Stanley Tucci Thinks You Should Eat Soup for Breakfast

Stanley Tucci’s new food memoir “What I Ate in One Year (and Related Thoughts)” isn’t a typical travel diary. It feels more intimate than that, like reading a letter from a well-traveled friend, with tips on how and where to eat. From duck a l’orange cooked by singing Carmelite nuns to cozy multi-generational family meals (and some really bad airline food), the award-winning actor and New York Times-bestselling author documents it all. It’s glamorous and mundane, poignant and funny, with epiphanies about the past, hopes for the future and lots of eggs.

In a recent conversation over Zoom, we sat down to discuss the book, his expanding cookware line at Williams-Sonoma, and the perfect breakfast soup.

(And for more from Tucci, check out his conversation with Chris Kimball on Milk Street Radio.)

What drew you to this style of book and how was the process different from writing your more formal memoir?

It flowed more naturally, which makes sense, because it was every day—well, not quite every day—so all you had to do was do what you did that day and then write it back. It was my wife's [literary agent Felicity Blunt] idea to do it like this and I loved the idea right away. But as you write you can't help but make connections with the past and have epiphanies or revelations and start to make sense of things that you couldn't before. That's why people write diaries—one of the reasons they write diaries. So that's sort of what happened, and the book became very much about the passage of time through food. It starts with talking about dreams and death and it sort of ends there too. Death is a big part of it.

Obviously, there's a lot of Italian food in the book, but one specific ingredient that comes up over and over again is eggs. What is it that you love so much about eggs?

Well, you can do anything with them. Yesterday, I'm here on a vacation with my in-laws, and my sister-in-law goes, “I just love eggs. I could just eat eggs all the time.” And I go, “I know.” And then yesterday, we had a friend of ours, who is Spanish—she made a Spanish tortilla, which was absolutely delicious. It's not always the easiest thing to make, either. And they're so satisfying. They're so complete. You know? These perfect little things. Inside this oval—this egg shape—is like a whole other world that we can do anything with.

There's a part in the book where your older son, Nico, makes you creamy scrambled eggs, and it reminded me of the scrambled egg scene at the end of “Big Night.” Do you think the scrambled egg takes more skill to pull off than other eggs?

No, I think they all take a certain amount of skill, it's just different skills. And also different tastes. How do you like your eggs? Do you like them loose? Do you like them slow-cooked? People cook them in a pot—my wife does sometimes—very slowly so they become incredibly soft and kind of gooey. Some people like hard scrambled eggs, or sometimes I'll do them super fast, on a high heat, with oil and butter. But I don't have the patience—I'm not going to cook it in a pot for 20 minutes. I just want the egg now.

Your dad also loves eggs and wants to write an egg cookbook. Would you consider writing it with him?

It's probably not a terrible idea, is it? I'm sure there are many of them out there. Just think about how many egg dishes there are in the world. You could fill 20 cookbooks.

What’s your go-to egg order at a restaurant or diner?

Well, it depends. A lot of times I don't trust how somebody's going to make an egg, so I'll just get a poached egg. I don't know what oil they're using, what butter they're using, or whatever. You're safer off getting a poached egg. So you might get eggs Benedict or eggs Florentine, or something like that. Because you know you're safe. And in America the eggs just aren't the same. You have to have the chicken yourself. Rear the chicken, feed the chicken, get the good eggs. Other than that, you're not going to get great eggs, unfortunately. Whereas in Europe, you're going to have a better chance. The eggs in the supermarket in England are incredible.

Because they don't wash them and [they can] keep them out [of the refrigerator]. They don't wash that membrane off the outside with a chemical rinse. So in America, you have to refrigerate them. And then you see the yolk. When Felicity first came to America, she was like, “God, these yolks are barely yellow.” And in England, we made eggs the other day, and they were gorgeous. Even ones you get in Waitrose or whatever.

“I had work I had to do this morning, and then I needed to not do work, so I made a minestrone.”

[Removing the cuticle], you end up hurting the egg, and you end up losing the flavor. It doesn't make any sense. Just because there's some poop on the egg? Or a rogue feather? Where do you think it came from? Inside a chicken. It's just weird to me. All these things that we pretend don't happen. The chicken shits the egg. That's what happens. And then beef—the cow gets killed, not always in the nicest way—it gets killed and it gets cut up and then you eat it. But it was a cow. It wasn't something else. It was a living thing. That's where that thing you get in the supermarket—wrapped in plastic, sitting on styrofoam—that's where it came from.

Two other breakfast foods you like that a fair amount of Americans would consider unconventional are soup and pasta. What's your favorite soup to eat for breakfast?

