October 14, 2020 • 49 mins
This creepy television show features downright delicious-looking dishes – which have to appear to be maybe-human flesh but be made of actor-friendly ingredients. Anney and Lauren discuss the implications and reality of the food featured in ‘Hannibal’.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Ries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about the Food of Hannibal. Yes we are. Yeah,
a very fun one. But I think it might be
the very first time I legitimately got nauseated researching an episode.
(00:28):
Uh same, Yeah, Um, so I kind of that to
look forward to. Yeah, I guess like minor content warning
in that we're talking about this horror television show that
is about murdering and eating people. So you know, if
that's not your cup of tea, Yeah, don't listen to
(00:51):
this one. It gets a little gruesome, it does, it does,
and I mean and obviously it is a television show.
It's a fictional television show. None of it's real. We
get deeply into exactly how not real the the food
is that they're serving on this show. But yeah, you know, yeah,
and I mean, I guess also spoiler alert. Oh yes,
(01:14):
if you haven't seen this show almost ten years old,
but not quite so, yeah, if you if you mean
to see it. I don't think we're actually going to
get into too deep of spoilers, but they're they're there,
So if you if you don't want any. If you
don't want any at all, then definitely, um, wait until
(01:34):
you have just downloaded the series into your brain on
Netflix and then listen. Yes, I definitely doing the research
for this. I'm only on season one. I only started
watching this show because we were going to do this episode. UM.
So I'm like halfway through season one and reading up
about it, I was like, oh, that's is Oh I'm oh,
(01:55):
I'm so spoiled. Oh heck, oh heck, dang it. Oh no, no, no,
it wasn't you. It was it was all of these
other writers who assume that, you know, someone reading an
article about the series will have watched the series. So yeah,
that's a fair assumption, I suppose. But this has been
(02:19):
one of our most requested topics later I'm assuming because
it is. It's kind of new to Netflix. Yeah, it
was always this summer. I think maybe June popped up
on Netflix. So yeah, and it's also like Halloween times
spooky topic. I I watched it all and enjoyed it.
But it was very long. I mean very long, it
(02:39):
depends on your definition very long. It was probably um
and I remember very clearly the food scenes of food
look delicious, and I was so disturbed by it. And
I also remember very clearly and Lauren and I had
this conversation earlier, thinking how did this get on network television? Yeah? Yeah,
because it is really upsetting. It is a really like
(03:01):
psychologically and visually upsetting show. And yet we were we
were talking about this earlier and like, I don't like
Annie and I y'all may have garnered, like we watch
a lot of horror content. Um, it's like like essentially
like genre fiction is the only stuff that I consume
in My favorite is horror and supernatural horror and body horror.
(03:26):
And this show aked me out, like yeah, and it
aired on network television NBC. Yeah, this is I will say,
this is one of my biggest It makes me very
squeamish as it's meant to, but it's one of my
(03:46):
like things that horror. It just will get to me,
and I know it will. So it was every episode
I was like, yeah, yeah, and you know, good, good,
good for us, good for us. Cannibalism and really grizzly,
really sociopathic murder still upsets us. I think that's it's
(04:08):
probably a checkmark in our in our columns in terms
of we might want to get worried if it's that
goes Yeah right, yeah, I do want to throw in here.
When I was nine years old, I think the biggest
trouble I've ever gotten into. Well, no, I have two
really good stories for this, but one of the biggest
I ever got into for watching a movie with a
friend when we were at my grandparents house and my
(04:30):
grandparents at HBO, so like we would wait till everyone
was asleep and we would sneak out and watch HBO.
And I remember three am one night we watched Silence
of the Lambs and we both just had like a
week of horrific nightmares until we finally had to fess
up and we weren't allowed to see each other for weeks.
(04:51):
Rounded Oh no, you were nine, Yeah, I think my heck, yeah,
that's well a you shouldn't out have watched that movie
when you are nine, No wonder you had horrific nightmares.
Um I was. I was about that age, like a
little bit younger when I uh, when I watched one
of the Freddie movies, one of the Nightmare on elm
(05:11):
Street movies, um, like without my parents full permission, and
I similarly like it's not that I had nightmares, because
I straight refused to sleep for like three days. I mean,
that's what that movie is all about, right, everyone, seven
year old Lauren had an interesting time. Um but I
(05:35):
I saw I saw the film. I don't think I
would have seen Silence of the Lambs in a theater.
I was a little bit too young, but um but
I did see it later when it came out on
on on video or TV UM, and very much enjoyed
it when I was in middle school. And that's also
when I started reading the books. But anyway, I think
that this brings us to our question, Sure, the food
(05:59):
of Hannibal? What is it? It's probably people. Great question.
The food of Hannibal is likely people. Um. But okay, okay,
um Hannibal UM if you didn't know and are very
confused at this juncture. UM is a television series that
(06:21):
debuted in from this creative team headed up by one
Brian Fuller, who's the guy behind some other like really weird,
excellent morbid television series UM like a dead like me
and wonderful and pushing daisies and American gods. He's done
stints on heroes and Star Trek kind of here and there.
(06:42):
He's also he's famous and or infamous for doing these
really weird shows, but also famous and or infamous for
um leaving those shows or those shows being canceled before
their time. Hannibal similarly ran for three seasons and then yes,
was canceled. Um Fuller has said that he had he
(07:05):
I think he pitched like a full seven seasons to
begin with. He has like at least three more that
he kind of has planned and fans and I believe
the whole creative team, UM really do hope that it
will come back someday. But oh, that's interesting. I wonder
if they don't want to spoil anything. But the final episode,
(07:25):
the ending, I was like, yeah, it's so. I wonder
if they did that knowing it was canceled. I think
they did. Yeah, there was something else planned, and how
they would come back from that. Um, he's he's talked
a little bit about it, and I'll throw in that
at the end. UM. But but yeah, so um so.
The story of Hannibal UM is the story set in
(07:48):
the world of Dr Hannibal Lecter, the the infamous fictional
psychologist turned serial killer slash Cannibal. UM. We all know
those people try to keep them out of your life,
but you know, you know, um, they're just so charming
they always come there. Um, most of us, most most
(08:09):
of us, like Annie and I were, UM were introduced
to Dr Lector in UM The Silence of the Lambs,
which is a novel that was written and then adapted
into this just gorgeous upsetting film with us Sir Anthony
Hopkins playing Lecter opposite Jodie Foster playing Clarice Starling who's
this FBI UH psychological profile trainee. And Hopkins and Foster
(08:34):
both want oscars for their portrayals alongside Like It one
Best Picture and Director UM Jonathan dem and Best Adapted Screenplay,
all of which I mentioned to say that, like, this
movie was a big deal and and it really catapulted
this property and this villain in Dr Elector in particular,
into the public mind. UM. Now in the film, um
(08:58):
Lector has already been caught and imprisoned for his crimes,
and Foster's character Clarice is going to him for advice
on this new string of murders that's occurring. And and
the story is actually a sequel to a story first
written as a novel published one by the name of
Red Dragon, in which another different FBI profiler, one Will Graham,
(09:21):
turns to the imprisoned Elector for help Um and now
Graham is the one who caught Lector prior to the
events of Red Dragon. Um. And after the success of
the movie Silence of the Lambs, the author of these books,
Thomas Harris, wrote another sequel called hannibal Um, which further
explores Lector in Starling's relationship, and then a prequel called
(09:43):
Hannibal Rising, which explores Lector's youth. Um. And if you
heard some bells ringing in the background, that's because my
cat is on my lap now, because he decided to
join in for the cannibalism times. He was like, yeah, yeah,
weird stuff. Cool. He's a fluzzy little murderer. Uh anyway.
(10:04):
Uh So so that the TV series hannibal Um is
set in between Hannibal Rising and Red Dragon, and it
explores this relationship between Will Graham Um played in the
show by Hugh Dancy, and Dr Lecter played by Mad's
Michelson Um in the time before Graham has figured out
that Lecter is you know, like killing and eating people
(10:26):
and sometimes feeding those people too well, Graham Yeah, and
lots of other FBI related humans. Yeah, yep, um yeah,
so yeah that eating people part. Um, we're a food
show ostensibly. Um, I've never been more worried to say
(10:46):
that in an episode in my life Hard, same friend,
Hard same okay. So so yeah, so that. The thing
about Hannibal Lecter that that makes him such a compelling
character is that he's he's very urbane, very refined and
in his speech and manners and style and taste, if
(11:07):
you'll forgive the the pun. Um uh, he's very well educated,
very smart, he's meticulous. Um he's a lot of these
things that we as a society hold up as being
like venerably civilized, you know. Um and he has no
regard for human life um and and for these basic
(11:27):
tenants of civilization, like like we don't eat people. Um so,
so you know, like a key and creepy. Part of
this character is that he doesn't just kill someone and
take a chomp. He he butchers them, and he uses
their flesh and their organs to prepare these ornate delicacies
(11:48):
um with with distinct elements of like hot cuisine or
novel cuisine. Um and and Lecter talks about this. In
Silence of the Lambs, there's that there's that famous line
A census taker once tried to test me I ate
his liver with some father beans and a nice candy.
