Plot Synopsis

Mo Rocca crisscrosses the United States, learning culinary secrets, family recipes and life lessons from America's grandparents. While he was growing up, Mo's grandmother prepared sumptuous Sunday dinners for the family, but he never learned the recipes. Now, when he visits other people's grandparents in this series, he's documenting their old-school recipes, covering a variety of cultures and ethnicities in America's melting pot. In each 30-minute episode, Rocca visits one person, including: Ruth Teig, a 76-year-old grandmother and math teacher, who makes classic Jewish cuisine, like kreplach (Jewish ravioli) and a modernized version of gefilte fish; Gaetano Varbero, a 91-year-old rugged outdoorsman, who cooks up a stick-to-your-ribs venison stew after teaching Mo how to shoot a rifle and about various unusual moose calls; Genevra Higginson, a 77-year-old grandmother, who cooks up a hearty, super-fresh batch of clam chowder, using clams she and Mo dug up on a nearby beach, and then Mo learns how to pull lobster traps up from seasoned lobstermen; Peggy Guiliano. a 76-year-old Irish lass, who introduces Mo Rocca to the soup kitchen at New Jersey's oldest church to cook up ome mean meatloaf and join other church volunteers to feed nearly 300 hungry people; Eva Levitis, a 57-year-old Brighton Beach, Brooklyn resident, who shows Mo how to make Chicken Kiev and a famous Russian salad called "Olivier," while schooling him on the joys and opulence of caviar; Manee Soohoo, a Harlem resident born in Thailand, who teaches Mo how to make green curries and whips up a batch of Pad See Ew for her grandkids. Cooking Channel first aired this show as one-hour special on Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 8pm ET, eight months before the official series premiere. This series returned for its second season on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 8pm ET, with the season opener featuring Clara, a grandmother to triplet great-grandsons in the Air Force, who enlisted Mo to help make Italian Wedding soup and lemon-flavored pizzelles to ship to the men in care packages. On Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 8pm ET, Cooking Channel aired the Season 3 premiere of MY GRANDMOTHER'S RAVIOLI. In the season opener, "Please Pass the Pig Stomach," Mo learns about Pennsylvania Dutch traditions, language and cuisine from Bonnie and Barry Boyer - 72 and 75 - of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, as they reveal secrets for buttery potato filling, shoofly pie and stuffed pig stomach.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY GRANDMOTHER'S RAVIOLI returned for its fourth season on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 8pm ET/5pm PT on Cooking Channel. Kicking off on the east coast, Mo's travels take him to the plains of Oklahoma, the cornfields of Iowa and the barbecue pits of Texas to meet grandparents and learn their food traditions and family lore. From a Hungarian grandmother who teaches him to make goulash and a Chinese grandfather stuffing a whole fish to a Nepalese grandmother demonstrating her traditional dumpling dish, coincidentally known as "momos," Mo visits more home kitchens in Season 4 for delicious food, heartwarming stories and laughter. In the season opener, "Lower East Side Story," Mo visits ninety-something Ruth Taube from New York City's historic Lower East Side. She teaches Mo many things, including how to make a mean Matzo Ball Soup and Farfel. The duo also hit some classic Manhattan specialty stores to buy pickles and black and white cookies to bring to Westchester for a family dinner with Ruth's daughter and grandchildren.