I would eat a minestrone, but I also love potato-leek soup. You eat it cold, it's incredibly refreshing and filling. I just made—in fact, it's bubbling away right now—a minestrone, just to have it, just to make it. Because I had work I had to do this morning, and then I needed to not do work, so I made a minestrone. Everyone can share, and whenever they want to eat it, it's there.

What's your favorite pasta to eat for breakfast?

Carbonara, let's face it, is pretty amazing for breakfast, because it is breakfast. But instead of bread, you have pasta. We have eggs, bacon and a starch. Perfect breakfast. My son had it. I made it the night before last. He is so in love with it, he literally couldn't stop talking about it. And the next morning, I said, “I have a little bit left over and I'm saving it for you.” And he was like, “Oh, great!” Then he goes, “Oh, actually, um, I'll just have that now.”

He's a pretty adventurous eater, right?

Much, much more than his sister is. [But] his cousins had a curry, and he won't go near that. But every kid is like this. One kid goes, “Oh, I hate eggs,” and the other kid goes, “Oh, I love eggs.” And the other kid goes, “What's that? You're eating a raw tomato? How can you do that?” And then the same kid will go, “I love tomato sauce!” It doesn't make any sense. No logic! You're crazy. You're just crazy!

Will your youngest daughter Millie eat tomato sauce yet?

Nope. She'll have ketchup. And raw tomatoes—raw tomatoes by the bushel. And Matteo will eat the tomato sauce, but not the raw tomato.

Speaking of Mateo, you both watched a video in which a man fries and eats a bunch of little snakes. You called it “the best cooking video you've ever seen.” Why did you like it so much?

Well, first of all, I'd never seen anyone cook a snake before. And it had no voiceover, no music, no nothing. And it was captivating. And it was so simple, it was all done outdoors, which I love, over a fire. I don't know what he was putting in it. It was so specific and unrefined. It was beautiful.

Cooking shows, for the most part, they're unwatchable. Especially the competition shows. I really hate them. And I'm not saying there aren't talented people on them. I never thought that cooking should be a competition. It should just be an act of joy. And I think a lot of the regular cooking shows are really boring. And I don't believe them. You know where people go, “Oh, that's so delicious! Oh, that's so perfect.” Really? Is it? I don't believe you. I want to see somebody do what Jacques Pepin does, or Julia Child did, or Keith Floyd did, which is go, “Let me taste that. Oh, wait. You know what I need? I need to put some more salt in there...Oh, that's better.” Boom. Nobody does that. They get it right the first time.

That doesn't happen when you're cooking.

Not even to the most experienced chefs. And they're always smiling. They smile too much. And it's a performance of cooking. You're not actually cooking. Julia Child was not performing when she was cooking. She was cooking. Same with Jacques Pepin. Same with Keith Floyd. Even though he had performative aspects to his character, when he cooked, he was just cooking. He loved to cook. And that's what's interesting to me, like the guy with the snakes, he just loves to cook.

I mean, you’ve see my Instagram videos. I'm just constantly making mistakes, probably too many, but it's a process of: This is what I like to eat. This is how I make it. I'm not a chef. I know how to cook some things and I'll share them with you. If you enjoy that, great. If you don't, there's a million people who are a thousand times more talented than I am, but I just love it, and I guess people love that I love it.

And the Italy show—I'm not a chef, I'm not a food historian, I'm only somebody who loves food, and I'm fascinated by the process. I'm fascinated by people, I'm fascinated by people who love to cook and I am interested in the history of food. You know, why do those people make that thing? And why do they continue to make it for so many years? What's the genesis of that? The show's not about me, the show's about those people, and I'm the conduit through which those people reach the audience. And, every now and again, I'll cook something, but I cook it because it's something I know how to cook. And I love to do it. If I fuck it up, I fuck it up. You know, that's life. That happens.

It happens a few times in the book and you’re very honest about it. I have this horrible tendency when I cook something for someone to be like, “Oh, I did this wrong and this wrong.” Do you do that, or are you more gracious?

No, I'm not. I'm terrible. I do that. And I should take Julia Child's advice, which is just don't apologize. Just don't. Serve it. I mean, unless it's really awful. Just shut up.

Your wife is also an accomplished cook, and you've said there are things that she actually does better than you. What are some of those dishes that she really nails?

She's really good at British roasts, potatoes and things like that. She's a very good baker. Stuff that takes a little more time and attention, she's better at. She's more adventurous than I am. She'll actually read a recipe and follow it. Because a lot of times, I'm doing stuff at the end of the day, and then suddenly I'm like, “Oh my god, OK, what am I going to make?”

“That's what's great about soup. It's very adaptable. It's the greatest thing in the world.”