(12:13):
But we don't see it on film until the sequel Hannibal,
and really disturbing scene different that's that's not gonna get
into it here. But one of the one of the
really interesting and remarkable things about the television series is
that like, you know, like it's it's set in the
modern day. Um, it's not a it's not a period piece.
Um and and we both the viewers and the creators
(12:35):
of the show, you know, like have had decades of
food photography and film culture that borders on pornographic um,
like the sumptuously plated and lit and filmed uh plates
of food. And like, you know, Thomas Harris writing these
books certainly back in one but um but even the
(12:56):
sequels ranging into the early two thousand's, like he could
have had no idea what food television and Instagram was
going to do to the presentation of food and the
presentation of chefs. Um. And so Hannibal the series is
interesting because it takes all of that and shows us Lector,
(13:18):
the chef beautifully preparing these beautiful dishes. Um, and you
just never know whether those cuts of meat that he's
working with are from humans or not. Nope. This reminds
me of another I didn't I forgot about this, but
when I was in high school, I got like a
really bad stomach flu and at the time we didn't
(13:44):
have cable, but for some weird like week we got
cable for free. Happened to be when I was homesick,
and so I was like, oh, you know what I'm
gonna do. I'm just gonna leave on the Sci Fi channel,
perfect timing for illness. And I guess it was like
flesh eating week because I watched uh Cabin Fever first
(14:06):
and then Hannibal, and I remember just being like, what
was the remote thing to get it? Just feeling so
awful and grossed up. And I have not seen either
of those sense, and I doubt I will watch them
ever again. Oh wow, that's understand that that scene. Oh gosh,
a spoiler for the film Hannibal. Um. There's a scene
(14:30):
where Dr Lecter serves, is it really ota? Something like that?
His his own brain, like while he's still alive and
in his head's like kind of you could see his
brain and yeah, it's like it's I remember at the
time thinking that it was a really good special effect.
I don't know if it would hold up because I
(14:50):
have not rewatched that film, but well, it was enough
for high school me to be like, never again. But
let's talk about who made these beautiful, delicious looking dishes. Yeah,
for the for the TV series, because they are they
are so gorgeous. Yes, so the shows that food silence
(15:12):
was Jamspoon, who would write these detailed post on the
show's food after every episode on her blog Feeding Hannibal,
and she later released a cookbook under the same name.
I know, I want to check it out so badly.
Part of the horror of the show is that these
dishes do, in fact look delicious, despite the fact that
(15:34):
they are often made from human parts, or we're left
to assume that they are um and sometimes fed to
the human they came from, or to unsuspecting humans at large.
By making you salivate our desire to try these dishes, you,
the viewer, feels complicit in Hannibal's monstrosities. Um. Yeah, most
(15:55):
of his dinner guests are completely unaware of what they're
really eating. Of course they are, which is a horror
in itself. Can we truly ever know for sure what's
in some of the foods that we eat? I mean,
that's that's been something that's plagued us forever. Sure, but
I mean usually not to this horror level, right, But
(16:17):
you know, I know, And yes, the show at times
feels like a cooking show. Um. According to one of
the producers and writers, Nick and Tasca, we admire great chefs,
and this version of Hannibal Lecter is the greatest chef
in the world. Yep. And guess what they had one
of the greatest chefs in the world behind Jose Andre's.
(16:40):
He served as the show's culinary consultant. When asked about
his role, he wrote, my input is mainly about how
Hannibal would cook a certain body part, and I have
to think of something that would look appetizing once it's cooked.
And also it was the cutest thing. Sometimes he would
tweet after well I don't know if tweet, but he
would write something up about after an episode of Public
and to be like, well, I'm salivating now, so I
(17:02):
guess I did a good job, yep. Um, And all
the episode titles are food related and specific to that episode.
In the first season, each episode was named after a
thirteen course French menu, serving as a structure for Hannibal's murders,
but also the season arc, which I thought was very clever.
(17:24):
Yeah oh yeah, yeah, and the second and third season's
use um, Japanese and Italian terminology to name their episodes.
It's so good it is and every dish in the
show tells the story. There's a mood, it propels the
action forward, it pretends something coming in the future. These
dishes are disturbing but also plot important. The food has
(17:48):
been described as one of the characters, Whon has been
quoted as saying she has to navigate quote that liminal
space between being seduced and being repulsed. M hm and yeah.
This particularly resonates during our time of food porn and
foodie culture at large. She deliberately plays with things like tripophobia,
(18:09):
which is fear of holes, to make people afraid that
quote something alien has been implanted while we were sleeping,
and she during this article I was reading. When she
said that she showed an example, I was like, yeah,
bomb unsettled, I'm settled. Yep. Oh boy, worked congrats yea.
(18:30):
She grew up in a small town and her family
was involved in the restaurant world. UM. In her words,
she grew up exposed to FO. She would help preparation
before she went to school, and because of that, she
absolutely didn't want anything to do with food, nothing in
her work life. So she went to art school and
became an art director, and through that she went into advertising,
(18:52):
and some of her top accounts were these behemoth companies
in the food realm like McDonald's, entering that she had
her first brush with food styling. Eventually, she left advertising
and started freelancing as an artist and food stylist. But
she was working on a children's book when she got
(19:15):
called up to work on Hannibal. I love it yep
on her first dance set, It's great. You should read
interviews with her because she describes really not knowing what
she was getting into UM. And she showed up with
these four pig lungs she had, like a bruised one
and a pretty pink one, and she and other crew
(19:36):
members discussed how a character like Hannibal would go about
preparing it. Um punas described these dishes Hannibal makes as
a gift from the devil. He's gifting you with continued
life by not killing you and by enjoying these elaborate
meals of luxury, meals that characters enjoy without knowing or
asking often the cost. He's inviting you to join, to
(20:00):
come to the dark side. Oh yeah. And that's a
that's a really huge, like overarching theme um in these
in these books and films. Um. I think, really really
effectively done. Um in in the in the book Hannibal,
um the sequel in which I by the end of
(20:20):
that book, y'all, if you haven't read it, it's really interesting.
By the end of the book, I realized that I
was completely rooting for Hannibal and not not for Clarice,
and I was like, welp here, we are cool. I'll
never think about this again. Um. But but also very
effectively in this show, because he's just so dynamic and
(20:42):
compelling and I oh man, anyway, anyway, anyway, Yeah, And
there is a level of trust between cook and consumer.
There's this level of intimacy Almo, and to have that
betrayed is very frightening and unsettling, and to have it
like unknowingly right again, there is a lot of ust
(21:04):
in this show, which if you don't know, is Unresolved
Sexual tension. It's one of my favorite fan fiction terms
because I think it's useful. But yeah, it's almost that
like sensuality of how these dishes are presented and how
they're prepared, and it's just sure hanging over everything, and
it gets more and more pronounced as it goes on. Yeah. Yeah,
And Brian Fuller has talked about that because the the
(21:27):
the Unresolved Sexual Tension is between um Will Graham and
Hannibal Lecter and uh and and Brian Brian Fuller is
a is a gay man as well, and I think
he did this extremely intentionally, and um was was really
trying to to to play with these themes of of
of what what people do when when they're when they're
(21:50):
in the society that isn't accepting them. And I mean,
you know, obviously not a parallel Like right, eating people
and like wanting to love who you love are are
two very very very separate issues. I'd say they're on
the opposite side. Yeah, they're not even on the same spectrum.
(22:12):
That's two different spectrums. But but but no, but but
you know, I think that that he is using using
these these parallels between these characters to explore an unorthodox
um type of of loving relationship um and and too,
and to explore it through through two dudes in a
(22:32):
homosexual relationship, which we should be seeing more of on
screen because because they exist, and those stories are important
even when they involve killing and eating people. Well yeah,
I mean, you just gotta up the drama if it's
on the television. But you know that's TV always going
to throw a cannibal in their jes television. I was
(22:56):
thinking about this, how and a lot of hard depiction
of spells. You need a piece of someone's body, usually hair, fingernails,
that you ingest, and then they become a part of
you or you have some sort of power over them. Um.
And then I was thinking about how grossed out we
get if we find a hair in our food, even
(23:17):
has our own hair. And a lot of episodes we've done,
we've discussed foods that were meant to symbolize the bodies
of enemy and you would eat them to show your
power over them. Yeah. Yeah, And apparently this is something
that's really stuck with me because I wrote this horror
short called Red Velvet, and you can check it out
(23:39):
on the podcast Thirteen Days of Halloween, which should be
out soon ish. When you're listening to this, Yeah, yeah,
I think the I think the trailer is supposed to
drop this Monday. The I don't know what days are anymore, twelve, Yeah,
and then it should it should start coming in out
(24:01):
thirteen days before Halloween hypothetically. Yeah. And the one I
wrote very much plays into this. The description I gave
the producers, which they were the sweetest and we're very
patient with me, was while preparing for a party and
attempting to think of a fun fact. Stress causes a
cupcake malfunction. Icebreakers are the real horror ema, right, and
(24:22):
they went with it. Yes. Uh. Side note, y'all, do
please check out that series. It's a it's a it's
a horror anthology series. We're all really excited about it
around here. I may or may not have a piece
in it. I'm not sure, but those are happening very quickly.
