Pod Insights The Sporkful Comedian Matteo Lane Says ‘Your Pasta Sucks’ About this episode Comedian Matteo Lane comes from a large Italian family, which gave him his passion for food and his sense of humor. A few years back he started posting cooking videos on social media, and now he’s published Your Pasta Sucks, a collection of recipes, stories, and jokes.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks
0:43 Dan Pashman? to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking.
1:23 Dan Pashman? Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.
1:32 Dan Pashman? This episode contains explicit language. A common situation in your house growing up was that your sister would go hunting with your dad.
1:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41 Dan Pashman? And you would stay home with your mom to bake.
1:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't like hunting. I just couldn't do it. My dad would take me, and God bless him, he has two gay sons, and my straight sister ended up being his hunting partner. So, everyone kinda got what they wanted. My sister really had to be everything. She gave the grandkids and could be the hunter.
2:05 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Matteo Lane is a comedian known for his takes on family, relationships, and food. He often shares videos on Instagram of what he's eating and cooking. These videos have been so popular that he's just released a cookbook entitled "Your Pasta Sucks", which we'll talk about later. In his stand-up specials, Mateo is well-known for dishing out advice to audience members.
2:32 Speaker 02 How do you handle a soon-to-be overbearing mother-in-law?
2:36 Dan Pashman? How do you... So is your mother-in-law Italian?
2:39 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:39 Dan Pashman? Okay, and is he good to you?
2:41 Speaker 02 Very.
2:41 Dan Pashman? Do you feel that his mother has... still has control over him?
2:45 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:45 Dan Pashman? That will never go away?
2:48 Dan Pashman? Mateo clearly has strong opinions about food and relationships, and gives a lot of advice. So when he came into the studio, I decided to get his take on a question we got from a Sporkful listener named Zoe. Zoe says, "I love food and eating. The saucier, the better. When I'm eating something saucy, I like to get into it, eat the whole thing right away, and let myself get as messy as needed. As a result, I'll get sauce all over my face and hands if eating by hand. Then, once I'm finished, I'll clean myself up. But my boyfriend thinks I should be wiping the sauce off my face after every messy bite, to keep tidy and presentable. I'd rather wait till the end, enjoy the experience, and not worry about how I look. He finds my messiness crude, especially over eating something saucy in public, to the point that he will swoop in and wipe my face off for me."
3:32 Dan Pashman? I hate both of these people. I hate this... Is it a woman? Is it... What's her name? Zoe. Zoe. Zoe, this is insane. This is unhinged behavior. This is disgusting. It's embarrassing. You should be publicly shamed. She should be, or he should be. She should be, and he needs to break up with her. You're gonna sit there like a one-year-old with a bib on and a high chair, getting red sauce all over your face? What the fuck is wrong with you? What an embarrassment. That makes me so mad. Because the worst thing in the world for me is listening to someone eat with their mouth open. I think if you eat with your mouth open after the age of 10, like, you should be arrested. It's such a disgusting... I don't get... Like, how can't you hear yourself that you're eating like a fucking cow? Just... Some people are more sensitive to that sound than others.
4:17 Speaker 01 No, but it doesn't matter. It looks disgusting. But like regardless to whether you have some sort of genetic disposition to be really annoyed by the sound of someone eating with their mouth open, you want to sit there and look like a fucking farm animal while you're eating your salad at lunch? I can't get over it.
4:33 Dan Pashman? Are you a person, if you're eating with someone and the person you're eating with has something stuck in their teeth?
4:37 Speaker 01 I tell them.
4:38 Dan Pashman? You will?
4:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:38 Dan Pashman? What have you like just met five minutes ago?
4:40 Speaker 01 I'll tell them. I'm also a comedian. It's hard for me to not say the thing that's on my mind. There's no like, like. We're no, we're not soft.
4:49 Dan Pashman? I'm with you. I'm very big on telling people when they have something in their teeth.
4:52 Speaker 01 Cause I'd want someone to tell me.
4:53 Dan Pashman? Exactly. Even if you just met, cause it does, if you just met someone, you're like, hey, great to meet you. By the way, you have spinach in your teeth.
4:58 Speaker 01 Yes.
4:59 Dan Pashman? It does make that person feel a little bit sort of like embarrassed. And so I feel bad for making them feel embarrassed.
5:05 Speaker 01 But then I'm only thinking about that for 45 minutes. I'm watching you with a piece of spinach slipping in the wind.
5:09 Dan Pashman? What you're saying. I can't hear you over the spinach in your teeth.
5:11 Speaker 01 Yes, I agree.
5:12 Dan Pashman? Right.
5:12 Speaker 01 I would tell them.
