(~timespace coordinates:) Over 100 years ago, the meteor “Moon Dragon” struck a tropical holiday resort. Most of the inhabitants perished, while those who survived began to show strange mutations… The rescue missions quickly retreated, and those who remained in the mutating environment founded the small and isolated community of Mutazione.
Fast-forward to modern day, where you play as 15-year-old Kai as she travels to Mutazione to help nurse her dying grandfather back to health.
Mutazione is a 2019 adventure exploration video game created by Danish developer Die Gute Fabrik. It launched for Windows, MacOS, PlayStation 4, and on IOS through Apple Arcade on Sep 19, 2019.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (Windows – MINIMUM):Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system / OS: Windows 7 / Processor: 2.6 GHz / Memory: 4 GB RAM / Graphics: GeForce 700 Series / Storage: 3 GB available space
The fourth season of Fargo, an American anthology black comedy–crime drama television series created by Noah Hawley, premiered on September 27, 2020, on FX and concluded on November 29, 2020. It consisted of 11 episodes.
As an anthology, each Fargo season possesses its own self-contained narrative, following a disparate set of characters in various settings and eras, albeit in a connected shared universe centered on the Midwestern United States and the titular city of Fargo, North Dakota.
Children of the Sea (Japanese: 海獣の子供, Hepburn: Kaijū no Kodomo) is a 2019 Japanese animated film directed by Ayumu Watanabe and produced by Eiko Tanaka, with animation production by Studio 4°C. It is based on the manga of the same title by Daisuke Igarashi, who also wrote the film’s screenplay.
It is Watanabe’s first theatrically released film since Space Brothers #0 (2014), and the first animated film adaptation of an Igarashi manga. The film stars the voices of Mana Ashida, Hiiro Ishibashi and Seishū Uragami. Set by and in the ocean and themed on the mysteries of life, it depicts the connections between humanity and nature. (wiki)
The “kaiju” in the Japanese title is the Japanese term for a marine mammal (“sea beast”), but is written with Japanese characters that mean literally “strange beast” (referring to monsters like Gojira (1954) and/or Mosura (1961)).
A Bite of China (Chinese: 舌尖上的中国; pinyin: Shéjiān shàng de Zhōngguó; lit. ‘China on the tongue tip’) is a Chinesedocumentary television series on the history of food, eating, and cooking in China directed by Chen Xiaoqing (陈晓卿), narrated by Li Lihong (李立宏) with original music composed by Roc Chen (阿鲲). It first aired 14 May 2012 on China Central Television and quickly gained high ratings and widespread popularity. The seven-episode documentary series, which began filming in March 2011, introduces the history and story behind foods of various kinds in more than 60 locations in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The documentary has also been actively encouraged as a means of introducing Chinese food culture to those unfamiliar with local cuisine. Various notable chefs such as Shen Hongfei and Chua Lam were consultants on the project.
Apart of the current divisive populist politics in this 2020, there is this widening gap that seems to separate the past i.e. these last years of microbiome and holobiont revelations, the recognition of Lynn Margulis’s life’s work, of probiotics, craft beers, hipster sourdough homemade bread, super-bugs multi-resistance warnings – and the sudden ramping up of antibacterial soaps production and biocidal technologies. While invisible for much of mankind’s history and ultimately relegated to imaginary beings, demons, spirits – bacteria and viruses (not to talk about mushroom, molds and their kin) have been with us, in and on us since the beginning and while their profile is rising for the first time, enriching our schlock ‘blob’ B-movie repertoire (our heightened sense of contagion is already indistinguishable from general online virality). As an aside in our management-drenched culture, I might add that the very start-up culture of late capitalism, of venture capital and tech unicorns (TESLA, Google, Amazon etc) – overshadows another use of the term “starter” – maybe its initial, dirty secret embedded in its biological anb biosemiotic material sense, the one in which there is always something antecedent, some highly transmissible starter-culture, a microbial mat that has preceded all ulterior divisions, ever evolving invasions, and upon which back everything else grows, blooms, and who’s metabolic pathways and chemical chain reactions we enjoy, inherit, borrow or dread. There is scope in just having a look into the various questions raised by scientist regarding this undercover complexity that animates much of what we regard as the most basic, simple (and thence falsely simplistic) and mostly still highly disregarded (non charismatic) organisms.