They are moving. Um. If I do minds about the
(24:47):
gut microbiome, of course it is because of course it
is because bacteria poop. And do you all really think
that I would have written a horror short that didn't
involve bacteria poop being evil. Yeah, I love that both
of us did like food and jac of course, of
course we did. I did not write that piece about
(25:09):
about haunted salt and pepper shakers. So I'm sorry. We
can we can work on that though. Okay, we can
do that on here. Okay, alright, alright, alright, back to Hannibal.
Back to Hannibal, and back to this idea of like food, right,
power it holds over us. Meanwhile, you have you have
something like communion, where it's the wholly offering the body
(25:29):
of Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ um, or
ritualistic family meals that have the power of connecting us
over shared experience and memories. And that theme of family
one that you make versus one that you were born
into um and how food plays a role in that
runs throughout this series. In Freud wrote that the act
(25:50):
of eating human meat is an act where in that
person quote is assimilated by eating and is in that
way annihilated. And that's sort of the dichotomy of Hannibal.
He's both the brutish predator and a man of yes,
very fine taste. Again, he chooses his Victims Carefully is
also a commentary on the convenience of consumer culture today,
(26:11):
which allows us to really separate ourselves from the often
not so pleasant stories and uh, perhaps a downright disturbing
way that our food gets to us. Yeah, and on
top of that, there is this layer of classism. Food
is both something we need to survive in something that
signifies class Hannibal is the most cultured and stylized person
on this show. The other characters trust him to be
(26:33):
the arbiter of taste. No one wants to admit. They
couldn't tell you what lamb heart tastes like. It's weaponized classisum.
If he has served me a plate, he's like, this
is lamb heart. It's so rare, so pricing. I'd be like,
oh yes, I'll absolutely try it, and I wouldn't know
what it tastes like. I wouldn't know, oh this is
human heart, yeah, or or you know, you would do
that thing where um you know, like like they say
(26:54):
in tastings, if you suggest um through through written copy
or through speech like oh yeah, this wine is going
to have notes of of of earth and whatever and whatever. Um,
it's it's very we're very impressionable. And so if you say, hey,
this is a lamb and you know what, you know
(27:15):
basically what lamb tastes like, but maybe you've never had
like a lamb tongue. Yeah, you're just gonna go, oh, sure, yeah,
I taste lamb and that Yeah, that's absolutely yeah. And
you know, despite maybe the characters in this show they
were looking for a cannibal, in my general life, I'm
never gonna say, oh, what if this is human? Um,
unless there is a cannibal on the loose in my mind, yeah,
(27:37):
I've never thought that when you or anyone else has
has served me a plate of food, yes, yes, me either.
Perhaps we should I don't know if I want to
live that way or no. I'm just gonna eat, eat,
eat it. And you were doing the thing that he
plays on. Let go and let god. Well, we have
(28:01):
a lot more interesting, slash disturbing stuff to share with you,
but first, do we have a quick break for a
word from her sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So a lot of the food in the
(28:23):
show used in particularly the dinner scenes, because a lot
of episodes end on this kind of epic dinner scene. Sure, sure,
these foods aren't actually organs. They're not actually meat yet. Yeah.
And and a lot of the dishes that Hannibal serves
are are awful. Are lungs or brains, are hardens or
(28:46):
testicles or tongues or etcetera. Right, um, But in actuality
in the in the real world, as they say, um,
they are not those things. This is both because they
would spoil and the actors might not be comfortable eating
an animal's tongue over multiple takes. I will say most
of them seemed pretty down to try things. But it's
(29:08):
one thing to like try it and then like eight
takes later, you might feel a little differently. Yeah, So
the food has to function on at least three levels.
The example Poon gave to g Q is this, If
Hannibal claims something is Lambs tongue, we the audience understand
it is most likely human tongue, so it has to
(29:29):
look a little like both while being neither. Poon calls
her process hannibalized. Yeah. I know. According to her, everything
is edible and a lot of consideration has gone into
what she served. Not only does it have to look
good right right right um? Often human like, um, but
(29:53):
also not quite humanlike. She strives to make it actually
taste good, to make it easier the actors to act
when a lot of these things do require them to eat. Uh.
And it has to be something that doesn't require a
lot of chewing because that would mess with lines. Yeah.
And of course spoiling and food safety are always concerned.
So that's just all these things going on. Yeah, and
(30:15):
that's in addition to the actor's dietary restraints because um
she she talks in her blog about how you know
a lot of um, a lot of humans in Hollywood
are fearing towards veganism these days. Um A lots of
people are watching their gluten other stuff like that. So, yeah,
they have to be physically able to eat it. She
(30:36):
prefers them to enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's
only one instance where people really didn't, and we'll talk
about that a little bit later. She shared a story
about how some of her meat substitutes looks so much
like meat that one vegan actor wouldn't even eat it. Yeah.
In interviews, though, the actors claim the food usually taste
as good as it looks. Uh. And there's a running
(30:58):
joke that actor Laurence Fish Fern's character Jack Crawford is
almost always the one that has to eat the dishes
and comments on them in the show Good Are Bad.
Hun has also said that Mad Nicholson quote does his
own stunts, which I love in the kitchen and is
a quick study. Oh he's great. He like, like, what
a what a job to step into a role that
(31:21):
Anthony Hopkins just just knocked so far out of the park. Um,
you know, it's it's it's a different sort of take
on the character. But but yeah, I know he does
a really great job. And I find it he had
a career in dance before he was an actor, Mads
Nicholson and um, and that that level of like comfort,
um and control in movement work really really shows on
(31:46):
on this show. Oh yeah, oh yeah, you know, I
suppose we've gotten a little we've sprawled away from our
usual structure beats. What about the nutrition, Uh okay, we
can move on. A lot of fat. Looks like it's
(32:07):
used a lot of Yeah, a lot of a lot
of the dishes are very rich. There's a lot of
heavy sauces. Um, there's a lot of pastry. As I
mostly joked once on the internet. Um, you know, cook
the rich to a safe temperature. That's probably uh, you know,
but like fahrenheit if you're going by pork standards. Well,
(32:37):
there you go. You know, we're one day we're going
to do an actual episode on cannibalism, So maybe we will.
That's gonna be long time from now. Yeah, it's gonna
be a whole week when that happens. But at didn't rate.
Umh we do have a number for you. I have
two numbers. Oh huh, I just height. This show is
(32:58):
getting like two point five to three mill and views
per week. But it was when it was canceled, a
lot of people were very upset. It had a very
dedicated fan base called Fannibals, and after the show was canceled,
there was a petition to save the show that received
over thirty two thousand signatures. Yeah yeah, um, history wise,
(33:23):
I mean again, we'll come back and do a whole
episode later. Yeah. What an odd job we have sometimes
it just strikes me. Um. But also I mean this Jannispoon,
the style of food styles on this show. What a job. Uh.
(33:46):
And much of the inspiration for Hannibals dishes, she says
stemmed from historical dishes and cooking practices around the world,
and in particular seventeen century Dutch chefs and meals depicted
in the art of the time, and these scenes in
Hannibal when the meal is presented do feel like tableaus.
(34:07):
Poon has also cited Salvador Dolly as an inspiration, as
well as literary works like Dante's Inferno Love It I know,
and yes, not all the dishes on the show have
human in them, I say with a question more hypothetically. Hypothetically,
there was an aspect with an infinity loop of pickled anchovies,
(34:28):
and this is the one, This is the one that
the actors remembers being pretty grissy. They immediately like spit
it out like children. Um and Poon describes it as
their least favorite to work on, but also one of
the most rewarding because of that, I was just so
afraid it was gonna like collapse. Oh yeah, No, aspect
is very difficult, so especially for for for camera. I'm
(34:49):
sure that the temperature of the I mean, even with
L A. D S. You know, you don't have to
worry as hard about lights anymore. But um, but still, yeah, challenge,
what a challenge. There was also trout that was artistically
dish to appear as if they were regurgitating their own tails.
Uh huh. Roasted lamb where the rib bones were positioned
to resemble praying hands, Oh my gosh, ultimately called the
(35:12):
sacrificial lamb, are the steeple of ribs. There are plenty
of dishes where we the audience are left in the
dark about the meat being served. I would say almost
all of them are like that. When Hannibal claims something
is sausage, we really have no proof what kind of sausage? Nope, nope,
it's it's clear, Like I think about twice, it's like,
(35:34):
really explicitly clear. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we'll get
into those in a second. It really messes with your head.
Even me classifying these few dishes is possibly not having
any human in them makes me nervous because I can't
I can't for sure stuff. I do think there are
(35:55):
a few dishes sands human. I believe it in my heart,
and I don't know which ones they are. Uh, and
we do have a few specific examples um throughout the show.
These dishes are beautiful and enticing, and as Hannibal warns
in one episode, nothing here is vegetarian. So again to
(36:21):
say there are things like mushroom and spinach stuffed cow heart.
