My first cooking experience took place at age nine during a weekly cooking workshop at primary school where we used to prepare stuff like deep-fried store-bought sausages with some ketchup and lime juice on them.
Amusingly, l have fond memories of that dish since I made it on a rare occasion where I got to spend the whole day with only my dad–just the two of us! After my stellar meal, we went to the cinema to see Street Fighter (yeah, that dreadful movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme starring in it as Guile). It was one of my favorite days, ever.
Isn’t it interesting, how many of our most precious memories are linked to food?
Throughout my life, I was involved in different culinary ventures with varying degrees of success, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I started getting more seriously into cooking, not only as a means to prepare food, but as a way of confection meals that nourish and revitalize both body and spirit. I learned that every meal is an opportunity to be creative and turn an eating experience into a unique event.
A couple years ago, my culinary ventures took an extraordinary leap up in progress, with inspiration originating from an unexpected source: the new Hannibal series starring Mads Mikkelsen. The series explores the pre-Red Dragon days of our favorite cannibal genius killer, but in a present day (and sexier) take, with even more of the refinement, class and sophistication that makes Hannibal Lecter such a controversially appealing character.
Hannibal is a Renaissance man, and as such, he is the possessor of the most exquisite culinary skills which he puts to use in a morbidly macabre way to complement his love for killing in a creative manner.
One of the things about this show that made it so appealing to me (besides the ridiculously handsome Mads Mikkelsen, of course) was the focus on the food, which goes from the episode titles –that bear names like “Apéritif”, “Fromage” and “Buffet Froid”–, to the customary dinner scenes at Hannibal’s where he typically delivers some impeccably presented, haute-cuisine dish to his dinner companions, as he gracefully recites his briefing about it:
I think many of us find the culinary aspect of the series both fascinating and a bit disturbing –but addictive, nevertheless. I just could not get enough of those wonderful creations, and started to crave developing the talent to produce something similar myself – without the human meat, of course. So, I started looking for Hannibal-esque recipes and cooking, and lo and behold, look what I found!
The personal blog of Janice Poon, culinary stylist and food artist, who is precisely the person – along with Chef Jose Andres – who is responsible for the crafting and creation of all the food and dishes presented in the Hannibal T.V. series.
Browsing through her blog, I felt like I hit the jackpot: Each post uncovers the culinary quest of a particular episode of Hannibal, were Janice –who is also gifted with the talent of wit and comedy– describes the unfolding of the process that goes into the development of her wicked food creations for the show. Food sketches, script descriptions, epic adventures to get rare and exotic ingredients and lots of tips and tricks can be found in the blog, making it an incredibly juicy read. It even has recipes!
Some of my favorite passages are the ones where she writes about making normal food look like human parts, and also everything that goes into imagining what kind of food someone like Hannibal would make.
Cooking is such a fulfilling activity that offers endless opportunities for the free exercise of creativity and imagination, as well as the challenge of conquering new skills and acquiring knowledge about the food prepared. Hannibal, beyond being a high-quality TV show, has wildly succeeded at providing nurturing and inspiration to those of us looking for something special when it comes to the art of cooking.
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Image sources: 1, 2 is my own photo, 3 and 7 from Hannibal Confessional, 4-6 taken from the blog Feeding Hannibal.
Brilliant post! You have made me want to watch this series.
@vicky1980 It's a bit macabre and disturbing, but it has a lot of artistic merit; it was really unlike anything else I had seen on TV. Ironically, though, wouldn't recommend to watch it during dinner time!
Hahah Love it! You should release a recipe book ;) Or a YouTube vid?
@benfox including how the get the main ingredient for the Hannibal dishes, of course ;-)
Maybe my Jiu Jitsu chokes will come in handy for that...
The principal! He will give me TP! I would hate for my bungholio to get polio....Where I come from, we have no bunghole.
You certainly are one dedicated commenter...
Would you like a spatula? For your bunghole?