5:18 Dan Pashman? All right. Now that you have a good sense of Mateo, let's go back. He was born and raised in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Chicago suburb. His father is Irish American. His mother's part Mexican and part Italian, but the Italian side seems to have had the strongest influence on him.
5:32 Speaker 01 So I was completely abducted into my mom's family. I think I have like 25 cousins or something. And we all grew up together and eating at each other's houses and sharing food and sharing lives and sharing. Like it was just very communal.
5:44 Dan Pashman? There were big family meals on Sundays, complete with a giant pot of red sauce and meatballs. Dinner's out to their favorite Italian restaurant where they'd sit at a long table. Those gatherings weren't just where the family came together. They also planted the seeds for Mateo's career.
5:57 Speaker 01 I hear a lot of comedians say this, like they grew up in really large families. And if you're going to say something at the table, it had to be funny. My family really works off one-upping each other. So if you say a joke, someone adds on a tag, someone adds on another tag, someone adds on another tag. And all these back and forth conversations with adults and kids, it really kind of helped sort of establish my comedic tone. I mean, a lot of stuff I do on stage is basically just my Aunt Cindy. I watch my Aunt Cindy, she'll tell a story. She has no idea that she's doing characters and act outs and punchlines and timing and pacing and full like, like story arcs. And it just is naturally how they talk.
6:35 Dan Pashman? There's also a specific protocol when you're all out to eat.
6:39 Speaker 01 Well, it basically works down. It's like, I'm ordering this and you can't order this because if I order this, then you have that, then I can't eat off your plate. So you start to negotiate who's gonna get what meal because you're all eating off of each other's plates.
6:51 Dan Pashman? Right.
6:51 Speaker 01 Which I find, I found interesting when you went out with other families that they didn't do that.
6:56 Dan Pashman? Right, yeah.
6:57 Speaker 01 You know what I mean?
6:57 Dan Pashman? In my family, it was, there were similar negotiations. It would be sometimes okay for a duplicate, but like,
7:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:02 Dan Pashman? after everyone had had a few bites of whatever they ordered, it would just be like, okay, rotate. And like, everyone would pass your plate to the right and you could take one taste of the next person.
7:11 Speaker 01 Are you Italian?
7:12 Dan Pashman? No, we're Jewish.
7:13 Speaker 01 Same thing.
7:13 Dan Pashman? Right.
7:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, same.
7:16 Dan Pashman? When Matteo's big family meals were happening at his house, he often helped his mom in the kitchen.
7:21 Speaker 01 I remember making like pizza dough and watching the yeast rise and, you know, make it, I'm sure our pizzas were shitty, but my mom just allowed us to create and be with her and cook with her and mix meatballs with her, make braciole with her, make red sauce with her, make lasagna with her, make pasta with her.
7:36 Dan Pashman? Matteo says growing up, cooking was just one of the many ways he was encouraged to be creative.
7:40 Speaker 01 So first came singing. I mean, I was always drawing. My mom was an amazing artist and it must be genetic because my brother designs, my sister, like, we all have this, that creative gene. Painting, I went to art school, at school, the Art Institute of Chicago. I went to one semester of community college and took an art class to make my parents happy.
8:01 Dan Pashman? In the summer of 2002, Matteo made his first trip to Italy. His family friend Giovanni from Sicily had been in the US on an exchange program. And Matteo got the chance to visit Giovanni to see where the Italian side of his family is from. You went there, you're 15 or 16, you had two flights to get to Sicily.
8:18 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:18 Dan Pashman? You land in what you describe as a shitty little airport in Catania.
8:21 Speaker 01 It was. It's now, now Catania has a nice airport, but at the time, I swear to God, it was like I landed in like Kuwait and it was like this sort of like rusty old hangar. And it was just, I was like, where am I, you know? I think people don't realize back then, like, now Sicily is like quite like, you know, because of White Lotus and everything, people see Sicily as like this exotic destination for tourists. But at the time, you know, in 2002, you know, there was nothing. I mean, it was genuinely Sicily.
8:49 Dan Pashman? It was remote.
8:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I didn't have cell phones. I just had to hope Giovanni found me.
8:53 Dan Pashman? Right.
8:54 Speaker 01 And then we took a bus and the bus was like, it smelled.
8:57 Dan Pashman? It was a two-hour bus ride. The trip was not off to a great start. But then they got off the bus and hopped on to the back of Giovanni's moped for the final leg of the journey. And suddenly.
9:08 Speaker 01 I felt, I felt like Lizzie McGuire. Um, I was on the back like, this is what dreams are made of.
9:16 Dan Pashman? You got the ocean on one side, you got the mountains on the other side.
9:19 Speaker 01 You can see Calabria. So that was my favorite thing is like, you can see the toe of Italy. It was amazing. I mean, it really, yeah, that, that sort of locked it in for me, just seeing Sicily that way. I mean, it just felt so ancient. I don't know, I can't describe like the feeling besides that I became addicted immediately riding up to his, his mom's house.
9:38 Dan Pashman? And what were some of the first few things you ate?
9:40 Speaker 01 The first thing we did is we, I remember we, I, we went to, out to dinner and I was asking if they had gnocchi because I just like gnocchi. And then they all yelled at me because that's not what we eat in Sicily. No gnocchi and no, no ravioli. Um, one of the first things I got for breakfast, which changed my life was, uh, granita con caf- granita caffè con pane brioché. It's, I, I know, it's like Italian ice, but it's not.
10:04 Dan Pashman? It's more like a coffee slush.
10:05 Speaker 01 It's a coffee slush. Thank you. Yeah, that's sweet. And then they put it in like a cup and it's half that and half fresh whipped cream. And then they give you a Sicilian brioche, which is a really, really soft brioche with like a little ball in the middle and it has like, that's a hint of like orange flavor to it, some kind of citrus flavor. And you take the brioche and you dip it into the whipped cream and granita and eat it. And that's my favorite thing to eat in Sicily.
10:32 Dan Pashman? Matteo fell in love with Italy because of the food, the culture and the natural beauty. But there was another factor. He writes in his book that what drew him to Sicily as a teenager wasn't so much discovering where he came from, as it was a desire to connect with a part of his identity that he could be proud of, rather than ashamed of. He was getting bullied in high school for being gay, even before he was out. He just stood out. But he says in Italy, he blended in.
10:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, you know, I was just incredibly internalized with my own homophobia and school was rough, being confronted with your identity that you were told was wrong. And so going to Sicily just felt like a totally clean slate, a new world, a totally new beginning. And so maybe for me, it was a bit of a sanctuary. You know, it was a place I could go to and not have to deal with, you know, being made fun of for being gay.
11:23 Dan Pashman? Right. You talked about how in America, you quote unquote, looked gay. In Italy-
11:29 Speaker 01 Oh, I look like I'm crushing pussy. You know, they're all in capris and they're all in tight pants and they're all slicked back hair and doing the YMCA in Speedos on the beach.
11:39 Dan Pashman? All the men are in Speedos.
11:40 Speaker 01 I don't even know what I could do to make myself, I could be fucking a guy on the beach and they'd be like, ah, he's, they're friends. Like, I mean, there's nothing I could do to make myself look gay.
11:52 Dan Pashman? Right.
11:52 Speaker 01 You know?
11:53 Dan Pashman? You hit on something that's interesting, Matteo. This is something I was curious to talk to you more about. So like, there is a lot, in Italian culture, it is a culture that I think of as being one that has a lot of machismo.
12:02 Speaker 01 Of course, they're a Latin culture.
12:04 Dan Pashman? And so what's interesting to me is that it's also a culture where it's common to see men cook. I think, like, I grew up in New Jersey.
12:11 Speaker 01 Right.
12:11 Dan Pashman? Italy West, basically.
12:12 Speaker 01 Right.
12:13 Dan Pashman? We had this family, our family friends, the Borans, whose name must have been changed to Ellis Island because they were Italian. And Mr. Boren was a contractor who worked in construction. He drove motorcycles, he smoked cigarettes, he drank, he was friends with all the cops in town. And we would go over to their house for dinner and he was in the kitchen. He was the one cooking.
12:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, even like in The Godfather. Remember when they like go to the mattresses and what's-his-face is showing Michael how to make the sauce? You know, like, he's cooking. That's The Godfather.
12:38 Dan Pashman? Is it Godfather or Goodfellas?
12:39 Speaker 01 Godfather.
12:40 Dan Pashman? Okay.
12:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:42 Dan Pashman? Was it the one where they have the razor blade to slice the garlic?
12:44 Speaker 01 That might have been Goodfellas. But Godfather was, remember, he's like, let me show you like how to make a bunch of sauce. When you got a bunch of, you know, you dig the meatballs, you put a little wine.
12:51 Dan Pashman? Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's in Goodfellas, like, they're in jail. You've got all these wise guys, these assassins, and they're in jail and they're talking about how, we figured out that if we use this razor blade, we can slice the garlic into the sauce that we're making. They get this whole setup. So I'm curious, like- Why you think that is? What do you think it says about Italian? The Italian relationship with food? I just, I don't, I can't think of any other culture where that would be the scene when
13:14 Speaker 01 Well, I think Italians just have a different relationship with food than most places, you know? But then they have the world's best cars. They have the world's best fashion. They have the world's best food. I think that Italians are just very proud of exporting things that the rest of the world enjoys. So maybe it has something a little more to do with that, right? Like, every time I go to someone's house and they're cooking, the first thing they do is they apologize to me because I'm, they're not Italian. I'm so sorry, it's not gonna be good. You're from an Italian family. I can't tell you how many times I've received that. So there's obviously like a allure to people who are Italian to be like, the expectation is that they came from really good food.
13:50 Dan Pashman? What I hear Matteo saying is that in Italian culture, that machismo is inseparable from food and cooking. It's like, of course, Italian men cook. We're the best at this.
13:59 Speaker 01 Maybe it's the equivalent of the Italian version of wearing like a Green Bay Packers shirt. I don't know. Like, you know, like, we make great pasta.
14:08 Dan Pashman? After Matteo's first visit to Italy as a teenager, 23 years ago, he fell in love with the country. Since then, he's been back at least once a year. In his book, he writes about the little things that only happen in Italy, like going to a famous pizzeria with an American friend, and when she asks for extra cheese on her pizza, the waiter simply says, "No," and walks away. Or how most cafes refuse to serve cappuccino after 11 a.m. Or how Italians refuse to turn on the A/C even when it's 100 degrees outside because they think it'll make you sick. Over time, Matteo's gained a deeper appreciation for the charms and quirks of Italian culture. Coming up, we hear about Matteo's turn from art to stand-up. And when he starts posting comedic cooking videos on Instagram, it leads to a very unexpected new project. Stick around.
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18:08 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman, and I was recently a guest on a podcast that you gotta check out. It's called Scam Goddess. It's a show that celebrates the funny side of fraud. Each week, Lacey Mosley, aka Scam Goddess, dives into the scammiest world of scammers. She exposes all the grifters and swindlers that you love to hate. And I recently joined Lacey to unpack this scam about skimpy shrimpy shrimp that's been terrorizing family-owned shrimp companies along the Gulf Coast. We also talk about fish scams in general, because these scams are a lot more common than you might think.
18:39 Speaker 03 Sea bass was mislabeled 55% of the time. And you know they mark up some sea bass, okay? Snapper was mislabeled 42% of the time. Now, that's making me think of sushi restaurants, and I love me a little red snapper, so this is pissing me off. So instead of sea bass, they get giant perch or Nile tilapia fish, which you can go catch them in the local lake. And the fish will be less expensive and lower quality. So they're just out here... Faking the funk and making you pay more for the fish. So I can tell the difference between tilapia, carpies and sea bass. Cause I'm country, so you can't put a catfish on my plate and tell me it's sea bass. Like, don't play in my face.
19:20 Dan Pashman? I had a blast with Lacey on Scam Goddess. You gotta check out the show. They cover lots of other kinds of scams like the Fire Fest fraudster, fake heiress Anna Delvey, and a whole lot more. She's joined by guests like Conan O'Brien, Nicole Byer, Ira Madison III, and me. So what are you waiting for? Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts. Now, back to my conversation with comedian Matteo Lane. While Matteo loved his regular trips to Italy, most of the time he was back in the US, building his career as a stand-up. He had started hitting open mics at 18 while he was studying oil painting and drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago. In his twenties, he moved to New York to pursue a career as an illustrator, but ended up dishing that to pursue stand-up full-time. He was featured among the new faces at the influential Just for Laughs Festival, which got him on MTV's radar.
20:05 Dan Pashman? He appeared on their reality comedy series Guy Code. More projects followed, including a podcast called Inside the Closet and an appearance on the comedy lineup on Netflix. Then, in 2022, when he was 36, Matteo released the Advice Special, the first in a series of stand-up specials where audience members share their problems and he offers advice. And that's when his career really started taking off. In the last few years, he's also built up a big following on social media, partly with clips from his audience interactions on stage, but also with food. When he was in Rome, he took his friend Francesco De Carlo, an Italian comedian, for Francesco's first trip to Starbucks. So now, what do you know about Starbucks?
20:44 Speaker 04 Nothing.
20:44 Dan Pashman? Nothing?
20:45 Speaker 04 Nothing.
20:45 Dan Pashman? It's usually something for white women, too. It's like their version of therapy.
20:48 Speaker 04 Mmm.
20:51 Speaker 04 Do I have to? I don't know if I like it. This is the main point. I don't know what I'm drinking or eating. I'm eating or drinking?
21:00 Dan Pashman? Well, how's the coffee part of that?
21:03 Speaker 04 What is? That's not coffee part. Is there a coffee part? No, maybe there is. This is not a coffee.
21:10 Dan Pashman? When Francesco came to New York, Matteo took him to Olive Garden.
21:14 Speaker 04 I just don't understand why chicken and shrimp, carbonara, these are three words that shouldn't be together. It's like, I don't know, washing machine, airplane, octopus.