I hope you can hear the heavy quotes because it's
actually the heart of a doctor who is rude. Annibal
never do that, No, not asabuco made from the calf
of a serial killer. I remember that scene that looks
so good, Like it looks so good, I'm like upset
(36:45):
by how good it looked. Porkline with red fruit Cumberland sauce,
which is all in quotes because blood might be involved
in that one. Um sanguinaccio dolce, which was a putting
made out of chocolate, and the quote blood of a
local cow, which I believe were meant to interpret as
a woman that annoyed him. Um a sacramentte omelet, complete
(37:09):
with mysterious sweetbreads and strips of meat boudou noir are
French blood, sausage and steak and kidney pie. We can
all guess what the kidney is. Um. One of the
most upsetting examples of Coon's work has to be from
season three. The premier season three, when Hannibal serves a
human thigh which was wrapped in a leaf and slow
(37:31):
roasted in clay pot, complete with snails and skewers of
sugarcane to the human decigh once belonged to. Yep, yeah
that's Eddie Iszard I believe is that character. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's one of the spoilers that I received. And yeah
it's okay, it's no problem, no problem, and yeah, and
(37:54):
apparently his character is just like yeah, sure, it's like,
you know, I'm curious. And this dish was inspired by
the Chinese dish of candied pork. Belly Poon calls this
creation pinhead the sin of Bite from Hail Raiser, Oh
I love it. Another infamous meal came from the series
(38:17):
finale Badelia, played by Jillian Anderson. Her leg gets roasted
and then wrapped in leaves and surrounded by bright pops
of color from chrocoal, fruits, and flowers as well as
coal and I meant to symbolize Dante's Inferno and the
nine circles of Hell. She also was I don't know
if chill is the word I would use, because she's
(38:37):
just kind of like really hides her emotions. She knew
this was going down, and she seemed kind of like, well, well,
Hannibal Hannibal. I guess I guess I should have known
all along, huh I was his psychologist? Yeah? Whoops, indeed
(38:59):
that's a be big oops. That's a yep. Um. And
so we do have a few miscellaneous things here. At
the end, British chef James Tomlinson combined together mince pork,
mincefield and minced bone marriage to create a burger that was,
according to him, the closest you could get to eating
(39:22):
human flesh without really eating it. Cool. I'm I'm just
I'm not sure why one would do that, uh I, Yeah,
questions have arisen to my mind. Well, you know, okay, great, good,
(39:47):
good for him. Um, jeez, I'm like more upset about
that that I am about like the rest of this.
I'm like, at least that's fictional, Like this guy's running
around in the real world. What's he up to anyway? Um,
I'm sure he's perfectly nice and has a lovely sense
of humor. Yeah. So, so I guess I guess A big,
(40:08):
a big question here, um is you know, aside from
is the meat human is will the show come back? Um?
And there is a lot of buzz about it, um
since the series is up on on Netflix pretty recently.
UM and you know, since since the show was was
canceled anyway, UM Fuller has said that he was was
(40:31):
waiting to try to option it to um to, to
a streaming service or or another network. He was waiting
UM for some of the rights two characters seen in
the films to revert to the film's producers before he
started entering talks about a season four. UM that that
that reversion happened in August of seventeen. Unfortunately since then,
(40:53):
UM or unfortunately for Fuller and the series Hannibal, since then,
UM CBS obtained the rights to Larry Starling's character for
a TV series that they're planning. UM and they say
doesn't need to involve the character of Hannibal Lecter And
I'm not sure any's you know, that's up to them.
So she could not as of now anyway, UM appear
(41:14):
in future Hannibal seasons. But UM, but yeah, he he
said that he has some plans for it. He's said that,
you know, like the actors and the executive producer are
into it. He's talked about UM bringing it back as
like a couple of mini series maybe and so uh
and it sounds like, um, he's He's said that some
(41:35):
of his inspirations that one of his biggest inspirations for
the show was the work of David Lynch Um and
stuff like twin Peaks, and so you know, I I
could I could see, knowing what I know about the
way that the show ends, I could I could see
him doing something really extra dreamlike and weird for future
(41:56):
mini series. But um, but yeah, he says that he
really wants to explore that relationship ship between between Dr
Lecter and UH and Mr Graham and so you know,
I I hope I hope that he gets to do
it because I'm real curious now and I really want
to see more of Poon's work in in this particular avenue.
(42:19):
She and she works on a lot of different projects. Um,
basically wherever she she does a lot of work. So
certainly anything like if you ever see someone eating brains
on said, like, there's a decent chance that she was involved. Um,
but especially like elevated brains, like if you've got like
a brain taco or something like that, you know, not
(42:40):
just like piles of brains. But yeah, I don't know, um,
And yeah, and I really recommend checking out her blog.
It is so beautiful. She goes into so much detail
about how she achieved different things and and has all
of these behind the scene photos and stories. It's really cool. Yeah.
And my ends me of when we had v Kelly
(43:01):
on the show to talk about special effects. Yeah. Yeah,
it's really a delight to hear her right and talk
about these gruesome things, but in such an upbeat manner,
just so excited. And if any of this is uh
sounded appetizing to you has a wetter appetite, I would
(43:22):
recommend checking out show. It is very it is very
uh m a t v m A. Yes, it's really upsetting.
Oh yeah, Like we said, we watch a lot of
horror and it unsettled me for sure. Yeah. Um. And
there's a lot of stuff we didn't touch on just
because it's like perhaps too short to go into too
(43:43):
much detail. But there are things like growing mushrooms out
of bodies, or like taking out a liver and replacing
another liver. There's a lot going on and there perhaps
that's obvious, but oh, one more, one more thing that
I did want to touch on though, is Dr Lecter
has a very refined or specific, perhaps sense of humor.
(44:07):
And so at these dinner parties, there's like there's like
a seventy nine percent chance that he's going to drop
some kind of pun that you know that he is
cracking up internally about one of the one of the
recent episodes I watched, what was it um, It is
so lovely to have friends for dinner? Yes, Yes, And
(44:30):
and later on that really gets amplified because like he's
like toying with these FBAI agents that are looking for
him but having dinner with him, not realizing and at
some point, like Jack and Will are trying to they
think it's him and they're trying to like lure them out,
so they're doing puns too. They're having like a weird
(44:52):
subtle chance cut off and you're like, whoa, what a
strange situation. That's be a full Yeah, so you have
that to look forward to. M hmm. But in the meantime,
I guess we should wrap up this discussion of Hannibal
the Cannibal for now. We should and had to Thomas
(45:14):
Harris for naming the most famous fictional cannibal of our
time something that rhymed with cannibal a lot, but thank you.
Uh so, yes, we do have some listener mail for you,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
word from your sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(45:45):
thank you, and we're back with Scary Vida. Or later wrote,
I just listened to your Go To Chong podcast and
I'm actually writing a response to the first listener mail
where you mentioned eating or drinking unexpected things. I immediately
(46:06):
thought of a classic family story. My grandma's favorite drink
is a martini. For some background of how she makes them,
she uses bottom shelf vodka and the smallest flash of
giramouth all over ice. When she would visit. We didn't
have any special cups for mixed drinks or anything, so
she would just make them in her regular water glasses.
One time, my grandma made herself with martini and said
(46:28):
it at my brother's place at the table. He about
ten years old at the time, thought someone very kindly
had poured him a glass of ice water for dinner
and took a big swig. The look on his face
was priceless. My grandma just celebrated her ninetieth birthday in August,
and my dad shared the story once again with everyone
on the family Zoom call. My brother didn't have video on,
(46:48):
but I could hear him rolling his eyes. He's now
twenty nine. I mean that's got to be a big
shock for a ten year old. For sure, that would
be a big shocks me. So that is hoof, hoof.
I love it. Yeah, I'm glad you all got to
salary over soon. That's great. Oh yeah yeah, and happy
(47:11):
birthday to your grandma. Um stuff wrote I immediately had
to write in after your yatzin episode mar Martz marts
Marge nikes. I still can't mattson I think anyway. I
couldn't believe you didn't mention my hometown, the land of
october Fest, Kitchener, Ontario. It holds the second largest october
(47:33):
Fest in the world. Why, you might reasonably ask, Kitchener
was founded by German and particularly Mennonite settlers, and continues
to be a hub of German Canadian heritage. In fact,
the town was originally called Berlin, Ontario, but changed the
name to Kitchener during World War One because the city
worried no one would want to buy anything made in Berlin. Now,
(47:54):
knowing more about Earl Kitchener, I'm not so sure they
made the right choice, but Anyway, I have many fond
memories of eating schnitzel and spaitzel to the tune of
the Chicken Dance throughout my childhood as a university student. Well,
let's just say the memories are hazier. I am sure
I had a great time, Sure you did too. And
(48:15):
I love this. I love that the second Larngest October
West Celebration is in Ontario, Canada. Yes, why not? Oh
I that's that's great and I hope that I'm saying
Kitchener correctly. I A lot of listeners have written about
going to october Fest, various october Fest and you'll be
(48:37):
hearing lots of those coming up. And it looks like
a blast. It really really does. So thanks for that,
Thanks for sending those sending pictures always, yes, and thanks
to both of these listeners for writing too us. If
you would like to write to as you can, our
email is Hello at savor pod dot com. You can
also find us on social media. We are at savor
(48:58):
Pod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Yes, that's the third one.
