What did people eat in Ancient Rome? Paolo, the owner of the restaurant, tells us about the history of the place and talks about the most popular dishes on the menu based on actual recipes from Roman times.

Find out what's so special about the restaurant where Anna and Marika are about to have lunch.

As a fitting end to this journey into Italian gastronomy, Gualtiero Marchesi shares with us the recipe for one of his most special risottos, using his own innovative techniques while keeping with tradition.

"Food is culture." What do we mean by this? Cultural historian, Massimo Montanari, and world-famous chef, Gualtiero Marchesi share their views.

After the war, when eating had to do with survival, tastes started to change and to branch out towards different regions. Now, once again cucina tipica (traditional local cooking) or prodotti tipici (local products) have practically become magic words.

Into the fifties, many Italians would stop at trucker restaurants, knowing they'd eat huge portions for little money. With prosperity, Italians began to search for authentic and higher quality foods. One of Marchesi's signature dishes is the open tortello, a deconstructed filled pasta.

One thing that has made Gualtiero Marchesi become such a great in modern Italian cuisine has been his ability to create new dishes by rearranging, in an innovative way, traditional dishes of every region of Italy, each different in taste and quality.

We learn how and when rice was introduced into Italy. It first appeared in the fourteen hundreds, brought to Lombardy from Spain; and to Sicily from the Arabic world.

The video weaves together Marchesi recounting a story about his first love when he was twelve, and a critic discussing Artusi and Marchesi's debt to popular cuisine.

Water, earth, fish, animals, rice: these were the fundamental elements of Italian cuisine in the pre-war and war years, elements that profoundly influenced the culinary creations of one of the most famous chefs in Italy, Gualtiero Marchesi.

Pre-war and wartime cooking, when fuel for cooking was in short supply, made raw recipes come to the fore.

Gualtiero Marchesi recalls the early years of his friendship with Aldo Calvi, when the would hunt and fish together along the Po.

Gualtiero Marchesi recalls his childhood, living along the banks of the River Po. His memories are as diverse as milking cows and seeing German bombers taking out bridges.

Claudio Capotondi discusses his marble and travertine sculpture entitled PortaRoma, created in 2000.

"Innercore" is the title, inspired by an article in the New York Times, of Claudio Capotondi's masterpiece. He talks about the significance of the sculpture, and about the special kind of stone he used to make it.