RIP Paul Sorvino: the man who uttered the worst cooking tip in movie history
Acting legend Paul Sorvino has died at the age of 83.
Sorvino, born in Brooklyn, forged a remarkable career from the mid-1970s until his last film The Birthday Cake which was released just last year.
Over the course of his silver-screen career Sorvino worked with William Friedkin (Cruising, The Brink’s Job), Warren Beatty (Reds) and Oliver Stone (Nixon) but his most famous and best role is undoubtedly that of Paulie Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob masterpiece Goodfellas.
Unfortunately Sorvino’s performance is hit by one glaring snag: it contains perhaps the single worst piece of cooking advice in movie history.
Quick recap: Our ‘hero’ Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta, who we sadly also lost this year) is behind bars after being ratted to the FBI but he is lucky enough to be joined by mob boss Paulie and in prison cooking is important:
“In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or fish. Paulie did the prep work. He was doing a year for contempt, and he had this wonderful system for doing the garlic. He used a razor, and he used to slice it so thin that he used to liquefy in the pan with just a little oil. It was a very good system.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm3GIRhT1To
Just one problem: no matter how thinly you slice garlic it will not do this. It will just burn quickly.
Sure, if you mince it incredibly finely and then cook it for a long time at a low, low heat some of it might dissolve in the oil.
But thinly sliced? With a razor blade? That’s not the sort of garlic you want to be frying… (if you’re adding it to a tomato sauce that’s being slow-cooked then sure, go for it).
But let’s not be too harsh on Sorvino, the line dates back to Nicolas Pileggi’s book Wiseguys (Pileggi also co-wrote the screenplay).
Don’t just take my word for it. (It does sound like he was right about using too many onions though, three is quite a lot).
Sorvino of course does get mad props for this outburst on Harvey Weinstein in 2018 after reports that the producer blocked his daughter from stardom because she rejected his advances.
Sorvino said: “He ought hope that he goes to jail because if we come across, I think he’ll be lying on the floor.
“Good for him if he goes because if not he has to meet me, and I will kill the motherfucker. Real simple.”
“This pig will get his comeuppance,” he added. “The law is gonna get him. He’s gonna go to jail and die in jail.”
“My daughter is a wonderful person… courageous and a wonderful human being and doesn’t deserve to be treated this way by this pig.”
RIP king.