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts to my Heart Radio,
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks so much,
Toy superproducers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots of par good
(49:19):
things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Ries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about the Food of Hannibal. Yes we are. Yeah,
a very fun one. But I think it might be
the very first time I legitimately got nauseated researching an episode.
(00:28):
Uh same, Yeah, Um, so I kind of that to
look forward to. Yeah, I guess like minor content warning
in that we're talking about this horror television show that
is about murdering and eating people. So you know, if
that's not your cup of tea, Yeah, don't listen to
(00:51):
this one. It gets a little gruesome, it does, it does,
and I mean and obviously it is a television show.
It's a fictional television show. None of it's real. We
get deeply into exactly how not real the the food
is that they're serving on this show. But yeah, you know, yeah,
and I mean, I guess also spoiler alert. Oh yes,
(01:14):
if you haven't seen this show almost ten years old,
but not quite so, yeah, if you if you mean
to see it. I don't think we're actually going to
get into too deep of spoilers, but they're they're there,
So if you if you don't want any. If you
don't want any at all, then definitely, um, wait until
(01:34):
you have just downloaded the series into your brain on
Netflix and then listen. Yes, I definitely doing the research
for this. I'm only on season one. I only started
watching this show because we were going to do this episode. UM.
So I'm like halfway through season one and reading up
about it, I was like, oh, that's is Oh I'm oh,
(01:55):
I'm so spoiled. Oh heck, oh heck, dang it. Oh no, no, no,
it wasn't you. It was it was all of these
other writers who assume that, you know, someone reading an
article about the series will have watched the series. So yeah,
that's a fair assumption, I suppose. But this has been
(02:19):
one of our most requested topics later I'm assuming because
it is. It's kind of new to Netflix. Yeah, it
was always this summer. I think maybe June popped up
on Netflix. So yeah, and it's also like Halloween times
spooky topic. I I watched it all and enjoyed it.
But it was very long. I mean very long, it
(02:39):
depends on your definition very long. It was probably um
and I remember very clearly the food scenes of food
look delicious, and I was so disturbed by it. And
I also remember very clearly and Lauren and I had
this conversation earlier, thinking how did this get on network television? Yeah? Yeah,
because it is really upsetting. It is a really like
(03:01):
psychologically and visually upsetting show. And yet we were we
were talking about this earlier and like, I don't like
Annie and I y'all may have garnered, like we watch
a lot of horror content. Um, it's like like essentially
like genre fiction is the only stuff that I consume
in My favorite is horror and supernatural horror and body horror.
(03:26):
And this show aked me out, like yeah, and it
aired on network television NBC. Yeah, this is I will say,
this is one of my biggest It makes me very
squeamish as it's meant to, but it's one of my
(03:46):
like things that horror. It just will get to me,
and I know it will. So it was every episode
I was like, yeah, yeah, and you know, good, good,
good for us, good for us. Cannibalism and really grizzly,
really sociopathic murder still upsets us. I think that's it's
(04:08):
probably a checkmark in our in our columns in terms
of we might want to get worried if it's that
goes Yeah right, yeah, I do want to throw in here.
When I was nine years old, I think the biggest
trouble I've ever gotten into. Well, no, I have two
really good stories for this, but one of the biggest
I ever got into for watching a movie with a
friend when we were at my grandparents house and my
(04:30):
grandparents at HBO, so like we would wait till everyone
was asleep and we would sneak out and watch HBO.
And I remember three am one night we watched Silence
of the Lambs and we both just had like a
week of horrific nightmares until we finally had to fess
up and we weren't allowed to see each other for weeks.
(04:51):
Rounded Oh no, you were nine, Yeah, I think my heck, yeah,
that's well a you shouldn't out have watched that movie
when you are nine, No wonder you had horrific nightmares.
Um I was. I was about that age, like a
little bit younger when I uh, when I watched one
of the Freddie movies, one of the Nightmare on elm
(05:11):
Street movies, um, like without my parents full permission, and
I similarly like it's not that I had nightmares, because
I straight refused to sleep for like three days. I mean,
that's what that movie is all about, right, everyone, seven
year old Lauren had an interesting time. Um but I
(05:35):
I saw I saw the film. I don't think I
would have seen Silence of the Lambs in a theater.
I was a little bit too young, but um but
I did see it later when it came out on
on on video or TV UM, and very much enjoyed
it when I was in middle school. And that's also
when I started reading the books. But anyway, I think
that this brings us to our question, Sure, the food
(05:59):
of Hannibal? What is it? It's probably people. Great question.
The food of Hannibal is likely people. Um. But okay, okay,
um Hannibal UM if you didn't know and are very
confused at this juncture. UM is a television series that
(06:21):
debuted in from this creative team headed up by one
Brian Fuller, who's the guy behind some other like really weird,
excellent morbid television series UM like a dead like me
and wonderful and pushing daisies and American gods. He's done
stints on heroes and Star Trek kind of here and there.
(06:42):
He's also he's famous and or infamous for doing these
really weird shows, but also famous and or infamous for
um leaving those shows or those shows being canceled before
their time. Hannibal similarly ran for three seasons and then yes,
was canceled. Um Fuller has said that he had he
(07:05):
I think he pitched like a full seven seasons to
begin with. He has like at least three more that
he kind of has planned and fans and I believe
the whole creative team, UM really do hope that it
will come back someday. But oh, that's interesting. I wonder
if they don't want to spoil anything. But the final episode,
(07:25):
the ending, I was like, yeah, it's so. I wonder
if they did that knowing it was canceled. I think
they did. Yeah, there was something else planned, and how
they would come back from that. Um, he's he's talked
a little bit about it, and I'll throw in that
at the end. UM. But but yeah, so um so.
The story of Hannibal UM is the story set in
(07:48):
the world of Dr Hannibal Lecter, the the infamous fictional
psychologist turned serial killer slash Cannibal. UM. We all know
those people try to keep them out of your life,
but you know, you know, um, they're just so charming
they always come there. Um, most of us, most most
(08:09):
of us, like Annie and I were, UM were introduced
to Dr Lector in UM The Silence of the Lambs,
which is a novel that was written and then adapted
into this just gorgeous upsetting film with us Sir Anthony
Hopkins playing Lecter opposite Jodie Foster playing Clarice Starling who's
this FBI UH psychological profile trainee. And Hopkins and Foster
(08:34):
both want oscars for their portrayals alongside Like It one
Best Picture and Director UM Jonathan dem and Best Adapted Screenplay,
all of which I mentioned to say that, like, this
movie was a big deal and and it really catapulted
this property and this villain in Dr Elector in particular,
into the public mind. UM. Now in the film, um
(08:58):
Lector has already been caught and imprisoned for his crimes,
and Foster's character Clarice is going to him for advice
on this new string of murders that's occurring. And and
the story is actually a sequel to a story first
written as a novel published one by the name of
Red Dragon, in which another different FBI profiler, one Will Graham,
(09:21):
turns to the imprisoned Elector for help Um and now
Graham is the one who caught Lector prior to the
events of Red Dragon. Um. And after the success of
the movie Silence of the Lambs, the author of these books,
Thomas Harris, wrote another sequel called hannibal Um, which further
explores Lector in Starling's relationship, and then a prequel called
(09:43):
Hannibal Rising, which explores Lector's youth. Um. And if you
heard some bells ringing in the background, that's because my
cat is on my lap now, because he decided to
join in for the cannibalism times. He was like, yeah, yeah,
weird stuff. Cool. He's a fluzzy little murderer. Uh anyway.
(10:04):
Uh So so that the TV series hannibal Um is
set in between Hannibal Rising and Red Dragon, and it
explores this relationship between Will Graham Um played in the
show by Hugh Dancy, and Dr Lecter played by Mad's
Michelson Um in the time before Graham has figured out
that Lecter is you know, like killing and eating people
(10:26):
and sometimes feeding those people too well, Graham Yeah, and
lots of other FBI related humans. Yeah, yep, um yeah,
so yeah that eating people part. Um, we're a food
show ostensibly. Um, I've never been more worried to say
(10:46):
that in an episode in my life Hard, same friend,
Hard same okay. So so yeah, so that. The thing
about Hannibal Lecter that that makes him such a compelling
character is that he's he's very urbane, very refined and
in his speech and manners and style and taste, if
(11:07):
you'll forgive the the pun. Um uh, he's very well educated,
very smart, he's meticulous. Um he's a lot of these
things that we as a society hold up as being
like venerably civilized, you know. Um and he has no
regard for human life um and and for these basic
(11:27):
tenants of civilization, like like we don't eat people. Um so,
so you know, like a key and creepy. Part of
this character is that he doesn't just kill someone and
take a chomp. He he butchers them, and he uses
their flesh and their organs to prepare these ornate delicacies
(11:48):
um with with distinct elements of like hot cuisine or
novel cuisine. Um and and Lecter talks about this. In
Silence of the Lambs, there's that there's that famous line
A census taker once tried to test me I ate
his liver with some father beans and a nice candy.
(12:13):
But we don't see it on film until the sequel Hannibal,
and really disturbing scene different that's that's not gonna get
into it here. But one of the one of the
really interesting and remarkable things about the television series is
that like, you know, like it's it's set in the
modern day. Um, it's not a it's not a period piece.