With current rising ‘Pandemic Fatigue’ and governments searching for new ways to variously entice and/or enforce effective restrictions and contact tracing technologies, one should balance it out with the work of Rob Dunn (check out his classic The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today), Dr. Anne A. Madden (The Kingdom documentary which I urge u to see), Sandor Katz (Wild Fermentation primer), Athena Aktipis (applying system biology and evo-devo to cancer research). They and a bunch of other wonderful people at NC State University’s Department of Applied Ecology including Lauren Nichols, Erin McKenney under self-isolation measures have organized this year’s incredible series of webinars concerning FERMENTOLOGY – the incredible shapeshifting science of fermentation, ‘umami’ taste with a motley crew honing changing practices, field research experience, trough labs and out of lab works, trough ancient history archaeology and multispecies coreographies in humans and non-humans.
As a fellow practitioner and fermentation necromancer, putrescient beginner and bacterealist I urge you to check out these free seminars below. Climate science outreach has become a caricature of struggling to reach the decision makers, an important lesson in loosing its touch with an increasingly disdainful and aggressively non-scientific (or not sufficiently scientific) crowd (including politicians) . yet microbiology and fermentology offers hope in the sense that it has became highly pop – both in bad (as every hype can witness) and good example of translatable, relatable, surprisingly material gooey way of exploring new and exciting discoveries that somehow have a two pronged way: both home kitchen and highly rated chef restaurateur, both laboratory oriented outcomes and field work, both insider talk and informing day to day people’s experiences. While heeding all the warning signs of the groomed bearded sourdough hipster (mostly male bro type) guy – and his newfound hobby in its breadtivist breadarian accusatory tinge – it is still a fact that such slimy, sticky gooey (almost in tandem with the slime – kids videos) have raised the profile of wild fermentation online around the globe. Partly industrial knowledge, partly hype, partly a blob of big pharma and wild fermentation bio hacking type of exchanges – its troublesome and meddling prospects prosper at the edge of traditional knowledge expropriation and biocapitalisation and/or speculative biological experimentation.
Deep Time Background + take it with a grain: Maybe grasslands should be seen as the first in a series of new warming earth changes at the geologic scale – that started happening roughly 20 mil yr ago (accelerating incredibly nowadays due to human herd in tow with other herds that have been replacing dwindling forests environments) and have included co-evolved multiple stomachs, specific enzymes from grass and grain digesting yeasts and bacteria). While mostly growing around bread and sourdough, these webinars have been more than diverse – encompassing cheese, milk etc You will say ahhhhhh AGAIN the grain-grass eater ecosystemic bias – well yes, grass again (!!) in an age of steppes, grasslands, lawns, dwindling forests and high yield crops – the haunt of all those Neolithic revolutionaries. Well grasses and ruminants are here to stay so we better learn and ruminate along. In spite of gluten free authoritarianism bread keeps diversifying and going in unsuspected directions. And so not any grain is on the menu, so one might also see here a Western- North /Near-Eastern/Fertile Crescent bias towards a particular kind of grain products (so not so much about rice culture and rice wine fermentation – or pickling such as jiu niang (酒酿) or miso using koji.
A few of the highlights for me (although please consider watching all of them since they are very much in tune to what I mentioned above):
Jessica (Jessie) Hendy is a lecturer in paleoproteomics at the University of York where she studies ancient proteins associated with foods in archaeological sites. Jessie will describe her research at ancient archaeological sites in Turkey, Mongolia and elsewhere to understand, using ancient protein analyses, the beginnings of milk fermentation. She will take viewers on a journey to one of her archaeological sites, describe her approach to archaeology and consider take homes from her work with regard to what anyone can do in their kitchen with milk today.
Jessie has recently made major discoveries with regard to the history of Mongolian dairying and dairy fermentation and the oldest dairy fermentation in the world. This talk is sponsored and supported by the Max Planck Institute’s ERC-funded project, Dairy Cultures. (YT description)
Margarita López-Uribe is the Lorenzo L. Langstroth Early Career Professor at Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Entomology where she studies bees of many kinds. Many bees rely on fermentation in different ways (some ferment nectar, others pollen, others still ferment leaves). Margarita will talk about the fermentation carried out by honeybees. Honeybees make bread out of pollen that they ferment (and then feed to their babies). Margarita and her student Brooke talk about what goes into making bee bread and what microbes are involved in this process. They will also share preliminary data of an ongoing project about how various biocides shape bee bread microbiome.
