How Anthony Bourdain Inspired the New Show That Is the ‘Planet Earth’ of Food

Chef and co-owner of Copenhagen’s acclaimed Noma restaurant René Redzepi brings David Attenborough-inspired narration to new Apple TV+ series Omnivorous. The show, co-created with Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Matt Goulding, takes us around the world to meet the people behind some of our favorite and most consumed ingredients, including coffee, rice and salt.

Bringing a fresh take on the food and travel docuseries genre, the early stages of Omnivorous, Redzepi and Goulding’s work together has darker beginnings. It all came together shortly after the death of culinary and television legend Anthony Bourdain, who was working with Goulding’s media company Roads & Kingdoms.

“About four and a half, five years ago, Matt was sitting in a restaurant… and it was a tough time,” Redzepi shared with Yahoo Canada“Matt was of course running Roads & Kingdoms, and Anthony Bourdain was a part of it, and they had big plans. And then after Anthony passed away, he found himself in a weird situation. … We all were, but Matt more than the others.”

“We sat while he was eating and we talked all night. And we had been toying with this idea of ​​doing this show, a cooking show inspired by the great nature documentaries, like David Attenborough. A show that would have the same reach as Earthbut for food. A few months later, we met up again and we decided very, very quickly that we were going to do this together, and so we became co-creators of the show.”

Relying more on the Earth type of storytelling, rather than Bourdain’s famous cooking shows like Unknown partsRedzepi also made it clear that he did not want the series to be about his personal journey.

“Bourdain had done it, he had done it beautifully, and those shows are still on, and they’re great. But (Redzepi) wanted it to be a bigger story,” Goulding said. “We wanted it to be … our story, all of us, as people who eat and enjoy food, and survive on these fundamental ingredients.”

“You also have to think, after Bourdain passed away, what is the next frontier in food storytelling? He kind of opened up these new doors, these new creative corridors for all of us, and where else can we go? And that means, what if we didn’t have talking heads? What if we didn’t have a host? What if we had the great, brilliant reach of Earthbut the little intimate details of a chef’s table, but with the stories of the individuals, hundreds of individuals in the case of these eight episodes, who are out there feeding the world.”

“People don’t really know where food comes from”

Finding this “next frontier” is exactly what is needed Omnivorous There is a real intimacy with each person we meet in the eight episodes, each centered on a different ingredient. Narrated by Redzepi, it provides a poetic light through cities in various countries, including Serbia, Spain, Peru, India, Rwanda and the United States

Omnivorous shows us a number of different barriers to how these fundamental ingredients are grown, produced and distributed, including but not limited to climate change, rising costs and younger generations struggling to see the value in continuing this work.

“It’s very complex. People who work for quality, for diversity, for seasonality, will have to charge more, and unfortunately that’s not the case for everyone,” Redzepi said. “But even people who can afford it, often refuse, simply because we think we’re maybe being cheated. ‘Why is it more expensive?’”

“Ultimately, it comes down to people not really knowing where food comes from. Why there’s a difference. Who are the people behind it. What are you choosing. What are you relying on, what kind of system are you choosing to be a part of when you’re shopping. I feel like we’re dealing with Omnivorous “It’s something that can really help people understand a little bit better that these people and these systems are rapidly disappearing. And if you’re 25 or 24 and you’re looking at a life of toil with no real vacations, no real financial rewards in sight, you have to be obsessed with what you do. … You want to have meaning in your work, but you also want to have balance and so on. That’s going to be difficult for a lot of people who take over a farm.”

Goulding added that it comes down to “valuing food,” which can be seen in the series’ first episode with a Serbian paprika-growing family, where it’s difficult to keep younger generations interested in farming.

“If we as a society value food the same way we valued it when food was simply a matter of survival, or when it was harder to find food, when you couldn’t go around the corner and find thousands of calories for a few dollars in your pocket, we can restore that value, that sense of wonder and that sense of importance of why the people who feed the world are doing the most important and noble work,” Goulding said.

“(One of) the main objectives of Omnivorous “It’s about creating a sense of wonder in the viewer. Look at how big this world is, look at how hard it is to feed it, look at this extraordinary sense of collaboration and innovation that humans bring to the table.”

“Every time we eat, we vote for a version of the world we want to live in”

All along Omnivorous There are also questions about industrialization, the balance between the need to scale up operations to meet global demands, while preserving some of those agricultural traditions.

“This is not at all a manifesto against industrial food, because we need it, but on the other hand, no one can deny that it is not a problem,” Redzepi stressed. “We are rapidly depleting our resources. Most of these resources come from the way we grow our food, so we need to be more wise in the way we do it.”

“No TV show is going to change the world in that sense. We have to create policy changes at the national and continental level for it to really make a difference. But the truth is that sometimes it’s the difference between a dire situation and a fruitful and hopeful new path: a few pieces of paper are signed and then suddenly things change within a decade. I’m very optimistic about that. In fact, I’m optimistic about most things after having done Omnivorous. …Ultimately, everyone wants the same thing, which is to prosper and be happy, and for their family and friends around them to be well and safe. And I’m hopeful about that. I really am.”

If you start to think that Omnivorous is a show that claims to preach to its audience how to eat exactly, which is not the case at all. It’s more about asking questions related to the food we eat, how we get it, how to store it, and then providing that context that can allow you to be a more informed consumer. Plus, it’s just a beautiful, brilliant journey around the world, with a mix of comedic and heartfelt moments for solid storytelling.

“Change is always much more meaningful when you approach it yourself, in some way, rather than being spoon-fed,” Goulding said.

“That said, one of the recurring messages of the show is that we are voters, essentially. Every time we eat, we are voting for a version of the world that we want to live in. And that doesn’t mean that every food choice you make tomorrow when you go to the supermarket is going to be informed by that. But it does mean that when you buy your coffee, if you decide to pay a little bit more for a specialty coffee over a commodity coffee after seeing what happened in Rwanda in our coffee episode, that’s a huge win.”