21:24 Speaker 05 That makes sense.
21:25 Speaker 01 Be honest, what do you think?
21:28 Speaker 05 No, I don't like it. I'm sorry.
21:30 Dan Pashman? When Mateo's at home, he shares cooking videos from his apartment, often making dishes he grew up with. He even had his mom join him to make meatballs.
21:37 Speaker 01 So we have beef and we have pork, fresh basil, garlic, Italian breadcrumbs, white bread, two eggs, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. And then that's about it. And then we have our olive oil. So we're gonna fry it up in the pan.
21:48 Speaker 06 Everyone does their own version. Like you just kinda know what you like. But I start with taking the crust off of these guys.
21:54 Speaker 01 I didn't even have to instruct her. She's already on her way to go.
21:57 Dan Pashman? Mateo's obsession with food and love of cooking eventually led to his new cookbook entitled, "Your Pasta Sucks." I would love to ask you to read this excerpt from the intro to your cookbook.
22:09 Speaker 01 As Liza Minnelli?
22:10 Dan Pashman? However you want.
22:11 Speaker 01 I never meant to write a cookbook. Honestly, I've been writing one about Mariah Carey Fortnite. That is true. I should have wrote a book about Mariah Carey Fortnite. It's hysterical that I wrote a cookbook. I will say though, that my romance with pasta has been my longest and best relationship. Pasta is exciting and comforting. Pasta is always there, right in your pantry. Pasta never ghosts you or lies to you about its size, except for pacchetti. Sometimes they're massive. That is true. Sometimes I order pacchetti online. I'm saying this, I wrote it. I'm saying it's like, online, you get pacchetti and sometimes there's these giant pacchetti and like, you can't tell the difference.
22:43 Dan Pashman? Pacchetti is like, it's a short tube.
22:46 Speaker 01 A wide, like a log.
22:47 Dan Pashman? Right, right. But it's long and also, it's long and wide. So it's kinda, so when you cook it, it kinda flattens.
22:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:55 Dan Pashman? It tends to be very thick, also thick walls.
22:57 Speaker 01 Yes.
22:58 Dan Pashman? Which I like. It's very what I would call tooth sinkable.
23:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:01 Dan Pashman? But sometimes it's so big that you can't fit a single piece in your mouth.
23:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, that's like when you see these like, white women on Instagram cooking pasta and then they use this oversized fusilli that you could never serve to anyone. I don't know where you would eat this really, besides that it's sort of like, uh, it just looks like a show, like a spettacolo.
23:23 Dan Pashman? I find those, there's like a fusiloni. Those actually get a little bit limp when you cook them. So they will fold over and you can get those in your mouth more easily than a gigantic pokery. Which I think is like.
23:33 Speaker 01 But I do like pokery, like it's one of my favorite pastas.
23:36 Dan Pashman? It's so too sinkable and doughy.
23:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's what I like about it. It's the closest things like eating dough, I guess, you know.
23:43 Dan Pashman? But how do you manage one that's too big? Do you, do you slice it?
23:46 Speaker 01 Well, are we talking about anal or are we talking about the pasta? I don't know, lube, poppers?
23:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I need poppers when I eat pokery. That's what I do.
23:59 Dan Pashman? Are we still talking about pasta?
24:00 Speaker 01 I'm under, I have no clue at this point. But it's true, I wrote this book and I, you know, and people, well, number one, I wanted to originally call the book, I'm not an author and then I'm not a chef, you know, because I'm neither. But I am a writer. So for me, when I was talking to my publisher, I said, I'm not Martha Stewart. Like I'm not thinking about what Christine goes well with what, look, the, the recipes you saw on YouTube are basically the recipes that I could do. I do them well. I said, but I'm a comedian. If I wrote a book, people want stories. So can we do a hybrid? A short series of essays that are funny along with recipes.
24:34 Dan Pashman? The publisher agreed and that's how this collection of recipes, stories and jokes called Your Pasta Sucks was born. It includes sidebars like a checklist to determine whether you have an Italian grandma. If her house has a living room that no one has ever been in, give yourself one point. Another point if the carpet is red and one more if you can see the vacuum lines. 10 points if the subjects of the paintings and photography in the house are limited to Jesus, grandkids and mall quality scenes from Italy.
24:59 Speaker 01 And I worked with J J Good, who's a great writer who helped me with recipes and, and putting this whole thing together because I can write a million stories that I did. But writing recipes, I don't, I just know from what my mom taught me. So that was also tricky trying to get like the recipe part right and get this right and get that right. And so there was a lot of back and forth with that. And then they hire a, a food tester to make all the recipes. And you know, that was also interesting to see. And then they were arguing with my sister because they're like, the meatballs are too soft. And she's like, there's, they're meant to be that soft. So she was going back and forth with them about the meatballs.