This talk is supported and promoted by the NC State Apiculture Program.(YT)
In many parts of the world, especially in regions with limited growing seasons and long winters, people preserve vegetables through fermentation. Learn about the illustrious history of fermented vegetables, the science behind it, and how simple it is to ferment vegetables yourself at home. This talk is hosted by Sandor Ellix Katz, a fermentation revivalist. His books Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” S
andor is the recipient of a James Beard award and other honors.(YT)
How does fermentation fit into your zombie apocalypse preparation plan? Fermenting can provide a number of benefits – from enhancing the nutritional value of your food, to preserving it for the long haul, to cultivating antimicrobial compounds that might help protect you from the agents of the zombie apocalypse. Fermented foods are also an example of multi-species cooperation that might serve as a good example for us all for how we might cooperate to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Athena Aktipis is an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University, chair of the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Alliance, and co-director of the Human Generosity Project. She is the author of the new book The Cheating Cell from Princeton University Press and the host of the science podcast Zombified.(YT)
Tate Paulette is an archaeologist and Assistant Professor at NC State’s Department of History. He studies agriculture, food, and fermentation in the ancient world, with a particular focus on Bronze Age Mesopotamia. He co-directs archaeological excavations at the site of Makounta-Voules-Mersinoudia in Cyprus (Makounta-Voules Archaeological Project), and he is currently working on a book about the history/archaeology of beer in Mesopotamia. In this talk, we will explore the foods and, especially, the fermented foods of ancient Mesopotamia. We will look at ancient recipes, royal inscriptions, administrative records, archaeological remains, artistic works, and more on our culinary tour through the famous “land between the rivers.” Particular attention will be devoted to bread, beer, yogurt, and cheese, the fermented cornerstones of the Mesopotamian diet.
This talk is co-sponsored by NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.(YT)
In this talk, Benjamin Wolfe will explore how microbes compete and cooperate in cheese rind microbiomes. From fungal highways on wheels of Saint Nectaire to antibiotic producing fungi in cheddar, we’ll learn about the ecology and chemistry of microbial interactions in some of your favorite stinky cheeses. We will also learn how cheesemakers can use this knowledge of microbial interactions to improve the safety and quality of their products. Benjamin Wolfe is the Aptman Family Assistant Professor of microbiology at Tufts University.
The Wolfe Lab at Tufts uses fermented foods as model systems to identify the processes that shape the diversity of microbiomes. In addition to research focused on the basic biology of microbes, the Wolfe lab has worked with chefs and food producers, including David Chang’s Momofuku Culinary Lab and Jasper Hill Farms, to understand the roles of microbes in creating the diversity of flavors in fermented foods. This talk is co-sponsored by NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. (YT)
The origins of bread have long been associated with the development of farming communities that first cultivated and domesticated cereals in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago. However, most recent discoveries show that bread was not a product of farming, but perhaps something which fuelled it. Amaia and Lara will share the story of the discovery of the oldest bread and what we do and don’t know about its recipe, how it was baked and more. They will also talk about the cereal-based foodstuffs that prehistoric communities consumed in southwest Asia and how they changed with the development of new technologies such as pottery.
Amaia Arranz Otaegui is Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen. She is an archaeobotanist and investigates the use and consumption of plants by prehistoric hunter-gatherers and early farming communities in southwest Asia. Lara Gonzalez Carretero is an archaeobotanist at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) and a researcher at the Scientific Department of the British Museum. She is an expert on the study of archaeological food remains, with especial interest in cereal meals such as bread, porridge, etc. (YT)
The world’s oldest culinary recipes exist in the form of clay tablets from ancient Babylonia dating to the 18th century BCE. In this talk, Patricia Jurado, Gojko Barjamovic and Pia Sörensen from Harvard University will introduce the history and science of the recipes, as well as their team’s efforts interpreting and reproducing them. Their work follows an experimental approach and draws on expertise from their team’s collective backgrounds in assyriology, the life sciences, and culinary practice and history. Join us for this deep dive into culinary history — you may even come away knowing how to cook a 4,000 year old recipe!
