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ANTHONY BOURDAIN: For chef Gabrielle Hamilton, traditions are cherished and should not be forgotten.

GABRIELLE HAMILTON: Is this still interesting?

It's a cutlet.

It's the most traditional, with the bone in still.

BOURDAIN: Technology can foster innovation and creativity.

But on the march of progress, something inevitably will be lost.

- I never think about tradition.

I think about ingredients.

If some technologies are useful for me, I use them.

BOURDAIN: Someone needs to keep traditions and authenticity alive and pass them on to the next generation.

HAMILTON: I feel pretty good about this deliciousness.

BOURDAIN: Enter the Mind of a Chef.

HAMILTON: It's so good to be classic and not trendy.

Oh man, we are making some food here now.

♪ ♪ (sniffs) ♪ ♪ HAMILTON: Certain things people are starting to long for that they have let go of.

What's happening in my food world is that people can't wait to use all the new gadgets and the tools and have fun with chemicals, and really manipulate food in an avant-garde, freestyling way.

I'm arguing, "Who will keep the tradition alive?"

These are the things that attract me.

Look at this napkin.

First of all, it looks like its first day of life.

And I know that this napkin has been used 50 times, 100 times.

But then you notice that the name of the restaurant is sewn directly into the fabric of the napkin.

What I'm so attracted to is this workmanship, this care for detail.

- Care, a lot of care.

- You love it.

HAMILTON: I do love it.

- Yes.

HAMILTON: Let's not forget how to weave the napkin, so the napkin... iron the napkin.

The napkin feels very important.

We're talking about the napkin right now, but we're going to eat some food.

You know I'm a worrier, and I am very protective of tradition.

Is this still interesting?

It's a cutlet.

It's the most classic cutlet Milanese.

It is traditional, with the bone in still.

And this risotto al salto.

There's nothing on the plate but the rice, so there's nothing to hide behind.

There's not a piece of decorative garnish here.

But is there any danger for the future?

- No.

HAMILTON: Okay, I need to know.

Relax me.

- I'm not worried at all.

HAMILTON (laughs): Okay.

- I really believe if it is good, it will survive.

But I want this to survive as something alive.

I don't want it to... HAMILTON: Yes.

- ...a museum, you know?

HAMILTON: Exactly.

- In Roman times, poets and artists were worried, as you, about the Roman Empire.

So time is this.

As time goes by, you change things.

And there's no problem about this.

It has to die, maybe.

HAMILTON: Ah, I need to do whatever drugs you're doing.

I need to relax, okay.

- Wow.

- Oh, my god.

HAMILTON: And the steam going.

- Can we eat from the same dish, yes?

HAMILTON: We must.

- Yes?

HAMILTON: Which we call a loving cup.

- In Italy, there are a lot of restaurants who preserve traditions.

You don't have to worry because in Italy, we love those things.

HAMILTON: I know.

Maybe I'm worried about my own country, because we preserve traditions and we do it ironically.

There's a certain inauthenticity.

It's, "You know what would be really cool?

If we had, like, a napkin."

(laughs) - Thinking about Americans, they have a different approach.

They're very curious.

They want to learn.

In Italy, everybody knows everything, because the mother, the grandmother, they used to do.

- Somebody told me the problem about Italy is that the women do not stay at home cooking.

And that's why our tradition are losing.

And I said to him, "What?

"Are you saying to me that my freedom is... is your problem?"

What?

HAMILTON: You are making an excellent point, excellent point.

- So no problem about this.

If you want to do the pasta, you do the pasta.

If you want to be a lawyer, you have to be a lawyer.

HAMILTON: Mm-hmm.

To progress, you must lose.

It's not... Change is, in fact, loss.

It's a fact.

- It's just change.

HAMILTON: So maybe I'm not worried anymore.

I'm just a little sad.

(laughs) Well, whoever is the custodian of the tradition, I would like to meet them and I would like to be one of them.

♪ ♪ (music stops) HAMILTON: Antonia, what are you cooking?

- Baccala, herring, Jerusalem artichoke.

In the northeast of Italy, we love those flavors, and I wanted something new with everything together.

HAMILTON: Antonia Klugmann is, like, a chefy-chef, and she likes to experiment and manipulate.

And I love that about her.

She defies the stereotype that women chefs make roast chicken while men chefs blowtorch and use chemicals.

- We have to cook the baccala into the milk with a little bit of onion.

No salt at all, because it's already salted.

This is quite traditional, yes?

And this is the herring, seasoned and then smoked.

HAMILTON: Yeah.

- I want to have milk a little bit thicky, with the smoky flavors.

The other step is the artichoke.