25:33 Dan Pashman? A lot of the recipes are for dishes Matteo grew up cooking in Eden, like one he calls Pasta della Mama.
25:38 Speaker 01 That's my, one of my favorite pasta dishes. So when I was a kid, my mom, you know, was trying to think of like a quick pasta. Cause I had working parents and so, you know, she was like, what's a quick pasta that I can kind of make up? She literally made up a mix between like an American Alfredo, a cacio pepe and a carbonara. So it's basically room temperature butter and egg yolk, fresh Parmesan cheese, some cream or milk and pepper and a little bit of garlic powder. And you mix it together into a paste. And then when you throw it on the hot pasta, it turns into a cream. It takes less than like five minutes to prepare and then you can eat it with any meal. And I just loved it because my dad would always want to make like fish or like steak. And I just, oh, I don't like it, you know?
26:22 Speaker 01 So then my mom would make that as a side dish and I would just eat that because I loved it so much. And then I made it on YouTube for my cooking channel. And then that ended up being everyone's favorite recipe. I got so many messages and pictures of people being like, oh my God, Pasta della Mama. That was our favorite one.
26:40 Dan Pashman? His book also has recipes for Italian dishes Matteo has fallen in love with as an adult, like carbonara.
26:45 Speaker 01 That was the first dish that I had not grown up with, that I learned about going to Italy and then learning how to make it only through Italy and then finally mastering it and bringing it back here. And it was like a lot of little elements that required me to constantly be going back and forth between America and Italy over years to learn. And so for me, that is kind of a representation of like how this book is here. Because it was like, oh yeah, it doesn't just have to be what you grew up with. It could also be something that you love and learn and then bring that back home.
27:15 Dan Pashman? Right. I feel like egg yolks are an interesting, because there's also a bunch of Asian rice dishes where you like take an egg yolk and put it on top and mix it in. And like, obviously it's in carbonara, but like, I just think as a general move, it should be like more pasta sauces should be like, oh, you want it to be like rich and creamy? Because you don't want a gallon of heavy cream.
27:35 Speaker 01 Right. You don't, you don't want it to be taste too eggy either though. That's the other trick too.
27:38 Dan Pashman? Right.
27:39 Speaker 01 But yeah, I agree. It's like a nice binding ingredient. It's, it's, yeah, it's creamy. It's protein, it's, you know, it's not heavy whipping cream. Yeah, I really li- I even see some of these like Instagram, like they're in Trastevere in Rome, where they're mixing carbonara with red sauce, or like, like they're doing like a mix of the sauces.
27:58 Dan Pashman? Really?
27:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's interesting, without the guanciale.
28:01 Dan Pashman? And they haven't been attacked?
28:03 Speaker 01 No, but they're also like, super Roman, who are trying to do like, cool Instagram stuff.
28:07 Dan Pashman? Right.
28:07 Speaker 01 So everyone's like, it's fine. You know, it's fine.
28:11 Dan Pashman? But it is, but that is interesting, because there's such a stereotype of Italians being so set in their ways, like, this is the one way to do it.
28:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:17 Dan Pashman? And what I've learned, when I did my own junior travels in Italy, is that there are new ideas, and there are people trying new things, because of course, it's art, it's culture.
28:24 Speaker 01 Of course.
28:25 Dan Pashman? There's always gonna be new ideas, so the stereotype is a little bit unfair.
28:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, like Luciano in Rome, in Campodifiori, he took carbonara and did his own version of carbonara. So it's all the same ingredients, it was just made differently.
28:36 Dan Pashman? I, uh, this may offend you, but I did a cookbook last year that was all non-traditional pasta sauces, and I collaborated with a friend of mine, Irene Yu, who's a recipe writer, chef, cookbook author herself, and, um, so my cookbook includes a recipe for kimchi carbonara.
28:52 Speaker 01 Hmm.
28:54 Speaker 01 Who is it for?
28:56 Dan Pashman? Anyone who likes delicious things.
28:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, how, so, is it, kimchi's like fermented?
29:01 Dan Pashman? Cabbage, yeah.
29:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:02 Dan Pashman? Spicy, but when you saute the kimchi, it softens, the spice softens, and the crunch of the cabbage softens a little bit, but it still adds like an acidic tang.
29:11 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
29:11 Dan Pashman? That cuts, so you get the salty, smoky meatiness, you got the rich creaminess of the egg and the cheese, and then you add this acidity and spice that cuts through, and it is...
29:21 Speaker 01 Who, is it for Italians or Koreans? Or is it for everybody in between, who's not gonna get angry about it?