Part of the 2020 BEESS seminar series: Wildlife microbiomes, the complex communities of microorganisms that inhabit virtually every body site, perform countless micro-ecosystem services for their host, profoundly affecting wildlife behavior, physiology, reproduction, health, survival and ultimately evolution.
To study these tightly co-evolved systems, I strive to build diverse and collaborative interdisciplinary research teams to (a) advance our knowledge of the eco-evolutionary factors (e.g., sex, diet, phylogeny) governing wildlife-associated microbiomes, (b) identify species-specific microbiomes that can serve as sentinels for environmental quality (i.e., biomarkers for wildlife population health), (c) evaluate the impact of environmental perturbations on wildlife microbiome functions, and (d) inform management decisions to promote long-term conservation of wildlife and their symbiotic microbes.(YT)
The world’s oldest culinary recipes exist in the form of clay tablets from ancient Babylonia dating to the 18th century BCE. In this talk, Patricia Jurado, Gojko Barjamovic and Pia Sörensen from Harvard University will introduce the history and science of the recipes, as well as their team’s efforts interpreting and reproducing them. Their work follows an experimental approach and draws on expertise from their team’s collective backgrounds in assyriology, the life sciences, and culinary practice and history. Join us for this deep dive into culinary history — you may even come away knowing how to cook a 4,000 year old recipe!
#The team that conducted this research includes: + Patricia Jurado Gonzalez (Research Scholar, Harvard University), + Gojko Barjamovic (Senior Lecturer on Assyriology, Harvard University), + Pia Sörensen (Senior Preceptor in Chemical Engineering and Applied Materials, SEAS, Harvard University), + Chelsea Alene Graham (Digital Imaging Specialist at the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Yale University), + Agnete Wisti Lassen (Associate Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University), + Nawal Nasrallah (Culinary historian, author, chef) (YT)
timespace coordinates: ancient China where monsters lived side by side with humans.
directed by Raman Hui
Monster Hunt is a mainland China-Hong Kong 3D action fantasy comedy adventure film. It became a success breaking many box office records, including being the highest grossing movie in China.
Always wanted to see Monster Hunt since its release after watching a Chinese trailer but never quite managing to trace it. It felt bizarre, disconcerting, zany and now in retrospect almost closer to the 3D feel of the Animal Liberation Front fable Okja by Bong Joon-ho. To me it is interesting to compare or contrast Monster Hunt with other animation productions of Raman Hui who has several important contributions to his credit starting with a Simpsons episode, Antz, work on Shrek and several other 3D animation and computer graphics hits. It is at once it is a transnational work – witness to Raman Hui Hong-Kong, Canada & Silicon Valley working experience, proof of the “convergence culture”(Henry Jenkins) with a seamless integration of gaming, CGI, character design, merchandise fandom conventions and yet there is other things as well. Post-production was done in Beijing almost exclusively with only a few works done in Taiwan.
I found it interesting in regard to all the departures from usual or all the mentioned canon DreamWorks and MIB inspiration that had supposedly influenced it (as the director acknowledges). In fact the movie also tries to vaguely (admittedly) try to use the ancient mythological geography Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海经 basically a compendium of the fabulous creatures, beings and entities of pre-Qin dynasty China, roughly from the period of the Warring States to the beginning of the Han dynasty – consider the first golden age of the Chinese civilization. It is full of various medicines, animals and fantastic geographical description (550 mountains and 330 channels). Truly an ancient Chinese bestiary – it is a collective encyclopedic work, one that had contribution from various sorcerers/folk medicine women and men as well as the later Fangshi (“method master” translatable as alchemist, geomancer, magician, omenologist, mountbank, wizard, thaumaturge etc). Taoist fangshi are present in many martial arts (wuxia) Chinese movies but here there is cross-over with the role of the exorcist. Maybe it does not actually manage – and in the end we have another toy, another easily theme parked CGI character modeled by the pressure of actually selling it or replicating it as merch. Nevertheless it is worth moving further ahead.
