Gola: Italian Food & Beverage Culture

Not Quite Ready for the Renaissance

Gola: Italian Food & Beverage Culture

Show Notes

It’s finally time to attack that terrifying beast of a historical moment and its outrageous food and beverage culture—the Italian Renaissance! But Katie and Danielle just can’t seem to get over their desperate school girl crushes on the Middle Ages, so this episode transitions the golose from the premodern to the early modern slowly, protected by the spirit of medieval badasses Countess Matilda of Canossa and Emperor Frederick II as they look forward to court culture and grand duchies rising up on the peninsula!

This season is available to everyone and anyone who wants to find out why it’s so great to be a goloso, but join the Gola Patreon to get access to all the gluttonous content you can stomach at Patreon.com/golapod!

In this episode you’ll hear Danielle talking about her new book A Bite-Sized History of Italy, available through The New Press or anywhere you buy books — and listeners of Gola can enjoy a 30% discount by adding the promo code Gola30!

You’ll also hear Katie talking about her latest greatest—a book very appropriately titled *Rome* and available on her website or anywhere you buy books!

Follow the pod and the casters @gola_podcast @katieparla @drcallegariscabinet or get in touch via email [email protected]!

More from Gola: Italian Food & Beverage Culture

Oct 21, 2026

Still talking Renaissance Italy, much to Katie Parla’s dismay, this episode of Gola gives her a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, or a sip-ful of wine as it happens—your favorite golose talk wine culture in the early modern era, from the papal court to the Venetian laguna, and how the printing press, the expanding globe, and Reformation politics began to change the way people ate and drank on the peninsula forever after.

Sep 29, 2026

In the new episode of Gola Katie finally faces her fears and attacks the food and beverage revolutions of the Renaissance in Italy!

Jun 16, 2026

Katie and Danielle can’t spend enough time talking boozing and bites in the late Middle Ages in Italy, so they gave this episode over entirely to distillates and drinks in the premodern era. One more moment of medieval madness before the Renaissance arrives and ruins Katie’s lunch!

May 12, 2026

This week with the new book [almost] in their hands, Katie and Danielle talk about the process of writing A Bite-Sized History of Italy — from pineapple pizza scandals to mondine e sigaraie and so much more!

Apr 28, 2026

This week while Danielle gears up to get moving with A Bite-Sized History of Italy (out June 2!) Katie let’s us know who she has seen, what she has eaten, and what’s yet to come for her new book Rome while on tour in the US. Listen to hear updates on skates and stone crabs, Garabaldine, and more in this new mini-episode!

See all episodes →