#MUFFApproved: Hannibal
(still courtesy of NBC)
Hannibal (2013-)
created by Bryan Fuller
Food Stylist: Janice Poon
When you first start watching Hannibal you’re thinking, “Ew, people,” but as time goes on you start to think, “You know… maybe I might eat people.” That is 100% because food stylist Janice Poon makes every dish look prettier and tastier than anything I have ever put in my mouth, ever. If “food porn” hadn’t been coined already, it would have been invented specifically to describe Janice Poon food art. LOOK AT IT:
She’s an incredibly creative and resourceful lady. I mean, not only does this food need to look pretty, but it needs to look like people. She actually has to drive around Toronto (where they shoot Hannibal! Hometown pride!) looking for the body parts from creatures that are legal to eat (see: not human) that look the most like people body parts. That’s a crazy amazing skill to me. On top of that, she also needs to make sure all the food is edible and safe so that it can sit on set for long periods of time and still be eaten by the actors. And she has to duplicate her work a quadrillion times for retakes!
I would cry if someone called me at 2:00 in the morning and told me, “We need you to make a tiny, edible songbird that Mads Mikkelsen can pick up by the head and eat whole, but it can’t actually be a tiny songbird because that is cruel and also illegal, and also don’t make it gross because we don’t want Hugh Dancy to vom.” (She ended up using hollowed out marzipan after finding carved potatoes, gefilte fish, and gnocchi all problematic. Also their little legs are spaghetti! Squeeeeee!)
And, because she’s clearly super rad, she started a blog about her Hannibal adventures. I could spend all day being mesmerized by her flawless design sketches. Seriously. But it’s also filled with great on-set stories, behind-the-scenes information, and RECIPES FROM THE SHOW. Your food will never look as good as hers (sorry, but probably true) but you might be able to emulate some of those sweet, possibly-close-to-human flavours.
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