The food is never anything it appears to be, at all — but especially not people. The show’s creator and food stylist explain how they do it.
Via: NBC / Sony
When NBC ordered 13 episodes of a show about cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, the show’s creator, Bryan Fuller, had a difficult task: He needed to find a borderline crazy team to make the show's food — which is supposed to be human flesh. Oh, and Hannibal is also a gourmet cook.
Hannibal the TV show would be a prequel to Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs — that is, before Lecter is found out. So the villain is creepy but cheerful, a show-off cook — braising and garnishing parts of human bodies like he's Thomas Keller, then serving them to ignorant dining companions with a nice glass of Chianti. Elaborate meals would be part of nearly every episode.
“One of the fantastic things about working with a character as established as Hannibal is that consumption, whether it be gourmand or something a little more nefarious, is always going to be a part of the occasion,” Fuller says. “Hannibal's motto is 'eat the rude.' He refers to his victims as 'free-range rude.' This is a killer who's not so much someone wearing a hockey mask or hiding in the bushes — this is a gentlemen dandy who sees eating you as an appropriate response to your behavior.”
Fuller needed to put together a team who could find human-like body parts and turn them into delicious-yet-horrifying gourmet meals. So he turned to world-famous chef Jose Andres. “The moment I mentioned I was working on Hannibal, [Jose's] eyes lit up, and he did the tube-sucking Chianti sound. He was very passionate and enthusiastic about the characters and the idea of a gourmand who's a serial killer, some reverence for his villainy that's appealing to a chef.” Andres joined the show as a culinary consultant, but they needed someone on the ground in Toronto who could physically prepare the food and help Lecter appear as a sophisticated gourmet.
Janice Poon
Via: Brooke Palmer / NBC / Sony
Enter 62-year-old Toronto-based artist Janice Poon, who was approached by the show’s production staff after they heard she was the “only person in the city who could do the job.”
“We are the silent, the unseen. Everywhere you see food in an image that's produced professionally, there's a food stylist at work,” says Poon.
Yes, “food stylist” is a real job. (Those gorgeous, unrealistic Big Macs you see in TV commercials or the perfectly rippled scoops of Haagen Dazs in magazine ads don't just happen.) Armed with glue, toothpicks, paint brushes, spray bottles, and Q-tips — in addition to standard cooking equipment — a food stylist knows how to make food that looks perfect.
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