After two hours, you will find this ready to peel, okay?

It's really juicy.

(sniffs) HAMILTON: It's a very... - I love it.

HAMILTON: ...particular wet earth smell.

I'm loving this.

I have never noticed...

It flakes exactly like cod.

- When you cook cod, sometimes you have something brown.

HAMILTON: There are imperfections.

- Yes, I love imperfection.

HAMILTON: Oh, good, so you love me.

(both laugh) - I think you are quite... HAMILTON: Perfect, you think I'm perfect.

- I don't know... whoa.

HAMILTON: I'm not the best sous chef.

I'm coming to make sure you don't... - No, no, no, you're perfect, as you see.

HAMILTON: Okay.

- Now I will put the skin of the Jerusalem artichoke into the hydrator, yes?

HAMILTON: I love that you're using the whole thing.

You're not throwing away the peel.

- I will make the herring.

A little bit of xanthan gum.

HAMILTON: Ugh, okay.

- You don't like it?

HAMILTON: No, I love everything that you're doing, but you like the xanthan gum.

- If some technologies are useful for me, I use them.

HAMILTON: Our friendship is over.

(laughs) - Why?

HAMILTON: I'm kidding, opposites attract.

I'm like, "I am only tradition."

- I love tradition, but when I think about a dish, I never think about tradition.

I think about ingredients.

(whirring) Okay.

Now you can fry them.

HAMILTON: Is this sunflower oil?

- Yes.

HAMILTON: The Jerusalem artichoke is the bottom of the sunflower?

You're using the oil from the seed.

- Yes.

So we can whip the baccala.

(whirring) I put quite gently the artichoke onto the dish, and then a little quenelle of the baccala.

The hot sauce made with herring.

A little bit of crunchy.

And the cocoa beans.

Maybe some guests think that they are pepper.

HAMILTON: Yeah.

- But they are not, they are chocolate.

And then we finish the dish with yarrow.

So, as you see, few ingredients, really few, and that's it.

HAMILTON: That's nice.

♪ ♪ HAMILTON: Here we are at da Giacomo.

(laughs) I mean, with the name on the plate, I love that.

I cannot believe how every single place that your eye lands lands on not just beauty, but exquisite beauty.

How is the signature of da Giacomo sewn into the curtain?

Who's looking all the way up there to see the detail?

People will never notice.

And then the food.

It is... old school.

Oh, gee.

(chuckles) I love how authoritative this guy is.

Oh, oh!

It is so fantastico.

He is running right up on this ground ball.

I am certainly levitating.

There's, like, this poetry on the plate.

I can't even...

They have left a remnant of the salt crust on the finished plate as what?

A reminder, a memento.

They took it out of the water and they put it in the oven.

I'm just worried that no one's going to know how to do this anymore if they stop teaching it in cooking school.

I want to come here when I'm 80, and hopefully have more gold jewelry at that point.

(laughs) Someone has to remember how to do this.

I kind of want to know, actually, who you are, because you own two of your own businesses and you're a partner in one.

You're a big deal.

- Actually, I'm not born as a chef, but I've always had the passion of cooking.

I was cooking at home when I was a mother and wife, cooking for friends.

My hobby became my job.

HAMILTON: Mm-hmm.

And what did you decide to make... - Today?

This dish is more like a Sicilian influence.

What I love is to pick flavors from all the Italian regions, you know, to pick the flavor from the south.

HAMILTON: You're reaching out of your province and taking from other regions that are not yours.

- Exactly.

You know, Italy is so rich, so many flavors, so many herbs, so many different ingredients, so why not?

I have local, I cook local, but not only.

HAMILTON: Thank god.

- And the reason I cook this sous-vide is because the swordfish, it usually get pretty tough when you cook it, and this way, they stay really, really moist.

HAMILTON: Mm, I want my food all in there.

- Little bit of lemon.

Fresh thyme.

HAMILTON: The colors are beautiful.

I like to talk a lot of trash about the modern techniques, but I in fact love some of them.

(whirring) It's a really sexy machine.

- Now we put in the water, 58 degrees Centigrade.

I love fennel with this kind of anise flavor, I think it's perfect with the fish.

I have to take the segments.

Take the juice from the orange.

HAMILTON: It's beautiful.

It's really having a nice time in there.

I would like to be in there.

Do I just put my hand in here?

- No!

Use this.

HAMILTON: You don't want me to burn myself?

I thought this was low temperature cooking.

- Yes, it's low temperature, but still.

HAMILTON: What do I know?

- It's over here.

So I take a little bit of lemon juice.

Take the orange juice.

Olive oil, a little salt.

So it's kind of pink now.

