What does the food express about these various civilizations? Of course, French food is all Italian-based, right?
Batali: As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other (laughter). The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible. Cole: That’s right. Batali: But that’s also a joke. French and Italian cooking have been elevated to a really high art form. There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria. Cooking in France and Italy has a particular high resonance and it’s hard to say how or why it developed other than that they’ve been smarter and there for longer. The proximity to the Mediterranean I think has a lot to do with that, whether it’s been a calming influence or just a generally good thing. Certainly the food is far superior in France and Italy to the rest of Europe. You don’t think about good German food like you think about a good po