29:27 Dan Pashman? It's probably for everybody but Italians. I, I, I think that Koreans are, I, I don't know, I don't, I shouldn't make such sweeping statements, but, um, I think that, that kimchi is so bedrock for Koreans, that for Korean-Americans, it's like, there's just always kimchi around.
29:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:41 Dan Pashman? And so the idea of being like, let's see if, let's try kimchi on this, I mean, uh, you know, Anne Kim, a chef in Minneapolis, puts kimchi on pizza.
29:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:47 Dan Pashman? You know, like, now, now her kimchi pizza's in-
29:49 Speaker 01 I'd rather that than pineapple.
29:53 Speaker 01 You know?
29:54 Dan Pashman? Well, anyway, you gotta try it sometime.
29:56 Speaker 01 I'll try it.
29:57 Dan Pashman? All right, all right. I'm not convinced that's true.
30:01 Speaker 01 I'll try it, sure.
30:09 Dan Pashman? Matteo, you got a lot of hot takes in this cookbook. I would like to do a lightning round of your cookbook's hot takes. You ready?
30:16 Speaker 01 Yep.
30:16 Dan Pashman? All right, here we go. Fresh pasta is not better than dried pasta. It's different.
30:21 Speaker 01 It's for different sauces. So yeah, neither one's better than the other. I think the idea of fresh pasta is over romanticized. You see these like old Italian women making it in the window. And then someone says, it's a fresh pasta. Oh, it's fresh.
30:34 Dan Pashman? Right.
30:34 Speaker 01 Better than that shit dried pasta from a factory. And it's like, no, dried pasta just has to be made differently because it's like pressurized as it's being made. So you actually can't make dried pasta unless you have the proper machinery to do it.
30:48 Dan Pashman? Right.
30:48 Speaker 01 But also it's just for different texture, for different foods. So you wouldn't use fresh pasta like a tagliatelle with carbonara because the carbonara is like that sheep's milk, that like really like that sharp cheese with the guanciale. It requires a strong pasta, a hard pasta to be able to stand up to it.
31:08 Dan Pashman? Right. You can't make fresh pasta super al dente.
31:11 Speaker 01 Right.
31:11 Dan Pashman? That's what people do. I was talking to someone the other day who was like, I went to Italy and you know, I was so excited to eat the fresh pasta, but it wasn't really so al dente.
31:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, because it's fresh.
31:18 Dan Pashman? Right, because it's fresh. Exactly.
31:19 Speaker 01 Right.
31:20 Dan Pashman? Right. So anyway, I hard agree on that.
31:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:23 Dan Pashman? Okay, next one of your hot takes for our lightning round. You set up your known as lasagna recipe by saying she only makes it once a year because it's such a pain in the ass.
31:31 Speaker 01 It is a pain in the ass. She's tired. She had seven kids. That's enough.
31:34 Dan Pashman? But this dovetails with my longstanding opinion, Matteo, that lasagna in general is a pain in the ass. It's a lot of work.
31:41 Speaker 01 It depends on your background. When you're my nonna and you've had seven kids and you had one marriage that you know, was very traumatic and you're trying to struggle to stay alive, lasagna is not really at the top of the list of enjoying yourself.
31:53 Dan Pashman? Right.
31:53 Speaker 01 When you have no kids and...
31:57 Dan Pashman? You're pointing to yourself.
31:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, and you're just, you know, it's a Sunday.
32:00 Dan Pashman? You have eight hours on Sunday to kill.
32:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, why not? I love it. I love, I play some nice music. Usually my friend Chef Marco, who's a really great Italian chef in New York City, he'll come over and so him and I will just cook together. We'll make lasagna. We love the whole process. Make the bolognese. Honestly, the hardest part is just making... The bolognese and letting that cook for four hours and then the assembly, you know, it's pretty basic, but that's my nonna's lasagna. So I'll either make like lasagna di bologna, like the, with the fresh pasta and like the ragu and the bechamel. Or I do what's more considered a southern pasta lasagna, which is more with red sauce and meats and ricotta and all that stuff.
32:37 Dan Pashman? Right. Um, well, I'm with your nonna. Too much trouble.
32:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:41 Dan Pashman? Just make me a big CD.
32:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, my nonna now just watches my, uh, thousand pound sister in her basement. She's good to go.
32:49 Dan Pashman? Last item for the lightning round. You used to be against eggplant parm. You shared my skepticism of eggplant parm.
32:55 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
32:56 Dan Pashman? What was your skepticism and what changed?
