Evan Funke wears his white beard long. He looks tough. He is tough after having been ignored in Los Angeles, where he has expressed his interest to learn more about pasta-making. It seems like the more entrenched food experts do not see him with the delicacy of someone who could prosper in the industry.
But Evan Funke treats pasta-making like a sacred act. In the restaurant which he built, you could see him inside a glass-enclosed quarter where he-softly now, then tougher-kneads the flour before him. No machine is used; for Evan Funke, making pasta should be done manually. The captivating moment in the documentary series Chef’s Table: Noodles comes when that flour which went through Evan Funke’s attention is now served to you to be eaten, to be savored by someone who, all this time, has been watching the ritual with the same concentration as well.
But for Evan Funke, there is no mentor in Los Angeles. No one wants to share their skills with him. And so, one day he decides to go to Italy, to Bologna. There, he would learn to study handmade pasta. And for months, he would slowly develop his skills in the art and science of rolling ‘sfoglia’, those thin pasta sheets under the strict teaching of the very acclaimed ‘sfoglina’ Alessandra Spisni.
Evan would eventually return to LA, set up his own restaurant where he could use his skills. Sadly, he would discover that some of his business partners had different sets of values, some of these impacting negatively on the economic side of his ventures. After several attempts in pasta-making business, he would return to Bologna, the women’s welcome to him would be maternal. It was also in Bologna that he was persuaded to secure his own ‘matterrelo’, the traditional rolling pin.
There would be successes and there would be failures, but for Evan Funke, there would always be Bologna and the women who kept the flame burning alive for those who want to learn.
The second episode of Noodles would have been a grand Chinese drama, a weepie, except that our protagonist Guirong Wei is a complex, strong woman who could not stand being part of a mushy extravaganza. Guirong Wei is from Xian, a north-central city and capital of Shianxi province. She was born to poverty. To make the situation extreme, she was among two other sisters, a condition almost hopeless in a Chinese setting. But Guirong Wei has a consciousness that urged her to give up her position in the family. A cousin convinces her to join her in the big city, a proverbial route for women in the countryside. Guirong Wei’s parents are unhappy but she is convinced-it is best for her other siblings to stay behind and study.
Her cousin has plans for her. Why not be a florist? Or a seamstress? But Guirong Wei has other ambitions: she wants to be a cook, a chef. But those are men’s works, admonishes her cousin, a bit shocked.
The first few days see Guirong Wei observing the older chefs. Think of a 13-year-old girl doing this. Her patience and persistence worked and she soon found herself in the kitchen. The male chef had seen in her what others did not. The young cook started a new path but, all this time, she had not forgotten her promises to her two sisters and to her parents. She was religiously sending any amount she could. In the kitchen that was given to her, she judiciously began to develop the cuisine common in her city. This made her extraordinarily unique and popular.
She still lived poorly but this time her dreams were alive. The Filipino OFW could see himself in Guirong Wei except that she dreamt big. She wanted to be a chef and soon she was given that responsibility. There were milestones in her life but she never negated her promise to her sisters and parents. Her sister would become a doctor and the other was doing great in their city. It didn’t take long before she was able to build four homes for her family. Her parents thought of her as their son.
In London, she became the mind behind the authentic Xian cuisine. Guirong Wei is credited for revolutionizing the Shianxi culinary traditions, from hand-pulled noodles to traditional dumplings.
Peppe Guida was acknowledged to be the dried-pasta virtuoso who fused tradition with innovation. While, for example, Evan Funke followed a tortuous and complex path, Peppe was content with the ‘ready’ forms of pasta and there developed his own culinary approach. The result was quick and excellent and the customers were looking for Peppe. But our pasta master was shy. But he had a wife, Leila Granito, who the family looked to as the ‘heart and soul’ of their family. During those moments when Peppe was not yet used to responding to the customers’ sincere appreciation, you could hear over the din or the silence, as the case may be, the loud albeit sweet voice of Leila calling our timid chef ‘Peppe!’ ‘Peppe!’
As Leila’s tenacity continued on, Peppe’s nervousness began to wear off…until one day, amid all the successes, Leila felt something strange. She would pass away in 2019. But Peppe and his two children made sure her legacy lives on in a magnificent villa called Villa Rosa, La Casa di Leila. Peppe also runs a Michelin-starred restaurant, not bad for a timid pasta maker.
Mention Khmer and you are saddled, unfairly perhaps, with violence, diaspora, migration, people-women and children-genocide. No one thinks of Cambodia and its culinary practices, of their unique noodles, and the taste separating them from Thai or Vietnamese, just to cite an example.
Nite Yun was born in a refugee camp. Unlike other Khmer, she was proud of her identity and ethnicity. She demonstrates this pride in the Cambodian food she prepares for her friends.
When the episode opens, the voice of Nite Yun could be heard in the background. ‘There was music…there was dance…there were recipes…. Then, the war came. The genocide.’
According to Nite Yun, when you cook, you bring with you all the memories of Khmer women who survived the genocide. In her case, the soup she makes carries with it not only the village but her mother who was strong enough to continue walking. For that’s how she lived through the hardships.
Nite Yun would then go back to Cambodia, not to further her knowledge about the country’s food but to learn about her parents-how they were when they were young. And yet, it was among her kin and the vendors in the marketplace that she came up with the idea to put up her own restaurant in San Francisco.
The city of San Francisco was the most appropriate place for Nite Yun to introduce to the world this dish that was not Thai or Vietnamese. It was a culinary tradition that came with personal tales, as well as the stories of women and men who saw war and deprivation. As one food activist put it, Nite Yun was not only offering Khmer food; she was sharing a story from her almost-forgotten country. Everyone believed she was powerful enough to bear the burden of the food she was reinventing. Around Nite Yun were always the migrant women of Cambodia. And her own mother.
Days were quiet and successful until Nite Yun’s brother called her up: their father was dead. He took his own life.
In these four episodes of Noodles, food was not central in the narrative; the biography of chefs took center stage-brave, unflinching. Their respective countries became significant. Is this a new way of knowing ourselves and others?
Chef’s Table: Noodles streams via Netflix.