Um and and we both the viewers and the creators
(12:35):
of the show, you know, like have had decades of
food photography and film culture that borders on pornographic um,
like the sumptuously plated and lit and filmed uh plates
of food. And like, you know, Thomas Harris writing these
books certainly back in one but um but even the
(12:56):
sequels ranging into the early two thousand's, like he could
have had no idea what food television and Instagram was
going to do to the presentation of food and the
presentation of chefs. Um. And so Hannibal the series is
interesting because it takes all of that and shows us Lector,
(13:18):
the chef beautifully preparing these beautiful dishes. Um, and you
just never know whether those cuts of meat that he's
working with are from humans or not. Nope. This reminds
me of another I didn't I forgot about this, but
when I was in high school, I got like a
really bad stomach flu and at the time we didn't
(13:44):
have cable, but for some weird like week we got
cable for free. Happened to be when I was homesick,
and so I was like, oh, you know what I'm
gonna do. I'm just gonna leave on the Sci Fi channel,
perfect timing for illness. And I guess it was like
flesh eating week because I watched uh Cabin Fever first
(14:06):
and then Hannibal, and I remember just being like, what
was the remote thing to get it? Just feeling so
awful and grossed up. And I have not seen either
of those sense, and I doubt I will watch them
ever again. Oh wow, that's understand that that scene. Oh gosh,
a spoiler for the film Hannibal. Um. There's a scene
(14:30):
where Dr Lecter serves, is it really ota? Something like that?
His his own brain, like while he's still alive and
in his head's like kind of you could see his
brain and yeah, it's like it's I remember at the
time thinking that it was a really good special effect.
I don't know if it would hold up because I
(14:50):
have not rewatched that film, but well, it was enough
for high school me to be like, never again. But
let's talk about who made these beautiful, delicious looking dishes. Yeah,
for the for the TV series, because they are they
are so gorgeous. Yes, so the shows that food silence
(15:12):
was Jamspoon, who would write these detailed post on the
show's food after every episode on her blog Feeding Hannibal,
and she later released a cookbook under the same name.
I know, I want to check it out so badly.
Part of the horror of the show is that these
dishes do, in fact look delicious, despite the fact that
(15:34):
they are often made from human parts, or we're left
to assume that they are um and sometimes fed to
the human they came from, or to unsuspecting humans at large.
By making you salivate our desire to try these dishes, you,
the viewer, feels complicit in Hannibal's monstrosities. Um. Yeah, most
(15:55):
of his dinner guests are completely unaware of what they're
really eating. Of course they are, which is a horror
in itself. Can we truly ever know for sure what's
in some of the foods that we eat? I mean,
that's that's been something that's plagued us forever. Sure, but
I mean usually not to this horror level, right, But
(16:17):
you know, I know, And yes, the show at times
feels like a cooking show. Um. According to one of
the producers and writers, Nick and Tasca, we admire great chefs,
and this version of Hannibal Lecter is the greatest chef
in the world. Yep. And guess what they had one
of the greatest chefs in the world behind Jose Andre's.
(16:40):
He served as the show's culinary consultant. When asked about
his role, he wrote, my input is mainly about how
Hannibal would cook a certain body part, and I have
to think of something that would look appetizing once it's cooked.
And also it was the cutest thing. Sometimes he would
tweet after well I don't know if tweet, but he
would write something up about after an episode of Public
and to be like, well, I'm salivating now, so I
(17:02):
guess I did a good job, yep. Um, And all
the episode titles are food related and specific to that episode.
In the first season, each episode was named after a
thirteen course French menu, serving as a structure for Hannibal's murders,
but also the season arc, which I thought was very clever.
(17:24):
Yeah oh yeah, yeah, and the second and third season's
use um, Japanese and Italian terminology to name their episodes.
It's so good it is and every dish in the
show tells the story. There's a mood, it propels the
action forward, it pretends something coming in the future. These
dishes are disturbing but also plot important. The food has
(17:48):
been described as one of the characters, Whon has been
quoted as saying she has to navigate quote that liminal
space between being seduced and being repulsed. M hm and yeah.
This particularly resonates during our time of food porn and
foodie culture at large. She deliberately plays with things like tripophobia,
(18:09):
which is fear of holes, to make people afraid that
quote something alien has been implanted while we were sleeping,
and she during this article I was reading. When she
said that she showed an example, I was like, yeah,
bomb unsettled, I'm settled. Yep. Oh boy, worked congrats yea.
(18:30):
She grew up in a small town and her family
was involved in the restaurant world. UM. In her words,
she grew up exposed to FO. She would help preparation
before she went to school, and because of that, she
absolutely didn't want anything to do with food, nothing in
her work life. So she went to art school and
became an art director, and through that she went into advertising,
(18:52):
and some of her top accounts were these behemoth companies
in the food realm like McDonald's, entering that she had
her first brush with food styling. Eventually, she left advertising
and started freelancing as an artist and food stylist. But
she was working on a children's book when she got
(19:15):
called up to work on Hannibal. I love it yep
on her first dance set, It's great. You should read
interviews with her because she describes really not knowing what
she was getting into UM. And she showed up with
these four pig lungs she had, like a bruised one
and a pretty pink one, and she and other crew
(19:36):
members discussed how a character like Hannibal would go about
preparing it. Um punas described these dishes Hannibal makes as
a gift from the devil. He's gifting you with continued
life by not killing you and by enjoying these elaborate
meals of luxury, meals that characters enjoy without knowing or
asking often the cost. He's inviting you to join, to
(20:00):
come to the dark side. Oh yeah. And that's a
that's a really huge, like overarching theme um in these
in these books and films. Um. I think, really really
effectively done. Um in in the in the book Hannibal,
um the sequel in which I by the end of
(20:20):
that book, y'all, if you haven't read it, it's really interesting.
By the end of the book, I realized that I
was completely rooting for Hannibal and not not for Clarice,
and I was like, welp here, we are cool. I'll
never think about this again. Um. But but also very
effectively in this show, because he's just so dynamic and
(20:42):
compelling and I oh man, anyway, anyway, anyway, Yeah, And
there is a level of trust between cook and consumer.
There's this level of intimacy Almo, and to have that
betrayed is very frightening and unsettling, and to have it
like unknowingly right again, there is a lot of ust
(21:04):
in this show, which if you don't know, is Unresolved
Sexual tension. It's one of my favorite fan fiction terms
because I think it's useful. But yeah, it's almost that
like sensuality of how these dishes are presented and how
they're prepared, and it's just sure hanging over everything, and
it gets more and more pronounced as it goes on. Yeah. Yeah,
And Brian Fuller has talked about that because the the
(21:27):
the Unresolved Sexual Tension is between um Will Graham and
Hannibal Lecter and uh and and Brian Brian Fuller is
a is a gay man as well, and I think
he did this extremely intentionally, and um was was really
trying to to to play with these themes of of
of what what people do when when they're when they're
(21:50):
in the society that isn't accepting them. And I mean,
you know, obviously not a parallel Like right, eating people
and like wanting to love who you love are are
two very very very separate issues. I'd say they're on
the opposite side. Yeah, they're not even on the same spectrum.
(22:12):
That's two different spectrums. But but but no, but but
you know, I think that that he is using using
these these parallels between these characters to explore an unorthodox
um type of of loving relationship um and and too,
and to explore it through through two dudes in a
(22:32):
homosexual relationship, which we should be seeing more of on
screen because because they exist, and those stories are important
even when they involve killing and eating people. Well yeah,
I mean, you just gotta up the drama if it's
on the television. But you know that's TV always going
to throw a cannibal in their jes television. I was
(22:56):
thinking about this, how and a lot of hard depiction
of spells. You need a piece of someone's body, usually hair, fingernails,
that you ingest, and then they become a part of
you or you have some sort of power over them. Um.
And then I was thinking about how grossed out we
get if we find a hair in our food, even
(23:17):
has our own hair. And a lot of episodes we've done,
we've discussed foods that were meant to symbolize the bodies
of enemy and you would eat them to show your
power over them. Yeah. Yeah, And apparently this is something
that's really stuck with me because I wrote this horror
short called Red Velvet, and you can check it out
(23:39):
on the podcast Thirteen Days of Halloween, which should be
out soon ish. When you're listening to this, Yeah, yeah,
I think the I think the trailer is supposed to
drop this Monday. The I don't know what days are anymore, twelve, Yeah,
and then it should it should start coming in out
(24:01):
thirteen days before Halloween hypothetically. Yeah. And the one I
wrote very much plays into this. The description I gave
the producers, which they were the sweetest and we're very
patient with me, was while preparing for a party and
attempting to think of a fun fact. Stress causes a
cupcake malfunction. Icebreakers are the real horror ema, right, and
(24:22):
they went with it. Yes. Uh. Side note, y'all, do
please check out that series. It's a it's a it's
a horror anthology series. We're all really excited about it
around here. I may or may not have a piece
in it. I'm not sure, but those are happening very quickly.
