Cover news reporter Li Yuxin
"It's really a childhood memory, walking around and eating nine bowls, you can always see a mouthful of several layers of large steamer steaming." As soon as the firecrackers are finished, the table is opened, and the steamed vegetables and soup dishes are all cold dishes... Now with the times, more ingredients and dishes have evolved, and more people choose to run errands in hotels, but there is less pyrotechnics. I guess the hometown in memory is a place that can never be returned. ”
Open the B station where young people gather, click into the food documentary "Sichuan Taste" New Year special program "Township Kitchen", in the comment area, you can see netizens write such comments. The smoke rising from the countryside in the film, the lively scenes in the village banquet, and the busy figures of the country cooks can always evoke the nostalgia and nostalgia of the people who come out of the fields. On the evening of January 27, the show ushered in the closing night, and the final episode was about to air. On the eve of the closing, cover news interviewed Zeng Ying, the artistic consultant of the "Sichuan Flavor" series of documentaries. In the past two years, he has walked with the director Binge yi on the land of Sichuan, looking for a local kitchen in the countryside to make Sichuan flavor.
Writer Zeng Ying
"In 2011, I met Binge at a film exchange meeting. For more than ten years, we searched for food together in various parts of Sichuan, and under his leadership, "Sichuan Taste" was born. In the interview, Zeng Ying laughed and talked about the story of the shooting, recalling the time in the countryside, and he made a hearty laugh from time to time. In the past few years, their journey has reached tens of thousands of miles, sometimes thousands of kilometers a day. "Maybe in the morning it was still in southern Sichuan, and I 'killed' it to the north of Sichuan." In the shooting, we have more and more understanding of this land and the people living on it, and this perception often makes us feel very excited. ”
Documenting the Story of a Country Chef "Contributing Some Highlight Moments to the Camera"
In addition to the title of art consultant of "Sichuan Taste", Zeng Ying is more well known as a writer. As recently as 2020, he wrote a book called "Sichuan Taste of the Human World", a collection of essays and essays related to food and nostalgia, in which he shared his memories of food. In the creation of documentaries, the delicacy and sensibility of being a writer also allowed him to provide a lot of suggestions and ideas for the work, and contributed some "highlight" moments to the lens.
For example, in the first episode of "The Township Chef", "The Village Banquet", the story begins with an old man's ninetieth birthday feast. In front of the camera, Luo Zesheng, a township chef who is famous for his "Wolong Fish" in the eight townships of Ten Miles, is busy among the towering steamers, staring at the situation at the banquet every second. At the same time, the family of this "five generations in the same house" is also busy, wanting to celebrate a lively and lively life for the old man. But on the night before the opening of the banquet, in the darkness of the water, the old man sat alone in front of the door with his back to the lights, in sharp contrast to the noisy birthday feast of the coming day. "I still remember that at that time, everyone was filming the scene of preparing the ingredients, and I noticed the loneliness of the old man and reminded the film crew to come and shoot the scene. That night, the moon hung in the sky like a copper basin, and we don't know what the old man was thinking. But on closer inspection, there was a tear in the corner of his eye. ”
Zeng Ying laughed and said that she was a "post-60s" and the oldest "old man" in the "Sichuan Flavor" crew. In the crew, there are 70, 80, 90, it is this difference that makes the composition of the crew become three-dimensional and layered, and the collision of different opinions of the main creative staff will always give birth to something interesting. Projected in the program "Country Kitchen", the audience can see that in the choice of shooting objects, it also shows a rich layering. In the picture, there are township chefs who adhere to traditional craftsmanship, there are township chefs who improve classic dishes to adapt to modern tastes, and there are also township chefs with efficient services under the "one-stop service"...
"I feel that my role in creating is to connect some inconspicuous links in real life, and I point it out." They then visualize and video it through technology. "Zeng Ying also used an interesting metaphor to think of the creation of "Sichuan Taste" as a stream, and he is a stone in a stream." After the water flowed, I made some changes in the water flow, and I didn't really contribute anything. My own profession is to read books, write articles, and see some things that are essential through the expression of things. So when I combine my strengths with them, it's a little better."
At the same time as the broadcast of "Township Kitchen", Zeng Ying also became a "loyal audience" and guarded the broadcast of the program every day. Speaking of the "favorite" shot, under his prompting, it can be found that the film also "hides" a detail that has not been discovered by the audience. That is, when the people in the courtyard dam are full of noise, and the people sitting at the banquet begin to feast and are busy stretching out their chopsticks to pick up the dishes, the camera always cuts to the face of the chef who handled the village banquet. Some of them were sweating like rain, and they still had a loss of concentration after the busyness; some of them were tired but showed a comfortable smile. "They're like artists, holding their own teacups. Although he was covered in sweat, you can see that he is happy and happy from the heart, which is very fulfilling. ”
Guarding nostalgic memories "Leaving behind the image fossils of this era"
"We miss cooking smoke, not because of how good it is, but because there are things we cherish, they are still alive and young..."
A few months ago, Zeng Ying wrote an article titled "Nostalgia for Cooking Smoke", which recorded the process of his acquaintance with director Binge. The fascination with "cooking smoke" and human fireworks seems to be one of the reasons why the two are like-minded. Since the birth of the first season of "Sichuan Taste", the two have cooperated for more than ten years, and have also witnessed the gradual disappearance of "cooking smoke", and the fireworks have changed with the times.
For example, the Wolong fish appeared in the documentary is a traditional diet in the southern county of Shengzhong, named after the southerners who call the steamer "dragon boat". When filming the traditional dish made by the village chef Luo Zesheng, Zeng Ying recalled that the chefs took out steamers that had not been used for a long time to recreate the scenes of the past. "Now everyone doesn't use bamboo steamers, they all use aluminum steamers, which are strong and lightweight, and are easy to clean." From the perspective of social development and economic benefits, this seems to be an inevitable choice. ”
The cooking smoke is fading, and the nostalgia seems to be fading. Many people have the impression that the taste of childhood has long been difficult to find, and the common skills in memory have become blurred. Perhaps it is such a situation that the main creative team of "Sichuan Taste" can walk on the Shu land for several years and shuttle through the border towns, just to record those nostalgia and fireworks.
"I remember in the 1980s, some film crews came to Sichuan and photographed the old chefs and chefs here. Now we see that the characters are very moved, but those scenes or dishes are difficult to trace. These videos are equivalent to leaving us with some image fossils. Therefore, we also want to be the image fossil of this era. Zeng Ying said bluntly that this has always been the wish of the "Sichuan Flavor" team, and they will also dive down to leave more images for the Sichuan flavor culture.
Along the way, whether it is from the explosion of word of mouth on the Internet to the CCTV; or to the overseas, launched on TV stations in more than fifty countries and regions around the world. The march of "Sichuan Flavor", to this time "Township Kitchen" has been resonated by all walks of life, but also let people see that in this era, there are emotional documentary images, which is valuable.
"I'm older, I'm not used to bullet screens, and I feel like blocking the screen. But many young viewers watched the show and commented that they were 'homesick' and 'hungry'. I am more pleased that "Township Kitchen" has been broadcast on CCTV and Station B. Television is generally dominated by older audiences, while station B is dominated by young people, and I feel that I can 'eat all ages', proving that there are some content in the film that can resonate with everyone's feelings, which is also an important reason for us to feel happy and confident to continue to do it. ”