Arancine to Ashes

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.

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

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!

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!

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!