Food for thought

Here's a deal from my great and good friend, the Emmy-winning Jim Wilson, Chief Noisemaker at Wishupon Productions. I'll let him tell you:

So, I got a call from Bad Animals [a recording studio - Ed.] late last year, and they asked me if I wanted to do a documentary series for Oregon Public Broadcasting. Oh, absolutely! You'll be working with Shannon Gee (I worked with Shannon on Conscience and the Constitution, which, by the way, had a showing at the Seattle Public Library last week). Great! I said. Always a pleasure! What's the series about? It's called "The Meaning of Food."

Eh?

Well, I thought, not much chance of sound design there. Probably a lot of chewing sounds, the occasional swallow. Mostly eating sounds. Mastication. Dinner-table conversation.

Well, wrong again.

"The Meaning of Food" is a three part documentary airing (locally on KCTS) the next three Thursdays at 10pm (same time for my Hawaii correspondents), the parts being "Food and Life," Food and Culture," and "Food and Family." The breadth of the subject matter and the depth to which it is presented is astounding. I kept comparing it (probably to the producers' annoyance) to This American Life in terms of story-telling. Each segment takes a look at the many cultures that comprise America and the way food--what we eat, how we prepare it and why we eat what we do--plays such a big part in our lives.

There's a lot of variety. Through the course of the episodes you visit a boisterous Italian wedding, learn of a recipe book secretly compiled by women inmates of a Nazi work-camp, suffer through a teen's attempt to fast during Ramadan while living in a fast-food culture, visit a New York Airport's Customs seizures (there's a lot!), watch the Macah tribe prepare for their first whale hunt in generations, discover what's up with...poi, and whatever the heck "booya" is. Meet a man who's made it his mission to make the last meals for death-row inmates. The last days of a family-run Chinese restaurant. It's multi-cultural. Multi-faceted. It's like...well...a smorgasbord. There are stories to make you laugh, stories that'll break your heart, but mostly...they'll make you want to cook. Yeah, every few minutes you're gonna go, "Hmmm, that looks pretty good."

And it's a might fine show. Check it out. Thursday night (and the next two Thursdays at 10 pm). Check local listings.