Lidia Bastianich Previews Her ‘Thank You to America’ in New ‘Changemakers’ Special

“It’s my way of saying thank you to America,” says chef and host Lidia Bastianich of her three-time James Beard Award-winning and Emmy-nominated series Lidia Celebrates America, where she travels around the country bonding with individuals over food and traditions. “There are a lot of beautiful, wonderful things and great people in America, so let’s honor them. I do it through food, because food opens the door. It connects with everybody.”

Her new hourlong special, Changemakers (premiering Tuesday, November 26 on PBS), spotlights enterprising Americans who are changing the way people think about the future of their meals, from a chef in Minneapolis using indigenous ingredients in his dishes to a restaurateur serving Appalachian cuisine in Virginia to organizations in California providing fresh produce to those in need.

Bastianich examines the innovative approaches these farmers, chefs and entrepreneurs take to sustain their communities. For the restaurateur and bestselling cookbook author, who was born in a small city in present-day Croatia, resourcefulness and food security are causes close to her heart.

“Forty percent of what Americans buy and grow goes wasted,” Bastianich notes. “And yet, there’s famine. In the four people I interviewed, there’s a consciousness of realizing that if we don’t safeguard this, if we don’t share this, if we don’t understand our neighbors’ need for the same thing that we are looking for, then there are problems.”

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Bastianich hopes that highlighting these progressive, cuisine-oriented stories as Americans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving — what she calls ”the unifying holiday” — will help change the narrative around sustainability and encourage people to widen their views when it comes to what they consume. Case in point: Viewers can watch as Bastianich gamely cooks pasta and pesto with the owners of 3 Cricketeers, a company aiming to make crickets a bigger part of American cuisine.

“Cricket pesto was really good!” Bastianich enthuses. “They had already made flour from the crickets, so we made pasta. For the pesto, instead of the pine nuts, you put the crickets in and they have a nice, nutty flavor and a crunch. It was delicious!”

Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers, Tuesday, November 26, 9/8c, PBS (Check local listings at PBS.org)