The Food Channel – 2017(NEW YORK) — Vinny Guadagnino — better known to some as “Vinny from Jersey Shore” — recently hit the road with his mom, Paola, to expand her culinary horizons in the Cooking Channel show Vinny and Ma Eat America.
The family matriarch immigrated from Sicily to Staten Island, New York, and never left, Vinny tells ABC Radio. She’s a great cook, Vin assured us, but usually only makes — and eats — her own Italian food.
All that changed when they took their televised road trip. “It was the little things that shocked us,” Vin laughs. “Like, we knew when we whipped out bug tacos, she was gonna freak out. But when she says, ‘Oh, I never had ranch dressing before,’ or you know, ‘I never had fried chicken,’ we’re like, ‘What, what? What planet are you living on?'”
As for his Jersey Shore days, Vinny says, “I was never really the best Jersey Shore character, like you know, I kinda was a little paler, less muscular, and my hair wasn’t that crazy…So now that I’m doing other things, I’m trying to get a little bit away from all that. But it was still an amazing experience. It was a phenomenon. I see shows now that are like phenomenons, I go, “I go, ‘Oh my God, that was me at one point,’ you know? So it was cool to be a part of that.”
The Cooking Channel is running a marathon of Vinny and Ma Eat America staring at 3 p.m. Eastern time Saturday.
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