When I made the minestrone, I didn't even know what we had in the fridge. So I looked and we had some zucchini, there were some onions, garlic, there was spring onion, and that right there is the basis for a soup. There were some potatoes, there was some celery. There were no carrots, which is sad because carrots make it nice and sweet. There was some spinach, some leftover green beans, and a rind of Parmigiano. And chicken stock I had made a few days before.

There you go. There's your soup. Even if you didn't have the chicken stock, you can make it with water. I like the chicken because it gives more depth of flavor, but you can do it with water. Throw in some basil. Throw in a few tomatoes. Olive oil. Bob's your uncle. At the very end, maybe if there are frozen peas, I'll put those in. It all works. That's what's great about soup. It's very adaptable. It's the greatest thing in the world.

What are some seemingly simple dishes that separate a good cook from a great one?

It's weird, but a roast chicken, or a piece of sea bass, or a carbonara. Carbonara is a delicate thing. A risotto might be the pinnacle of that, because that's hard. [A great one] is not too claggy, not too bound together. It has a richness of flavor, but there's a slight—it’s almost runny, but it's not runny, but it's still firm. And it just melts in your mouth. I mean, a great risotto Milanese, I could just eat it forever. Or at Harry's Bar in Venice, the amazing seafood risotto that has the perfect kind of firmness, the perfect amount of seafood.

Is there a cocktail that you feel similarly about?

Yeah, a martini. Obviously you pick your own gin if they have what you want. You can't always pick your own vermouth, because a lot of times they'll just have one vermouth, which is sad. I mean it's ridiculous, it's two ingredients. Sometimes it's one ingredient, if you don't want the vermouth. The kind of ice that you're using is crucial. Really great bartenders will basically make their own ice, right? They use beautifully filtered water and they put it into a container and freeze it and then they take off the top part of it where any impurities are, and then you have this beautiful block of clear ice. That's one of the reasons why their drinks will taste so good. It's not tainted in any way with chlorine or anything like that.

What are some of your other favorite vermouths?

I love Belsazar. They have all these different vermouths that are really nice. And of course they're owned by Diageo, who I have a deal with, so luckily they have those. But there are so many out there, but some of them are just too...sort of cloying or too sour or something. You're like, “That's not going to do it.”

You have this lovely travel ritual where you make a pot of marinara when you arrive at your destination. Why do you do that?

I do it because it alters the space through aroma. It warms up the house. It makes you go, “Oh, I feel like I'm home now.” But you're not home, obviously. I did it here, when we came in the first night. But like today, doing the minestrone. Why am I doing that? Well, there's a lot of vegetables here. We only have a few more nights and I hate for them to go to waste. I don't want to pack them all up and bring them home or whatever. So let's cook them. It goes on the stove, and then my brother-in-law walked in and he was like, “Man, it smells incredible in here. What is that?” It's just nice. It's like a fireplace. The good thing about England is, because of the weather, you can basically have a fire 365 days a year if you want. And I love that. You light a fire and the whole environment changes.

You mention a favorite knife a few times in the book. What kind of knife is it?

It's made by Blenheim Forge in England. It's amazing. I have it here at the house. I travel with it when we go on vacation because usually when you go to somebody's house, they don't really have good cutlery. I take that, a set of tongs, and one of the big, deep saucepans from my cookware line.

Those are beautiful. You were inspired by Scandinavian design when making them, right?

Yeah, I love all that stuff. It's so beautiful.

When you were designing the cookware, what did you know you wanted it to be and what did you definitely not want it to be?

I wanted it to be made in Europe—that was important to me. I wanted it to have elements of that sort of Scandi-ness that we've talked about, and have a contemporary feel, but not be too heavy, really work well, be nonstick but non-toxic.

You look at it and you think, “Oh, I've never seen cookware like that before.” Because nowadays, you can't tell the difference between a lot of them. It's just that it has somebody's name on it. I don't care about that. I want something that will look good and work well and look different, but not for the sake of looking different. You just want it to be singular.

Each handle is appropriately sized for each pan. The sides: I wanted them to be as square as possible, so you see very little of the roundness, so that it looks like a circle cubed or something like that. [I wanted it to be] easy to handle, easy to toss, and not [have] that thing where the inside of the bottom of the pan is convex. Your oil should just sit on one even level. Because sometimes they have that thing where they do that [makes convex motion], and you have too much oil around the edges and nothing in the middle. And you're like, “Well that's stupid.”

Are you expanding the line?

Yes. We're going to do some utensils and different pots and pans. Some for baking, some for stovetop. Different sizes, different colors. I'm very excited about it.

What piece are you most excited about?

There's a beautiful lasagna pan coming out that's really cool. And there's also a smaller version of the Stanley pan which will be a little easier for people to handle and store, because a lot of people have difficulty storing it unless you're hanging it. But even that, it's a big thing, you know?

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Photos by Nicole Motto.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.