‘Meaning of Food’ short on nutrition
That sausage pizza you had the other night – what did it mean to you?
Well, maybe it reminded you of your youth, and Saturday night treats with your family. Or maybe, if you are Italian, it struck a cultural chord.
Or maybe it was just … food.
Sometimes, after all, a pizza is just a pizza – although you wouldn’t know it from watching “The Meaning of Food,” a three-part series airing Thursday nights starting this week on PBS (10 p.m. on KUID-12 in Moscow and KCDT-26 in Coeur d’Alene; Fridays at 5 a.m. on KSPS-7 in Spokane).
This is a very entertaining series, with a very charming host: Marcus Samuelsson, the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised executive chef of Riingo and Aquavit, two acclaimed Manhattan restaurants.
The first show, which examines the ties between food and love, is the best. We watch as Mike Piancone, owner of a California Italian deli, caters his daughter’s wedding – a labor of love in every sense of the word.
In the course of the hour, we also meet a former prison inmate who found his ministry in cooking the last meals of condemned men; a Muslim teenager who struggles to fast each day during Ramadan as others scarf down their food around her; and a concentration camp survivor, who makes dishes from a cookbook written by women in the camps.
Most poignant is Thomas Soukakos, a Greek immigrant who closed his restaurant after his beloved wife, in the throes of postpartum depression, killed herself. Now, with his young son at his side, he’s opening a new restaurant – a cafe called Vios, the Greek word meaning life.
All of the food looks so scrumptious, and the people are so vivacious, that it seems peevish to point out that much of this is the equivalent of empty calories. There are serious issues involving food, and they are ignored or winked at over these three hours.
The series gives a minute or two to the almighty hamburger but otherwise does not dwell on fast food and its central role in the American diet. Nor does it talk about the onslaught of convenience foods that lack both taste and nutritional value.
And you can’t help but notice that a lot of the people on screen are … well, portly. Obesity is the elephant in the kitchen – obvious to all, but never confronted.
These are engaging stories about people and food, artfully presented. But with the title “The Meaning of Food,” you expect more.