They are moving. Um. If I do minds about the
(24:47):
gut microbiome, of course it is because of course it
is because bacteria poop. And do you all really think
that I would have written a horror short that didn't
involve bacteria poop being evil. Yeah, I love that both
of us did like food and jac of course, of
course we did. I did not write that piece about
(25:09):
about haunted salt and pepper shakers. So I'm sorry. We
can we can work on that though. Okay, we can
do that on here. Okay, alright, alright, alright, back to Hannibal.
Back to Hannibal, and back to this idea of like food, right,
power it holds over us. Meanwhile, you have you have
something like communion, where it's the wholly offering the body
(25:29):
of Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ um, or
ritualistic family meals that have the power of connecting us
over shared experience and memories. And that theme of family
one that you make versus one that you were born
into um and how food plays a role in that
runs throughout this series. In Freud wrote that the act
(25:50):
of eating human meat is an act where in that
person quote is assimilated by eating and is in that
way annihilated. And that's sort of the dichotomy of Hannibal.
He's both the brutish predator and a man of yes,
very fine taste. Again, he chooses his Victims Carefully is
also a commentary on the convenience of consumer culture today,
(26:11):
which allows us to really separate ourselves from the often
not so pleasant stories and uh, perhaps a downright disturbing
way that our food gets to us. Yeah, and on
top of that, there is this layer of classism. Food
is both something we need to survive in something that
signifies class Hannibal is the most cultured and stylized person
on this show. The other characters trust him to be
(26:33):
the arbiter of taste. No one wants to admit. They
couldn't tell you what lamb heart tastes like. It's weaponized classisum.
If he has served me a plate, he's like, this
is lamb heart. It's so rare, so pricing. I'd be like,
oh yes, I'll absolutely try it, and I wouldn't know
what it tastes like. I wouldn't know, oh this is
human heart, yeah, or or you know, you would do
that thing where um you know, like like they say
(26:54):
in tastings, if you suggest um through through written copy
or through speech like oh yeah, this wine is going
to have notes of of of earth and whatever and whatever. Um,
it's it's very we're very impressionable. And so if you say, hey,
this is a lamb and you know what, you know
(27:15):
basically what lamb tastes like, but maybe you've never had
like a lamb tongue. Yeah, you're just gonna go, oh, sure, yeah,
I taste lamb and that Yeah, that's absolutely yeah. And
you know, despite maybe the characters in this show they
were looking for a cannibal, in my general life, I'm
never gonna say, oh, what if this is human? Um,
unless there is a cannibal on the loose in my mind, yeah,
(27:37):
I've never thought that when you or anyone else has
has served me a plate of food, yes, yes, me either.
Perhaps we should I don't know if I want to
live that way or no. I'm just gonna eat, eat,
eat it. And you were doing the thing that he
plays on. Let go and let god. Well, we have
(28:01):
a lot more interesting, slash disturbing stuff to share with you,
but first, do we have a quick break for a
word from her sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So a lot of the food in the
(28:23):
show used in particularly the dinner scenes, because a lot
of episodes end on this kind of epic dinner scene. Sure, sure,
these foods aren't actually organs. They're not actually meat yet. Yeah.
And and a lot of the dishes that Hannibal serves
are are awful. Are lungs or brains, are hardens or
(28:46):
testicles or tongues or etcetera. Right, um, But in actuality
in the in the real world, as they say, um,
they are not those things. This is both because they
would spoil and the actors might not be comfortable eating
an animal's tongue over multiple takes. I will say most
of them seemed pretty down to try things. But it's
(29:08):
one thing to like try it and then like eight
takes later, you might feel a little differently. Yeah, So
the food has to function on at least three levels.
The example Poon gave to g Q is this, If
Hannibal claims something is Lambs tongue, we the audience understand
it is most likely human tongue, so it has to
(29:29):
look a little like both while being neither. Poon calls
her process hannibalized. Yeah. I know. According to her, everything
is edible and a lot of consideration has gone into
what she served. Not only does it have to look
good right right right um? Often human like, um, but
(29:53):
also not quite humanlike. She strives to make it actually
taste good, to make it easier the actors to act
when a lot of these things do require them to eat. Uh.
And it has to be something that doesn't require a
lot of chewing because that would mess with lines. Yeah.
And of course spoiling and food safety are always concerned.
So that's just all these things going on. Yeah, and
(30:15):
that's in addition to the actor's dietary restraints because um
she she talks in her blog about how you know
a lot of um, a lot of humans in Hollywood
are fearing towards veganism these days. Um A lots of
people are watching their gluten other stuff like that. So, yeah,
they have to be physically able to eat it. She
(30:36):
prefers them to enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's
only one instance where people really didn't, and we'll talk
about that a little bit later. She shared a story
about how some of her meat substitutes looks so much
like meat that one vegan actor wouldn't even eat it. Yeah.
In interviews, though, the actors claim the food usually taste
as good as it looks. Uh. And there's a running
(30:58):
joke that actor Laurence Fish Fern's character Jack Crawford is
almost always the one that has to eat the dishes
and comments on them in the show Good Are Bad.
Hun has also said that Mad Nicholson quote does his
own stunts, which I love in the kitchen and is
a quick study. Oh he's great. He like, like, what
a what a job to step into a role that
(31:21):
Anthony Hopkins just just knocked so far out of the park. Um,
you know, it's it's it's a different sort of take
on the character. But but yeah, I know he does
a really great job. And I find it he had
a career in dance before he was an actor, Mads
Nicholson and um, and that that level of like comfort,
um and control in movement work really really shows on
(31:46):
on this show. Oh yeah, oh yeah, you know, I
suppose we've gotten a little we've sprawled away from our
usual structure beats. What about the nutrition, Uh okay, we
can move on. A lot of fat. Looks like it's
(32:07):
used a lot of Yeah, a lot of a lot
of the dishes are very rich. There's a lot of
heavy sauces. Um, there's a lot of pastry. As I
mostly joked once on the internet. Um, you know, cook
the rich to a safe temperature. That's probably uh, you know,
but like fahrenheit if you're going by pork standards. Well,
(32:37):
there you go. You know, we're one day we're going
to do an actual episode on cannibalism, So maybe we will.
That's gonna be long time from now. Yeah, it's gonna
be a whole week when that happens. But at didn't rate.
Umh we do have a number for you. I have
two numbers. Oh huh, I just height. This show is
(32:58):
getting like two point five to three mill and views
per week. But it was when it was canceled, a
lot of people were very upset. It had a very
dedicated fan base called Fannibals, and after the show was canceled,
there was a petition to save the show that received
over thirty two thousand signatures. Yeah yeah, um, history wise,
(33:23):
I mean again, we'll come back and do a whole
episode later. Yeah. What an odd job we have sometimes
it just strikes me. Um. But also I mean this Jannispoon,
the style of food styles on this show. What a job. Uh.
(33:46):
And much of the inspiration for Hannibals dishes, she says
stemmed from historical dishes and cooking practices around the world,
and in particular seventeen century Dutch chefs and meals depicted
in the art of the time, and these scenes in
Hannibal when the meal is presented do feel like tableaus.
(34:07):
Poon has also cited Salvador Dolly as an inspiration, as
well as literary works like Dante's Inferno Love It I know,
and yes, not all the dishes on the show have
human in them, I say with a question more hypothetically. Hypothetically,
there was an aspect with an infinity loop of pickled anchovies,
(34:28):
and this is the one, This is the one that
the actors remembers being pretty grissy. They immediately like spit
it out like children. Um and Poon describes it as
their least favorite to work on, but also one of
the most rewarding because of that, I was just so
afraid it was gonna like collapse. Oh yeah, No, aspect
is very difficult, so especially for for for camera. I'm
(34:49):
sure that the temperature of the I mean, even with
L A. D S. You know, you don't have to
worry as hard about lights anymore. But um, but still, yeah, challenge,
what a challenge. There was also trout that was artistically
dish to appear as if they were regurgitating their own tails.
Uh huh. Roasted lamb where the rib bones were positioned
to resemble praying hands, Oh my gosh, ultimately called the
(35:12):
sacrificial lamb, are the steeple of ribs. There are plenty
of dishes where we the audience are left in the
dark about the meat being served. I would say almost
all of them are like that. When Hannibal claims something
is sausage, we really have no proof what kind of sausage? Nope, nope,
it's it's clear, Like I think about twice, it's like,
(35:34):
really explicitly clear. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we'll get
into those in a second. It really messes with your head.
Even me classifying these few dishes is possibly not having
any human in them makes me nervous because I can't
I can't for sure stuff. I do think there are
(35:55):
a few dishes sands human. I believe it in my heart,
and I don't know which ones they are. Uh, and
we do have a few specific examples um throughout the show.
These dishes are beautiful and enticing, and as Hannibal warns
in one episode, nothing here is vegetarian. So again to
(36:21):
say there are things like mushroom and spinach stuffed cow heart.
