Last week, Cathy invited us to join her for a screening of “Cooking History,” a documentary film that explores war through the eyes of military cooks. Director Péter Kerekes truly brings to life the stories of twelve people who together have fed soldiers in every major European conflict since (and including) World War II.
The film is ambitious in both the scope of the material and the originality of the story-telling. Kerekes interviewed his subjects while they were doing things — cooking the dishes they made for the troops or slaughtering animals for meat or gathering wild mushrooms or reenacting a harrowing moment on the battlefield. To illuminate one cook’s story of surviving a deadly submarine wreck, he shot him cooking schnitzel on a beach while the tide was coming in. During the Q & A period after the screening he said that by giving them activities — which subject and director devised together — he distracted them from the business of being interviewed and let them be themselves, unselfconsciously. Remarkable.
If you get a chance, see it. (Especially you, Erin! I think you’d find it inspirational.)
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The Great American Cooking Project
Notes from others: