#timpano

The Top 10 Best Fictional Restaurants You Want To Eat At

Throughout my life I’ve seen some great TV shows and movies, and lots of these productions feature fictional restaurants that make my mouth water. Here’s a collection of my top 10 fictional favorites, in no particular order, some new, some old. Enjoy! The Original Beef of Chicagoland (The Bear) The hit new show The Bear on Hulu just mainstreamed Chicago’s wildly popular and incredibly delicious…

I’m listening to “Taste” by Stanley Tucci (he also reads the audio book). It’s a kind of autobiography but using food as a way of telling his story. He also recites recipes periodically. The audio book is terrific … very witty and no one can say “fuck” as deliciously as Tucci.

In one chapter he describes a Christmas dish called Timpano. I imagined a pizza or canzoni sized meal. Then I found photo online. OMG!

Here’s Stanley in “Big Night” (1996) with Tony Shalhoub, both acting like they just made a Timpano. Tucci also co-directed the film.

callout post @ a food network fb post showing a video of “timpano” being made:

THAT’S A MALTESE FOOD. IT’S NOT NEW.

(also your version looks bad, todd.)

the video says “Chef Laurence Edelman got the idea from the film “Big Night” and I don’t know that movie but TIMPANA is maltese pasta pie, basically, with tomato and beef in the pasta and a crust over it. 

the food network dish is baked pasta “in a pasta shell” which imo looks like a shitty replacement for a crust to me bc it’d get dried out.

I had timpana two and a half years ago visiting family in Malta. My uncle Edgar and aunt Berta made food for like 15 people at the table in the back garden, by the well. (maltese houses usually have a small courtyard with a garden; this one was mostly flowers and a couple lemon trees, with the walls high enough you can’t see over them at my height.)  We had tomato on bread (hobz biz-zejt) and pastizzi, and TIMPANA uncle Edgar made. I remember it very distinctly because both my brother and I were vegetarians but we had to eat everything we were given to not be rude, and maltese people serve a /lot/ of food. we were not able to really eat/digest meat anymore. so we both admitted to each other later that we were feeling sick from the timpana, lmao.

go ahead and enjoy maltese food, even the bad food. please! i’m half-maltese, of course i’ll encourage you to eat! but please give credit. (and do it right.)