32:57 Speaker 01 I, I think before I was like really into eggplant, uh, which is such a gay euphemism. Um, but I, but I remember living in Italy. I was living, uh, in Umbria at a painting school, in a small, tiny painting school. And the chef, she would make, um, it's a melez- lasagna di melezzone. And I was like, just make it with pasta. Why are you making lasagna with eggplant? I hated that idea. Then I finally ate it and I was like, oh, like eggplant parmigiana, like the eggplant sort of melezzone di lasagna. I just became obsessed with it. And then in Sicily, they have a lot of eggplant, uh, for like alla norma. And I just fell in love with, with eggplant now. So now you can't get me away from it.
33:38 Dan Pashman? So you just had to learn, you had to learn to accept eggplant in that use.
33:41 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:43 Dan Pashman? I, I love.
33:44 Speaker 01 But I always prefer pasta. If it's gonna be between eggplant or pasta for lasagna, I go pasta.
33:49 Dan Pashman? And I, I love grilled eggplant. I love roasted eggplant. I don't, I don't love eggplant parm. I don't, I don't love when the inside of the eggplant gets a little too mushy.
33:56 Speaker 01 I know, but you got like, Ribalta makes a really good one in New York. It's really good there.
34:01 Dan Pashman? I just feel like I love chicken parm so much.
34:04 Speaker 01 I know, it doesn't exist in Italy.
34:05 Dan Pashman? I know, but it's just, all I can think when I'm eating eggplant parm is, I wish this was chicken parm.
34:10 Speaker 01 I took Francesco Di Carlo to an Italian restaurant in Ohio. And he ordered chicken parm because he was so curious and they brought linguine, overcooked linguine, with some weird rosé sauce. And then they had the chicken on top of the melt. He was so, he looked like. He was so confused by the entire thing. He couldn't even wrap his mind around it. Now, that being said, I'm not one of those like American Italians who are like, only the Italians are the right way.
34:38 Dan Pashman? Right.
34:39 Speaker 01 I love that Italian Americans as a community like took a bunch of southern dishes and mix them together. When they moved to America and created these new things, I love them.
34:51 Dan Pashman? You talked about how, you know, you grew up with these big family meals, cooking in the kitchen with your mom and the whole extended family, everyone helping. Now so many of those recipes are in a cookbook, in your cookbook.
35:06 Dan Pashman? How does it feel for you to bring all those recipes together into this book?
35:09 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, like when I was writing it and going over all the recipes with JJ, it was basically to get it done. I'm like, I have, I'm shooting a movie, I'm on a world tour, I have to write new material, I have to, and then when everything came together.
35:23 Speaker 01 You know, like to think that like my mom or my sister, my Aunt Cindy or my grandma, all these women that were around me or raised me. To have their books, their recipes published for so many people to see, you know, it kind of, I don't know, it really made me emotional in a way that I wasn't expecting. I got the book and I was like, oh my God, like that's so sweet, like my nonna's recipes in here and it made me a little emotional. It was a, it was a nice homage to my family because they really shaped how I walk through life and how I do stand up, which has given me so much opportunity. So for me, it was like a big thank you back to them. And another thing I say too is like, I think the best way to sort of carry or pass down tradition or stay connected to one's roots can be cooking.
36:06 Speaker 01 Because if I'm making a meatball and I'm rolling it, I'm rolling it the same way my mom did and her mom did and her mom did and her mom did. So it's like even that movement in your hand, that movement in and of itself is something that's tradition, that's been passed down. It means you survived.
36:21 Dan Pashman? Right, right. What does your family think of it?
36:25 Speaker 01 My mom cried when she got it, of course, because she's Italian, she'll cry at a salad, to be honest with you, if it's beautiful, she's like, it's so beautiful.
36:35 Dan Pashman? That's Matteo Lane. His new cookbook is Your Pasta Sucks. It's out now. Mateo's also taking his stand up all over the US with his Can't Stop Laughing Tour. See if he's coming to your city at MateoLaneComedy.com. Next week on the show, I talk with Roy Choi, the chef who revolutionized the LA food scene with his food truck, Kogi. He was one of the very first chefs to get into the food truck scene, and also one of the very first to combine different cuisines into tacos. His Korean barbecue tacos are legendary. Roy was one of the very first doing that. But as you'll hear, we hear his story, he had to overcome a lot of struggles before he was able to attain all that success. It's gonna be a great conversation. That's next week. While I wait for that one, check out last week's show where I go on a New
37:17 Dan Pashman? York pizza tour with Scott Wiener, the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours. I join his Sunday bus tour where Scott has a school bus, but no plan. On these tours, he just decides which pizzerias to take people to on the fly. So where did we end up? Tune in to find out. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the Sirius XM app? Yes, the Sirius XM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the Sirius XM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern.
38:02 Dan Pashman? And senior producer- Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. And our intern is- Julia Liu. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Ian. And I'm Katie in Philadelphia. Reminding you to eat more- Eat better- And eat more better.
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