Food for thought

A new series explores the perception of Chinese cuisine around the world and its relationship with other global flavors, Dong Fangyu reports. 

After the phenomenally successful A Bite of China series, a new food documentary, Once Upon A Bite-observing global fare and Chinese food across the world-has become an instant hit.

The first episode, which was broadcast nationwide on Oct 28, includes 20 types of food from 13 countries and regions. Within 14 hours, the documentary had racked up 150 million views on Tencent video and 9.4 on the review site, Douban.com.

As well as an investigation of Chinese people and society and their relationship with food, the new eight-episode documentary, filmed over a period of four years, journeys to 22 countries across six continents focusing on areas where "East meets West" to observe the rise and changes of Chinese food across the world.

"After all, it is ultimately food that can transcend nationalities, ideologies and religions, and heals you most," says the show's general director, Chen Xiaoqing.

About one-third of the series is about global flavors, says the renowned Chinese documentary maker, who is credited as the general director of A Bite of China I and A Bite of China II.

Each episode of this new series adopts a theme and is co-directed by eight young filmmakers. The first episode, Mountains to Oceans, presents various ingredients and cooking practices in accordance to different geography, from inland to coastal areas. For example, it introduces and compares hams made in a small village of southern Anhui province to those of a town in Spain.

"Surprisingly, places on similar latitudes, with similar climates but thousands of miles apart, have developed a similar way of curing and crafting hams completely independently of one another," says Chen.