Documentary
Go back in time to our earliest hunter-gatherer beginnings all the way to the future of seed storage and food production.
Humans have depended on fire for millennia, but do we fully understand the impact it has had on our diet? When our hunter-gatherer ancestors learned to harness this tool, it ignited a culinary and cerebral revolution believed to be one of the most important factors in our evolution.
From the first row of planted crops, the practice of agriculture rendered man's hunter-gatherer lifestyles obsolete in favor of settled life and stable food supplies. This led to a skyrocketing population and enabled humans to develop skills outside of gathering the food needed to survive.
Just as humans have always sought food to survive, we have also sought the means to preserve that food. Right from the very moment of a kill or a harvest, food begins to break down. With preservation, we can plan for times of scarcity during times of plenty.
Industrialization brought the second great food revolution. Over the brief span of the 20th century, agriculture underwent greater change than it had since it was first practiced some 12,000 years ago.
Industrialized and processed food has dominated the last century. Now, the question is, what's next? We go around the world to meet pioneers in urban farming, veganism, and insect protein production to find out what will be the future of food.
Narrator (voice)
Explored through the lenses of the four natural elements – fire, water, air and earth – COOKED is an enlightening and compelling look at the evolution of what food means to us through the history of food preparation and its universal ability to connect us. Highlighting our primal human need to cook, the series urges a return to the kitchen to reclaim our lost traditions and to forge a deeper, more meaningful connection to the ingredients and cooking techniques that we use to nourish ourselves.
Join Amy Thielen, native Midwesterner, chef and connoisseur of all things authentically Midwestern, in her charming cabin kitchen as she cooks some of the heartland’s most-delicious and often-surprising dishes. She will also take us to meet the locals at their rural homes or restaurants, lakeside kitchens and working farms.
