Original taste
Documentary looks in on ordinary people’s kitchens, joy of home cooking
Food documentaries are catering to a growing appetite in China as their quantity increases and cuisine variety expands. While most focus on popular restaurants in bustling cities, director Wang Shengzhi chooses a different path — he turns his lens to people’s kitchens in small towns.
“Eating is to repair oneself; if you go to a restaurant and order several dishes randomly, it can’t fix you. A bustling restaurant is a distraction,” Wang says. “On countless occasions, I recall that when I was a child, eating was such a simple thing that brought me huge satisfaction. Why? Because food is made by families.”
Directed by Wang, food documentary Taste of Home premiered online through video platform iQiyi and aired on Fujian’s South East TV on April 7, so far receiving a rating of 8.2 points out of 10 on the review platform Douban.
Each episode, about 17 minutes long, introduces two signature dishes from local families in two counties or villages. The audience can follow the food’s preparation and cooking while learning the stories of the families and the food.
“Most of the food documentaries are lively and hectic, yet I want to record something more serene, just one dish and one bowl of rice or noodles, to tell the audience that eating is a simple thing,” Wang explains.
He thinks the taste of home is about memory — even though someone may have visited countless restaurants, they will always yearn for the homemade dish that propels them back to the safety and warmth of childhood.
He is keen to show that there is not a right or wrong way to cook. “There is no certain recipe for any dish, as the way to cook it can differ from family to family, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are made with love,” Wang says, adding that the dish is always cooked for loved ones or close friends.
The 46-year-old hopes to record the preparing of dishes that use recipes which have not changed for decades or even generations. “I want to film the unchanging things,” he says.
Unlike filming restaurant owners or chefs who are easier to find, Wang and his crew had to work hard to find interviewees for their documentary.
One key factor for Wang when selecting an interviewee was their kitchen, as he required a traditional setup with a firewood stove.
The first reaction of those selected was often one of surprise. “They always said, ‘I’m not a good cook; why would you want to film me?’ But when I’d ask who likes eating their food, they would proudly tell me which dishes were favored by which family members,” Wang explains.
Wang says the crew tried not to interfere and just recorded the cooking process as it happened. Usually, it would take around two days for the family to get comfortable with the film crew and start acting naturally in front of the camera.
“If they were going to collect corn in the fields, we would follow them and help them to collect it,” he says.
When recording the preparation of pan-fried hairtail fish in Lianjiang, Fujian province, the cook, Lin Qiuda, was perplexed as to why the crew wanted to film a man of his lowly financial status.
“It took a long time to persuade him that his relaxed lifestyle of half working and half enjoying life is interesting. He likes to perm his hair, but he wouldn’t let us film him getting it done, until one day one of our directors went with him to get it done as well,” Wang says.
Most of the dishes that appear in the series use ingredients from the cooks’ own fields or backyards.
Wang knows that living in the city, people might buy a week’s food in a supermarket and put it into freezers and fridges. “Fridges are getting larger, but people know less about where the food comes from,” he says.
“In this documentary I want to show that all ingredients have their source, whether it’s the pigs raised by those in show, or the vegetables grown in their fields.”
In Wang’s mind, city life cuts people’s time into minutes and seconds, while in villages, time can stretch. They will eat tomatoes when they are ripe. If not, they will just wait.
Classical music is used for the series soundtrack. “Many people think that cooking is always about being busy in the kitchen, but for a good home cook, his or her kitchen is organized. The pots and pans are placed in an orderly way, so is the salt and soy sauce,” Wang says.
“Their moves flow like a dance, so I chose to use classical music, especially waltzes, to pair with the rhythm of their cooking,” he says.
Wang did the same thing with the video editing — even though each family’s story is told in less than 10 minutes, all the clips he used are at least 30 seconds long.
“When cooking in a home kitchen, it’s not usual to see fancy skills like tossing of the wok, so my clips are also slow and unhurried,” he says.
At the end of each episode, he poses a question, which the locals then answer for the viewer, usually about their dialects or customs. Wang says that the goal of the segment is to take the audience on a trip back to their hometown.
Wang recalls being inspired when visiting a market after he noticed there was a vendor with an accent from Fuqing in Fujian province. He was selling pancakes. “He is only calling to, and attracting, the people who can understand his accent. I’m from Fuqing, so I immediately recognized his hawking against the noise of the busy market — it’s a connection with your hometown,” he says.
Hong Lei, the documentary’s chief planner, thinks people talking in the same accent will have a special sense of identity. “We want to present the diversity of regional culture and we hope the audience will see their hometown in this series,” he says.
Taste of Home was planned last year, Hong says, and it is not just about food, but is also a bridge to people’s sincere feelings.
“There are no conflicts in the documentary. Instead, it’s showcasing a feeling of family,” he says. “The theme of the documentary is not about heroes but ordinary people.” The show plans to record 100 dishes, 40 percent of which have already been filmed. The whole series aims to record signature family dishes all over China. “You will never know where the next episode will lead you,” Hong says.
It’s the same team that produced Breakfast in China, a 100-episode documentary series. Both documentaries have a similar relaxing and jovial tone, and both eschew the vaunted and acclaimed chefs and their rare dishes, instead choosing to portray the culinary lives of ordinary people.
“Our team is good at digging out the fun parts of rural life and presenting it to the audience,” Hong adds. He thinks the space for food documentaries in China is becoming saturated, with a glut of shows covering cuisines like barbecue, hotpot and midnight snacks. As this phenomenon continues, it will be much harder for new concepts to capture the attention of the audience. “So, we want to find our own specialty. The audience has already noticed there is similar storytelling style for both Breakfast in China and Taste of Home, and we want to continue this style,” Hong says. “Hopefully, we can use an expression that attracts a younger audience to pass on our values. Our goal is to be the top content producers in the food documentary sector in China.”
There are no conflicts in the documentary. Instead, it’s showcasing a feeling of family. The theme of the documentary is not about heroes but ordinary people.”
Hong Lei, chief planner of food documentary Taste of Home