There are in contrast with other Western monster movies several divergences. In fact it might be part of a more open inhuman outlook on the world, which is felt in both block buster as well as indie SciFi comedies. In part it is changing from the inside, from within the form itself, as defined by stalwarts of the new weird China Miéville (Kraken) and Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy, Borne, Dead Astronauts etc) that has been opening new monster friendly vistas and teratologic ecosystems. Monster Hunt is not so much a Hunt as a way to protect and learn to live (even bear – become surrogate mother to a monster).
The movie bends the gender roles and keeps at its center the friendship of humans, ex-hunters with the monsters, human-as-monsters and monstrous-humans – in fact one such important hunter of the monster hunter guild actually takes the side of the monster and swears to protect them keeping them hidden or under cover (monster can shapeshift) as villagers. There are inter-monster succession wars, there is a renegade ‘evil’ (although evil is hardly the proper word to describe overall these fairly violent monsters) that heads the guild and actually controls a restaurant – specifically catering to the whims of the upper class. This restaurant functions exactly like such real examples of restaurant of medicinal-nutritional establishments in Chinese culture promise fertility and long life using various animals, roots, minerals. So in a way it is critical of the wet market tradition as well as the traffic of exotic and rare animals – “monsters” that are being shipped and illegally traded using international trade routes for a lot of money. The female huntress – is much more of heroine than the recent Mulan adaptation that is been called out as a case of ‘failed empowerment’. Huo Xiaolan (Bai Bai He one of the biggest Chinese stars) is the leading figure clearly – a true strong female movie character if there is one without paying tribute to the patriarchal tradition. She not only faces tremendous odds and saves the male hero’s ass several times but also reverses most stereotypes of the martial arts movies. Her counterpart the villager inheritor – is himself comic relief in comparison with her. He also gets to be pregnant with the baby monster with Huo Xiaolan helping him along the way as a midwife and paying for his tremendous appetites. He is also gets attached to the monster baby and vice-versa and refuses to deliver him at pain of death ot the highest bidder. He is a lame, literally so, has a foot disability (while at the same time an important giveaway sign, a blemish of the shaman, mountebank or trickster). In fact the main male actor had to be changed and 70% of the movie re-shot, since the initial choice, a young Taiwanese actor was embroiled in some drug abuse scandal with the Chinese authorities. The next choice actually refused to take a salary just to see the movie get done as a favor to Hui Raman.
While the monsters have been described as much too wobbly, the acting and action as completely over the top – one should see it also trough the eyes of this 2020 COVID year’s Chinese attempts to curb and further regulate wet markets as well as the connection btw animal welfare, animal farming and pandemic spillovers. The political historical trope of the rightful dynastic heir and heinous courtly eunuch or minister – has a long history in classic Chinese movie, opera and literature, and so it seems to reappear in the monster succession wars. Monster Gunt goes boldly against the meat- dishes and even treats veggies as soul-inhabited. At the restaurant we also have the famous chef scene – one of my overall favorites that tries to fry, cut, steam Wuba (the little monster King) and fails to do so – since it, like the Monkey King seems to only get stronger or to get fortified by these alchemical -nutritional transformations. Also a characteristic of Wuba – is his plant like appearance, in fact most of the time little Wuba looks like a little Mandragora (a Solanaceae a nightshade not a Brassicaceae like the radish) – is colored or even nicknamed as radish (with various Chinese, Korean, Japanese heirloom varieties). Here is a funny and bizarre Japanese collection of netizen antropomorphic Daikon radishes on markets, gardens and people’s houses.
bailuobo (白蘿蔔) in Mandarin or lobak in CantoneseVarieties of Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. sativus from the Seikei Zusetsu agricultural-encyclopedia
illustration of Nüwa from the Classic of Mountain and Seas 山海经
Tampopo or Tampopo is not only “ramen western” or “noodle western” in the tradition of the spaghetti westerns but so much more. There is a constant of eating and food plays a preeminent role in Japanese movies and manga. There is even food or cooking mangas, and so food becomes an almost default aspect where everything meets, wheressurfaces touch and coalesce, where sociabilty gets tested out and remade, where stranger and friends meet, juices mix and gourmet erotica gets played out, where the entire material universe gets made and unmade, where everything combines, joins at the same table, differences aside, and slurping at full power levels is required.