Olives.

Oregano.

Now I taste this, because I always taste.

If I don't taste, I don't feel safe.

HAMILTON: (laughs) I hear ya, sister.

So you're not into the small plates phenomenon.

This is a healthy, serious portion.

- Exactly.

It's the kind of thing that I love because it's very fresh, it's very light.

You can pick all the flavors, doesn't matter, from whatever's coming, even if the swordfish and all the rest is more Sicilian.

HAMILTON: There's nothing provincial about you.

Alda Fuortes de Nitto became my mother-in-law.

Her Sunday lunch every Sunday was a very "the more the merrier" affair.

She was this true matriarch, and everyone felt it.

You could never wrangle a real recipe out of her.

She would just sort of say, "Well, how many eggs do we have?"

So we start with how many eggs we have, and then we make that much pasta.

I loved her.

I was actually looking for her tradition, and I felt very much like I was her ideal understudy.

I felt poised to honor her, and I don't mean replace her; I mean assume her position if she had to relinquish it.

I'm gonna make Sunday lunch.

It might not be the same, but I'm gonna get it going.

(water running) I'm just gonna cook a very Alda Sunday lunch, like we would have had at the apartment in Rome, except here's the ridiculous part: it's not Sunday.

(laughs) It's not lunch.

You're not my Italian family.

And I don't care, because, really, the point is to start some kind of tradition.

So even if it's not an exact, exact replica, do you care?

- I just thought I was coming over for dinner, dude.

(laughs) HAMILTON: Melanie Dunea, the genius photographer behind many books, but have you seen My Last Supper?

That's how we met.

So she's a dear friend that's become a bestie bestie.

- So, what's for lunch?

HAMILTON: Here's what I got.

I got puntarelle, favas in the pod, the first asparagus of the season.

Zucchini here is not like home.

- I don't think I've ever had such little artichokes.

They're so cute.

I like how we're having an all-vegetable lunch.

HAMILTON: I mean, the best part is we're probably going to be eating in about ten minutes because you know what Alda does?

She just boils everything and drowns it in olive oil.

You've never been in higher heaven than when she cooks food, so I know it sounds really simple, but still.

I feel pretty good about this deliciousness.

While it's quite warm, I'm going to drown it in olive oil.

- So it soaks it up?

HAMILTON: Yeah, it starts to inhale.

- Ooh, those look amazing.

My grandmother used to put food on the table that would be burned to high hell, and never say a word, or oversalted, or... She would just put it down and no one would dare say a word to her about it.

HAMILTON: Nona gets away with everything, right?

- Nona gets away with everything.

HAMILTON: She boils the puntarelle tips.

Okay, I'm gonna dress the puntarelle.

- Did you have Sunday lunches growing up?

HAMILTON: No, but I thought that was such an incredible routine, and I missed it so much, and now that I know it doesn't happen anymore, I'm feeling even more imperative to make it happen, even if it wasn't part of my culture, but for my kids.

We rub the garlic on the warm olive oily bread, and it just starts to bloom.

Right on time.

2:00.

The family will be here soon, the buzzer will buzz.

But let's keep our step going.

I'm gonna stay on the hustle.

(sizzling) I'm gonna put you in a situation where you have to deliver.

You want to cook in oil and water, and every time you add water, you lose flavor.

So you want to add a little pinch of salt.

Now you're going to shave some of these artichokes.

I'm being spontaneous.

- I like it!

HAMILTON: And I'm also running out of time, which, man, is that not the mother of some invention?

- Story of my life.

Can you just check on this?

HAMILTON: No, I'm not gonna be your crutch anymore.

It's time to fly, time to fly solo, bird.

- The only problem with that is these still are a little bit woody.

HAMILTON: Oh, do you think Alda would care?

Just get that (bleep) and go, let's go.

Seriously, there's, like, three ingredients in this whole meal.

I'm into it, are you?

- Mm-hmm!

HAMILTON: Okay, I cannot believe it, but I'm telling you the truth: we're done.

Do you like what you see?

- I love what I see.

HAMILTON: This is a very Alda meal with a few ex-daughter-in-law touches.

- Is anybody else coming, or is it just me?

(both laugh) HAMILTON: I'm not a Luddite.

I'm not against change, and I love innovation.

But I think people chase novelty like glitter and, "Hey, there's a new way to do it," or, "You should get the new thing, you should have the next thing," and I just like to hold back until it's pretty clear that the new thing is pretty damn good.

You go out into the frontiers and bring back treasures, and I'm going to stay here and keep the home fires burning.

Maybe that's not attractive to a newer generation, but I'll do it anyway.

(sniffs) ♪ ♪