playnext.fm

Deep South Dining

Deep South Dining | Italy with Andrew Puckett and Chaz Lindsay

·50 min·4 clips
A Mississippi State student reveals how he spent his summer working on organic farms in Italy, trading labor for room and board.
The episode begins with hosts Malcolm White and Carol Palmer sharing local food updates, including birthday acknowledgments and a new restaurant, Hen and Egg, in downtown Jackson. They read tomato haikus by John Edgerton and discuss a Creole tomato dressing from Louisiana. The hosts then delve into international food news, revealing the intended menu from a canceled Putin-Trump summit lunch, which included Halibut Olympia, a regional Alaskan dish. After a break, guests Andrew Puckett and Chaz Lindsay join. Andrew explains how he started cooking by making grilled cheese for his brothers as a child. He details his summer in Italy through the WOOF program, working on three organic farms, including one with a truffle orchard and a dog named Leo trained to hunt truffles. Chaz Lindsay shares his own experiences working on an olive farm in Italy and discusses the history of truffle cultivation. The conversation covers Italian culinary traditions, such as the debate over using tomatoes in bolognese sauce and the origins of Neapolitan pizza. A caller contributes a story about the first truffle discovered in the United States under a pecan tree in Mississippi. Andrew talks about cooking lasagna with deer meat and his post-Italy grilled cheese, while Chaz explains agriturismo, or agricultural tourism, in Italy. The episode concludes with Malcolm gifting Andrew a cookbook by Giuliano Bugialli.

As heard by us

A no-plan ticket to Italy turns into a grounded lesson in finding a place at the table.

An Italy trip comes into focus through one grounded question: how does a traveler with a ticket, no real plan, and a pull toward food find a way into the country's kitchens?

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Two months in Italy, one plane ticket, no plan? This episode shows how a farm stay can become your way into the kitchen.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
Listen to the show on
Apple PodcastsSpotify
Play clips from this episodeMore from Deep South Dining