before Easter, now we do, and they’re delicious, you know? And this guy’s got his own garden where they get the herbs, and, oh yeah, he gets his prosciutto from this farm where they feed their pigs this and, you know, stuff that’s beyond me. But I’m not a cook, but I love to hear Italians enthuse about their food.
Ira: Do you think that it’s—they, instead of speaking about sex and money, it’s food over there?
Rick: You know what? It is to a certain lot. I mean, there’s lots of talk about sex; I don’t know how much they talk about money, but they do. But the food is—they’re gossiping about the food because if somebody does it a little different, that might be great or it might be a sacrilege. But they’ll generally bring up mama. You’ll hear people—mama, my mother used to do it this way, and, you know, you can have great cooking. Casalinga is a word you see a lot, which is home cooking in a restaurant—home-style cooking. And mama is the inspiration for so many chefs in Italy, and I just love that. But there’s different—there’s different joys. A lot of people—you wouldn’t know—[for] dessert, you have the option of having biscotti and Vin Santo. Vin Santo is the sweet dessert wine, and the biscotti are those little almond cookies that you can dunk. And for me, that’s kind of elemental. It’s not a fancy tiramisu or something like that, it’s just a cookie and a sweet wine, and you dunk it. And to me, it’s a ritual, and I just love that. A cheese course is a ritual for me. Bruschetta is a beautiful ritual for me. And the more you know about any of your sightseeing, the more you’re going to enjoy it, whether it’s art, whether it’s history, architecture, you know, nature, cooking, you name it, language. The more you bring to your sightseeing, the more you’ll get out of it.
Ira: You said in your book—I'm going to quote here again—"Savoring Italian cuisine in Italy is sightseeing for your palate," which is what you’ve been talking about, unquote. So that’s what you’ve been talking about. It really is a food experience first before almost anything else.
Rick: Well, there’s—you know, you can go to a fine Italian restaurant here in the United States, and it’s great Italian food, but it’s missing two things. It doesn’t have the ingredients, which gives it a disadvantage, and it doesn’t have the Italian atmosphere. You can’t create the patina of age in an old Italian osteria or trattoria with the people who are lifelong servers in that restaurant and with a clientele that is all the neighborhood, who—that’s where he sits, and that’s where she sits. There’s something about that that, I think, you know, they say, "At the table, one does not age," and they create this atmosphere where you just want to sit at that table and enjoy it. And you can’t recreate that here, so I’m a little bit spoiled after a lot of eating in Italy when I come back to the United States because you just can’t quite do it.
Ira: You can’t replicate it. Are you optimistic? Because I’ve noticed that in the United States, a lot of cuisine has—I'll call it flattened out. And what I mean by that is that they’re homogenized—maybe that’s a better term. Have you seen any of that trend in Italy, or is it pretty much the way it’s always been for decades and centuries?
Rick: Yeah, you know, I have not seen that in Europe. They don’t—they’ve created an economic environment where the chains don’t have this killer advantage. In the United States, it’s hard to compete with a chain because they have such economy of scale, and they can pretty much dictate to us what we’re going to eat and when because that’s what everybody serves, and it’s the best price, you know, because they have this giant economy of scale. For some reason in Italy, it’s not better for business in a conventional sense, but it’s much better for the culture to have an environment where small businesses can thrive. And I find that the small businesses really are strong in Italy. I know that’s the case in France also. In the United States, you know, you might have just a few people that really make beer or make wine, and in France, because of the environment created by the government, which is less free market, small businesses can prosper and be strong, and that’s good for variety. And Europeans consume as if they believe they can shape the future by how they consume, and they like to patronize the one-offs. I find in Europe that the mom-and-pops are great.
My big fear, Ira, after going back to Europe after COVID to update my guidebooks—I spent two months last year updating my books, as did my whole staff; it was all hands on deck to get our guidebooks up to date and truly post-COVID. My big fear was that the little mom-and-pops, the creative ventures, the labors of love, all those little, you know, guesthouses and bed-and-breakfast and small restaurants—they wouldn’t survive two years of COVID. And that was—that’s what makes my guidebooks and my tour programs sparkle: finding all these people-to-people travel experiences with small businesses as travelers from the other side of the world. And thankfully, I was worried that I was going to be raking away the corpses of all sorts of favorite little businesses that were now dead. But I found that, by and large, they survived COVID, and now they’re as strong as ever, and they’re just eager to get back in the saddle in 2023, which promises to be a busy year for them.
Ira: So obviously, bring people over there now.
Rick: Oh yeah, and the energy is in the streets. I mean, people were saying, "Oh, that’s the end of getting your cheeks kissed in Paris, and that’s the end of strolling on the passeggiata in Siena." And I’ll tell you, you’re going to get your cheeks kissed with gusto in Paris, and everybody’s going to be out licking their gelato. I was very thankful for that because I’m just so enthusiastic about the value of traveling. I found my niche. I’ve got 100 workmates here in Seattle, and I’ve got collaborators like Fred Plotkin and a great publisher and a good relationship with public television, so it all works together. And we’re just celebrating our love of travel and the importance of Americans traveling in a way where they come home with the most beautiful souvenir, and that’s a broader perspective.