During the COVID SARS 2 pandemic all Instagram and social media got rapidly inundated by endless streams of home cooking, umami quests or generalized hipster craft. Disappearing spaghetti’s and instant yeast scaricity was the first sign that people in the order-online, prosperous West where finally cooking on a daily basis. Africa, Brasil and India, where a majority still cooks but where reserves and storage is problem started to suffer from shortages and choosing btw food rations and getting infected became an issue. On the Romanian social media “Breadism” was cynically called the only true COVID art moment fermenting out of the quarantine, since everybody started proudly posting his own selfmade bread photos. This is the moment where hate started accruing against a world wide phenomenon that has been gaining attention and force as climate action and Extinction Rebellion and Meat Industry seemed to fuse into one. Whatever you might think about ethical cooking or food artist residencies, branding the foodies in your group of friends or whatever u might think of food tourism and grand chef series(still a male reserve – but that starts to change), COVID has seen restaurants dead and dying at a time when restaurant level or food critic level photos with home made ramen bowls and lavish dinners just got nominated as the most apolitical and insensitive trend of the last decades. In those lucky countries or city that have returned to the new normal – terraces & restaurants have been invaded, ppl defintely cannot abide cooking at home anymore and uses any occasion to get eat out.
Because of that I am moving into another register, I am willing to risk drawing more ire with Tampopo – a film that everybody needs to see. Without a doubt, it is one of the most endearing, horny and delightful movies of all times. It not only eats sex in a bowl and features live shrimp tickling action, but also reflects on the medium of cinema as serving and feeding an insatiable lust.
It arrives to us from a time of Japanese tech preeminence and bubble economy, where everything seems to grow and grow and grow and Lazer disks are the future. From the time when American car workers union members smash Japanese car imports publicly as a protest comes a comedy on par with the best comedies in the world. It is as silly, zany and no worries as we imagine that decade before the Asian Crisis must have felt. It is super colorful and also veers towards the surprisingly ‘pure skills’ non-automated, non- technological soba or ramen privately owned businesses catering to busy white collar workers. It sports a TV cook show aesthetic that increasingly exhibits a nostalgic streak for the analog smells, of secret recipes more valuable than stolen patent or industrial espionage scandals, full of sensual bodily pleasures in the midst of increasing digitization and arcade disembodiment. Good to figuring out the perfect umami of such a movie. In spite of Japanese specificity, it is an universal movie, it translates trough and trough and is also about translations, from one kitchen into another, from one pot into another, about honing body intelligence, about things that you learn only by doing. How to figure out the order of servings, what is the good distance or how to train for lifting heavy pots, the mind boggling proper moment of patiently tasting each element swimming in your soup. It also figures an erogaro gangster yakuza neo-noir hero cutting his lip while sucking the contents of an oyster handed to him by a underwater maiden in an incredible gesture that reminds Suehiro Maruo’s works.
What makes it so irresistible? Well, apart from its constant humorous bursts, it has at its center an incredible heroine called dandelion – Tampopo that gives the name to the ramen joint and to the movie. A heroine that is a single mom, not at all the clichee success woman of the 80s, even if she is the total fast food entrepreneur. Tampopo cooks the mind as the body as the soup becomes a Japanese bath.
Of course there are lots of sexist and macho action overtly satirized (Japanese trucker cowboy cook critics beware!) and what even back then might appear as insensitive Chinese stereotyping, but what the movies lacks it overcomes as a metaphysical level study of Ramen and trough it of how to think and enjoy food that has no bounds. Ramen noodles soup is the total Asian melting pot, and maybe even a clear broth look into the way Japanese culture offers so many repackaged Chinese recipes (Buddhism, Confucianism, architecture etc) In spite of its nationalist darkside, in spite of hardly saying sorry and a very late recognition of massacres by the hand of Japanese occupation troops and its politically toxic attitude towards its Imperial past or its isolationist pretense, in such movies as Tampopo, Japan comes across as a fast uninhibited learner, always able to laud & applaud the magic pot that has fed it and recognize at its very heart how much it cherishes what it learned and kept simmering from mainland China.
It also features the most incredible gourmet hobo gang – sneaking into hotel or restaurant institutions to cook or – the biggest experts on the best wine, choosing the best morsels and the only one commission to award the five stars. It is very hard to pay tribute to such an amazing movie and I sadly I left out a lot of details that one has to taste alone (or in good company).
TimeSpace Warps 