I hope you can hear the heavy quotes because it's
actually the heart of a doctor who is rude. Annibal
never do that, No, not asabuco made from the calf
of a serial killer. I remember that scene that looks
so good, Like it looks so good, I'm like upset
(36:45):
by how good it looked. Porkline with red fruit Cumberland sauce,
which is all in quotes because blood might be involved
in that one. Um sanguinaccio dolce, which was a putting
made out of chocolate, and the quote blood of a
local cow, which I believe were meant to interpret as
a woman that annoyed him. Um a sacramentte omelet, complete
(37:09):
with mysterious sweetbreads and strips of meat boudou noir are
French blood, sausage and steak and kidney pie. We can
all guess what the kidney is. Um. One of the
most upsetting examples of Coon's work has to be from
season three. The premier season three, when Hannibal serves a
human thigh which was wrapped in a leaf and slow
(37:31):
roasted in clay pot, complete with snails and skewers of
sugarcane to the human decigh once belonged to. Yep, yeah
that's Eddie Iszard I believe is that character. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's one of the spoilers that I received. And yeah
it's okay, it's no problem, no problem, and yeah, and
(37:54):
apparently his character is just like yeah, sure, it's like,
you know, I'm curious. And this dish was inspired by
the Chinese dish of candied pork. Belly Poon calls this
creation pinhead the sin of Bite from Hail Raiser, Oh
I love it. Another infamous meal came from the series
(38:17):
finale Badelia, played by Jillian Anderson. Her leg gets roasted
and then wrapped in leaves and surrounded by bright pops
of color from chrocoal, fruits, and flowers as well as
coal and I meant to symbolize Dante's Inferno and the
nine circles of Hell. She also was I don't know
if chill is the word I would use, because she's
(38:37):
just kind of like really hides her emotions. She knew
this was going down, and she seemed kind of like, well, well,
Hannibal Hannibal. I guess I guess I should have known
all along, huh I was his psychologist? Yeah? Whoops, indeed
(38:59):
that's a be big oops. That's a yep. Um. And
so we do have a few miscellaneous things here. At
the end, British chef James Tomlinson combined together mince pork,
mincefield and minced bone marriage to create a burger that was,
according to him, the closest you could get to eating
(39:22):
human flesh without really eating it. Cool. I'm I'm just
I'm not sure why one would do that, uh I, Yeah,
questions have arisen to my mind. Well, you know, okay, great, good,
(39:47):
good for him. Um, jeez, I'm like more upset about
that that I am about like the rest of this.
I'm like, at least that's fictional, Like this guy's running
around in the real world. What's he up to anyway? Um,
I'm sure he's perfectly nice and has a lovely sense
of humor. Yeah. So, so I guess I guess A big,
(40:08):
a big question here, um is you know, aside from
is the meat human is will the show come back? Um?
And there is a lot of buzz about it, um
since the series is up on on Netflix pretty recently.
UM and you know, since since the show was was
canceled anyway, UM Fuller has said that he was was
(40:31):
waiting to try to option it to um to, to
a streaming service or or another network. He was waiting
UM for some of the rights two characters seen in
the films to revert to the film's producers before he
started entering talks about a season four. UM that that
that reversion happened in August of seventeen. Unfortunately since then,
(40:53):
UM or unfortunately for Fuller and the series Hannibal, since then,
UM CBS obtained the rights to Larry Starling's character for
a TV series that they're planning. UM and they say
doesn't need to involve the character of Hannibal Lecter And
I'm not sure any's you know, that's up to them.
So she could not as of now anyway, UM appear
(41:14):
in future Hannibal seasons. But UM, but yeah, he he
said that he has some plans for it. He's said that,
you know, like the actors and the executive producer are
into it. He's talked about UM bringing it back as
like a couple of mini series maybe and so uh
and it sounds like, um, he's He's said that some
(41:35):
of his inspirations that one of his biggest inspirations for
the show was the work of David Lynch Um and
stuff like twin Peaks, and so you know, I I
could I could see, knowing what I know about the
way that the show ends, I could I could see
him doing something really extra dreamlike and weird for future
(41:56):
mini series. But um, but yeah, he says that he
really wants to explore that relationship ship between between Dr
Lecter and UH and Mr Graham and so you know,
I I hope I hope that he gets to do
it because I'm real curious now and I really want
to see more of Poon's work in in this particular avenue.
(42:19):
She and she works on a lot of different projects. Um,
basically wherever she she does a lot of work. So
certainly anything like if you ever see someone eating brains
on said, like, there's a decent chance that she was involved. Um,
but especially like elevated brains, like if you've got like
a brain taco or something like that, you know, not
(42:40):
just like piles of brains. But yeah, I don't know, um,
And yeah, and I really recommend checking out her blog.
It is so beautiful. She goes into so much detail
about how she achieved different things and and has all
of these behind the scene photos and stories. It's really cool. Yeah.
And my ends me of when we had v Kelly
(43:01):
on the show to talk about special effects. Yeah. Yeah,
it's really a delight to hear her right and talk
about these gruesome things, but in such an upbeat manner,
just so excited. And if any of this is uh
sounded appetizing to you has a wetter appetite, I would
(43:22):
recommend checking out show. It is very it is very
uh m a t v m A. Yes, it's really upsetting.
Oh yeah, Like we said, we watch a lot of
horror and it unsettled me for sure. Yeah. Um. And
there's a lot of stuff we didn't touch on just
because it's like perhaps too short to go into too
(43:43):
much detail. But there are things like growing mushrooms out
of bodies, or like taking out a liver and replacing
another liver. There's a lot going on and there perhaps
that's obvious, but oh, one more, one more thing that
I did want to touch on though, is Dr Lecter
has a very refined or specific, perhaps sense of humor.
(44:07):
And so at these dinner parties, there's like there's like
a seventy nine percent chance that he's going to drop
some kind of pun that you know that he is
cracking up internally about one of the one of the
recent episodes I watched, what was it um, It is
so lovely to have friends for dinner? Yes, Yes, And
(44:30):
and later on that really gets amplified because like he's
like toying with these FBAI agents that are looking for
him but having dinner with him, not realizing and at
some point, like Jack and Will are trying to they
think it's him and they're trying to like lure them out,
so they're doing puns too. They're having like a weird
(44:52):
subtle chance cut off and you're like, whoa, what a
strange situation. That's be a full Yeah, so you have
that to look forward to. M hmm. But in the meantime,
I guess we should wrap up this discussion of Hannibal
the Cannibal for now. We should and had to Thomas
(45:14):
Harris for naming the most famous fictional cannibal of our
time something that rhymed with cannibal a lot, but thank you.
Uh so, yes, we do have some listener mail for you,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
word from your sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(45:45):
thank you, and we're back with Scary Vida. Or later wrote,
I just listened to your Go To Chong podcast and
I'm actually writing a response to the first listener mail
where you mentioned eating or drinking unexpected things. I immediately
(46:06):
thought of a classic family story. My grandma's favorite drink
is a martini. For some background of how she makes them,
she uses bottom shelf vodka and the smallest flash of
giramouth all over ice. When she would visit. We didn't
have any special cups for mixed drinks or anything, so
she would just make them in her regular water glasses.
One time, my grandma made herself with martini and said
(46:28):
it at my brother's place at the table. He about
ten years old at the time, thought someone very kindly
had poured him a glass of ice water for dinner
and took a big swig. The look on his face
was priceless. My grandma just celebrated her ninetieth birthday in August,
and my dad shared the story once again with everyone
on the family Zoom call. My brother didn't have video on,
(46:48):
but I could hear him rolling his eyes. He's now
twenty nine. I mean that's got to be a big
shock for a ten year old. For sure, that would
be a big shocks me. So that is hoof, hoof.
I love it. Yeah, I'm glad you all got to
salary over soon. That's great. Oh yeah yeah, and happy
(47:11):
birthday to your grandma. Um stuff wrote I immediately had
to write in after your yatzin episode mar Martz marts
Marge nikes. I still can't mattson I think anyway. I
couldn't believe you didn't mention my hometown, the land of
october Fest, Kitchener, Ontario. It holds the second largest october
(47:33):
Fest in the world. Why, you might reasonably ask, Kitchener
was founded by German and particularly Mennonite settlers, and continues
to be a hub of German Canadian heritage. In fact,
the town was originally called Berlin, Ontario, but changed the
name to Kitchener during World War One because the city
worried no one would want to buy anything made in Berlin. Now,
(47:54):
knowing more about Earl Kitchener, I'm not so sure they
made the right choice, but Anyway, I have many fond
memories of eating schnitzel and spaitzel to the tune of
the Chicken Dance throughout my childhood as a university student. Well,
let's just say the memories are hazier. I am sure
I had a great time, Sure you did too. And
(48:15):
I love this. I love that the second Larngest October
West Celebration is in Ontario, Canada. Yes, why not? Oh
I that's that's great and I hope that I'm saying
Kitchener correctly. I A lot of listeners have written about
going to october Fest, various october Fest and you'll be
(48:37):
hearing lots of those coming up. And it looks like
a blast. It really really does. So thanks for that,
Thanks for sending those sending pictures always, yes, and thanks
to both of these listeners for writing too us. If
you would like to write to as you can, our
email is Hello at savor pod dot com. You can
also find us on social media. We are at savor
(48:58):
Pod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Yes, that's the third one.
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts to my Heart Radio,
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks so much,
Toy superproducers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots of par good
(49:19):
things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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