Actor Tony Shalhoub returns to Wisconsin for new show celebrating food and community

Sitting in an empty Lambeau Field, actor and Green Bay native Tony Shalhoub enjoys a pregame ritual with Packers legend LeRoy Butler: eating grilled cheese sandwiches.

“If I didn’t have this before a game, I felt like I couldn’t play,” Butler says, holding up a freshly made sandwich made with nine-grain bread, butter and Colby-Jack cheese.

“I have to tell you, this is the best grilled cheese I’ve ever had,” Shalhoub tells Butler. “Whether it’s the place, being here with you, the specialness.”

That scene is from “Breaking Bread,” a new documentary series airing on CNN. Across six episodes, Shalhoub — best known for his roles on the TV shows “Monk” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” — travels around the world to France, Japan, Iceland, Brazil and the United States to learn about local food traditions and the people behind them.

For Shalhoub, “Breaking Bread” isn’t just about the food. It’s about the human connection of preparing a meal and eating together.

“We wanted to really talk about the people who do this kind of work, why they do it, how they started, what inspired them, what influenced them,” Shalhoub told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “And bread just seems like that common thing that everybody can agree on.”

As part of his foodie tour, Shalhoub returns to his home state to enjoy the flavors of Wisconsin, with scenes spotlighting Swedish limpa bread and cherry beer in Door County, cheese from the Driftless region and traditional cornbread made with ingredients from an Indigenous farm on the Oneida reservation.

The Wisconsin episode of “Breaking Bread” is airing on CNN at 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2.

Shalhoub spoke with “Wisconsin Today” about the new series and his recent trip to Wisconsin.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Rob Ferrett: As someone who grew up in Green Bay, what did it mean to you to come back to Wisconsin and dig into all these amazing local food traditions?

Tony Shalhoub: It was pretty great. I come back to Wisconsin quite often. I have family there and friends there, and I occasionally come to a Packers game.

I come every summer because we have a family reunion every summer, but this was an opportunity to explore things that have kind of been hidden in plain sight, so to speak — things that I’ve been familiar with, and other things that I had no idea about, things I’ve always wanted to explore.

And to do it with my daughter, Josie, and my wife and some of my family members that live in Wisconsin, it was pretty great.

RF: One of the first communities you visit is the Shalhoub family. What did food mean for you, your siblings and your family growing up?

TS: I’m one of 10 children, and so … it was fun chaos for all my years of growing up. And we were all running all over the place and had different interests and different friends and so forth. But those were the moments we all came together: breakfast time, dinner time. That was our chance to kind of regroup and reconnect and catch up with each other, hash out things. A lot of that was happening over food. 

So it was important, and there was a lot of — not exclusively, but there was a lot of —  Middle Eastern food made and consumed when we were growing up.

RF: In “Breaking Bread,” we see you with your family making “dirty bread,” your nickname for flatbread with za’atar. You’re out gathering grape leaves to make stuffed grape leaves. And what I love is that you’re sharing memories. What happens when the big Shalhoub family gets together and starts preparing food?

TS: It’s fantastic. A lot of my siblings have certain recipes, especially of the Lebanese dishes, you know, “This auntie made the best such and such,” “This grandmother made the best such and such,” “This cousin did this.” Everybody’s got those old recipes, and then they do their own variations on them — their own present-day spin on these old, traditional recipes.

RF: After arriving in Green Bay, you meet a pretty familiar name in that neck of the woods: LeRoy Butler. You’re making and eating grilled cheese with him at an empty Lambeau Field. How did that come to pass?

TS: Well, I have a great research team. They are the ones who explore all these different locations. And when they got into the Wisconsin episode, I told them about certain things that I wanted to explore, and they came up with other ideas that they thought would be interesting.

And they said, “Well, how do you feel about going to Lambeau, since you do like to go to football games? How would you feel about meeting one of the players?” And of course, the answer is yes, always yes! These are my heroes. 

I wasn’t sure if they were talking about someone from the current team roster or someone from the past. But then when they pitched the idea of LeRoy Butler, I thought, “Well, that’s a no-brainer.” He’s the guy who invented the “Lambeau Leap,” of course. And he was so gracious, and it was just fantastic meeting him and hanging out with him and eating with him.

RF: And again, with that human connection theme, he talked about how grilled cheese had a very important childhood memory for him.

TS: One of the pieces of the story that I loved — we weren’t able to get in the show — was that he also had real problems with his legs. He had braces on his legs from the time he was very young, and it was kind of a miracle that he was able to overcome that, become an athlete at a very early age and move himself and his family out of poverty.

I think maybe it was his sister that made him grilled cheese when he was a kid and before he played football. Then, when he became a professional … it became a ritual with him. If he didn’t have a grilled cheese or two — I think it was always two before a game — he didn’t feel like he could play.

RF: You also looked into Indigenous food traditions here in Wisconsin with Chef Elena Terry. What did you learn from Elena and her colleagues who are raising these traditional Indigenous plants and foods?

TS: Well, it was fascinating. It’s so interesting that I grew up in Green Bay, so close to these Indigenous communities and really — I’m embarrassed to say — did not have a real grasp of what kinds of things they’re doing, how they’re trying to bring the young people into the old traditions.

We made some very old-fashioned, old-school cornmeal bread on open-fire coals wrapped in foil, a traditional soup made with milkweed and vegetables that they grow on their land. They were amazing, and they were so warm and forthcoming and welcoming. And I was just struck by how their main agenda is keeping these traditions alive. It was quite moving.

RF: When it comes to meals, it’s really easy to quickly heat up something, watch TV while you eat or whatever. Are we losing something if we don’t have these opportunities to sit and talk and eat together?

TS: I think we are. Everything has gotten fast-paced, disposable, grab-and-go. We’re all locked into our cell phones or social media or whatever else it is. … Oftentimes you’ll go into a restaurant and you’ll see a family at a table, and everyone’s on a device. Parents are on the devices, maybe the kids are on a tablet, if they’re very young. There’s something sort of disheartening — tragic, really — about that.

Then again, at that same table, if a basket of bread comes out, people are likely to put down their devices and pick up a piece of bread and possibly make eye contact for a change. One of the pieces of this idea of doing this show was to see if we can reestablish closer, deeper, more meaningful connections, even with our own people, let alone others.