Ira: Do you think that the Stanley Tucci series Searching for Italy helped not only travel to Italy but also interest in your books, so many books of that track?
Rick: Oh, it’s a great series. He’s a fun guy, and he knows his stuff. And it just celebrates the joy of getting out. He’s a little bit—he’s got an advantage because he’s sort of an old boy there; he speaks the language, and everybody seems to know him. So my problem with that is, we don’t speak the language, and we don’t know everybody. But he’s able, with his charming sort of presence, to let us know the humanity of all these beautiful traditions and businesses in Italy and step in there. Our challenge is, without the connections and without the language skills, to go there and have the same kind of fun. And I know that the best travelers are the ones who are extroverts, or at least who can become extroverts in their travels. Really, the mark of a good traveler is how many people do you meet, and not how many people—I’m not talking about how many people who are paid to meet you with clichés on stage, but how many real friends do you make? How many people do you share a drink with? And, you know, with our Italy for Food Lovers book, you know just what kind of cocktail you might want to buy the students on the piazza if you go to a university town. I love that. I mean, the best 10 bucks, like $10, I could ever spend would be to find two students on a square as the sun’s going down in some town in Italy that has a university and buy them a drink, have a couple of cocktails, and they’ve got a friend from the United States, and they’ve got all sorts of questions to ask me, and I’ve got all sorts of questions to ask them. They’re young, they’re smart, they’re curious, they speak English. It’s a beautiful connection. That’s good travel, and it does good for our country as well because they say, "Oh, not an ugly American."
Ira: Exactly. We are ambassadors for our country. And you know, when we travel far away, they get to know us, and we get to know them, and it makes the world a better place. I want to get back to the book. With you and Fred working on it, how did you work out the division of labor? Or did it happen organically, or did you say, "You know, I’m going to cover this, and Fred, you cover that?"
Rick: Yeah, my goal was to take Fred’s older book Italy for the Gourmet Traveler and just use that as the core. There’s so much wisdom in that book. It had everything we needed to know, and then we had to cull it down, and then we had to get rid of all the needless fanciness and make it just what—and Fred was very cool with this.
Ira: I like that term, needless fanciness.
Rick: Yeah, I mean, I’m just so grounded in my approach. I liked dorm food. I went back to the dorm for years after I graduated from college just to have a good dorm lunch. And I’m just a typical American traveler, basically, and I wish we all were as sophisticated as Fred, but we’re not. But what I’ve got a good knack for doing is explaining things in a way that is not overwhelming to people and making it accessible. So, you know, we have a lot of information that is just survival for the American in Italy for the first time who doesn’t speak the language, and who’s on a budget, and who doesn’t have friends, and all that kind of thing over there. And Fred wrote the book for somebody who’s got it all—the language, the sophistication—and we merged that together. And it was a joy. We had no problem at all because Fred believes in the mission of this book, and we do, and we knew how to bring it to the level of our travelers instead of towards...
Ira: You’re making it not only accessible but not intimidating, which I think is important.
Rick: That’s right. That’s exactly right, and that’s what I do for a living—I make high culture less intimidating.
Ira: I like that. That’s good—that could be a bumper sticker.
Rick: Yeah. Well, I did that with piano. I was a piano teacher for—that’s the only other job I’ve ever had. And, you know...
Ira: You realize, Rick, though, if you had practiced on the trumpet, you could travel and take the trumpet with you, but because you picked a piano, you can’t exactly travel to all these countries with a piano.
Rick: Very true, very true. But I do have an ability to make classical music accessible to young students, which I did as a piano teacher. And we just finished a six-hour art series for public television, something I’ve been working on for many years, which is the whole story of Europe’s art in six hours. And, you know, it’s tough to shrink the story of Europe’s art into six hours, but we did it, and it’s a beautiful introduction to that culture, just like Italy for Food Lovers is a wonderful...
Ira: Yes, that’s right, you were on my show the last time talking about that. When was the first time you realized this is what you wanted to do besides the piano and teaching? And you still teach—you teach travel. So when was the moment you said, "You know what? I’m going to make this a full-time"—I’m not even going to say occupation or profession—a full-time joy? When did you decide to do that? What was the moment that the light bulb went on?
Rick: Well, when I started finding places that I call back doors—these sort of hidden gems in Europe. Everybody’s crowding in to see the Tower of London—that’s great. Everybody’s going to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Gallery—that’s fine. Everybody’s going to the Leaning Tower—that’s fine. And the Eiffel Tower. But I found these other offbeat places that could complement all that, you know, obvious stuff. And I remember I found a Stonehenge-type circle just marooned in the middle of a high moorland, kind of a marsh in the middle of nowhere, and there’s just, you know, wild sheep around and wind and moss and a long blustery hike to get there. And it was such a magical experience, and I thought, "People need to know about this." I just thought, and I wrote it up, and I thought, "I’ve got to find these places, and I’ve got to share them." So I do that, and to this day, I’m still finding new places and sharing them. And then also realizing that people want to see the obvious things, but we can do it in a small part way that gets us around the crowds and that gets us in a mindset where we can bring some ability to appreciate that with us and we’ll get more out of the experience. That’s why I was so excited about doing the Italy for Food Lovers book, because everybody’s going to go to Italy—it’s the number one destination for our travelers. And everybody eats, so everybody eats, but not everybody knows what to order in different cities, and the food, the coffee culture, you know, is just amazing—the wine culture, the pasta, the pizza, everything. We know it’s great; we just don’t know how to get past the surface. And with this book, people will know what to order after lunch when they go into a coffee shop. It’s just a beautiful...
Ira: That’s a great way to do it. What was the most surprising thing you found out when the two of you collaborated on this book, whether food or a regional...
Rick: This whole idea about Fred makes a big deal about Garibaldi. Garibaldi united Italy, and then when they united Italy, they had to create Italians now, you know, because the regions were so strong. And I knew the regions were strong, and I knew about campanilismo—I love that, you know, when after World War II, when Hitler had stolen the bells from most of the bell towers and they took them, you know, up to—they took them away. And the thing that people wanted after the war was to get their bell back, not just to get a bell back in the tower, but they wanted their bell. It was really important. So I knew the power of campanilismo, but I didn’t know exactly how it translated into cuisine and food culture. And I’m just as passionate about Italian culture as Fred, but, you know, I’ve gone at it through history, and architecture, and art, and galleries, and museums, and Fred goes at it through the hearth and the kitchen. And I just love learning about Italian culture. You know, the food of Sardinia—that’s the island out there by Corsica in the middle of the Mediterranean—it’s Italian, but until the 20th century, they did nothing on the coast because of malaria and because of pirates before that. So Sardinia, even though it’s an island, it was all about sheep and rustic food on the interior. And then slowly, they got down to the coastline, and in the 20th century, they started incorporating seafood. But to think that for centuries, on the island of Sardinia, it was all about pecorino, you know, sheep cheese, and it was all about Arab influence because the Arabs would sweep through there, and you’d have all the honey and the almonds and the pistachios. That’s fascinating stuff to me. And then the wine is grown in a way that’s rough and heavy to fit the rough and heavy food—that’s Sardinian cuisine. And you can learn about that, and then when you go to Sardinia, you realize, oh, why do we have this honey? It feels a little bit like North Africa. Well, come here 300 years ago, and you’d be rampaged by North African pirates, and they would bring their food.
Ira: Before I let you go, you have a theory of travel as intensified living, which I think is a great description of travel. You certainly have lived it. Do you have any last pieces of advice for people once they go through your book, so they drop everything and immediately travel to Italy?
Rick: Not necessarily—I mean, you should travel where your travel dreams are taking you. People ask me, where should I go this year? What’s trendy? Well, you should go where your travel dreams are taking you. If you’ve got Italian heritage, go there. If you love whiskey and you want to learn more about Scotland, go there. If you’re interested in Vikings, go to Norway. If you’re interested in Art Nouveau, you might want to go to Barcelona. You know, there are plenty of themes that you can incorporate into your travel planning. The most important thing is to realize you won’t exhaust what it has to offer on one trip, so don’t try. Be thankful you can’t get to it all. I’m traveling—I’ve spent 100 days in Europe every year for the last 40 years, and I am still finding new whole dimensions of travel that I never even thought existed. Long-distance venerable hikes with 19th-century mountain hotels, two hours’ hike from the nearest road and lift, that people go into, and then they, after a long day of hiking, have this Alpine rustic luxury with great food. The last two years, we’ve done extended hikes up in the high country of the Alps, enjoying great cuisine. That’s just one dimension of Europe that maybe people haven’t thought of. My point is not to do that, but to remember that there are so many dimensions of travel and enjoying different cultures. And for me, Europe is the springboard for world exploration, and my mission in life, with my 100 workmates at Rick Steves Europe, is to help Americans venture over there and have a smooth and economic experience. That’s the thing—it’s experiences that we want. We don’t have a bucket list of famous sites to see; we want to have experiences. We want to come home with the greatest souvenir, and that’s a broader perspective. So that’s what we’re all about. And if people are curious, they can learn more about that at our website at ricksteves.com. But I just love to collect this information—all my lectures, all of our TV shows—so much information is there for absolutely free for people to learn, so they can put their travel dreams into smooth and affordable reality.
Ira: Well, that’s a great way to leave it. My guest has been Rick Steves, author along with Fred Plotkin of the new book Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers. It’s published by Avalon Publishing, which guides travelers through the great sights, eats, drinks, desserts, and more in Italy, town by town and for each course. The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all the usual places. For everything about Rick Steves, as you mentioned, go to ricksteves.com, and you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Rick, thanks for being on the show.
Rick: Ira, you’re great. Thank you so much, and buon appetito!
Ira: Buon appetito! And join us every Thursday for a new smear on Ira's Everything Bagel.

Noshing With Rick Steves – March 2, 2023