Hannibal S3 Ep7: Digestivo

I don’t find you that interesting...

 A bullet inscribed

I won’t miss you

Hits its mark.

The pain, a chill.

 You will.

Poor Will. Death by a thousand cuts – it’s six hundred sixty-six and counting. He’s been beaten, shot and thrown from a train, sawed in the brain* and operated on without anesthetic.  Reading the latest script is draining to say the least. As the bodies hang upside down...I can barely read on.

The last page of the script breaks the bad news 

This is where Hannibal goes to jail.

We all knew Hannibal would end up in the Big House. It’s right there in Thomas Harris’ books and the Hannibal movies. It has been the only thing I have feared more that a brain-eating scene because, as every food stylist knows, there are no smart dinner parties in jail. Unless you’re like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas...faint hope for that.

Mafia meals in jail with Ray Liotta (Goodfellas)

More oysters; more flavour

So I make the most of my one food scene: Verge feeding oysters to Hannibal – in the same way that Hannibal fed Bedelia with his own tastes in mind, not hers. Verger is fattening Hannibal up so he can eat him.

Getting Oysters and Salsa ready for Mads

I decide upon Oysters Rockefeller for this scene because Cordell would think that dish to be quite posh when really, it’s a bit over-produced to bake oysters (which are best eaten raw) in that rich Pernod-scented sauce – and pretentious because Rockefeller was nowhere near the chef or his New Orleans restaurant in 1899 when the dish was invented as a substitute for hard-to-get escargots. (Maybe they all went to Hollywood to get jobs as background snails in Episode 1 to 4.)

If not Now, then When?

Odd to find this in the kitchen sink? Not really. It's Hannibal.

Head Table

What would be perfect for a Hog Magnate’s table? A showy roasted pig head centrepiece. I don’t want to make it too lovely – in spite of his confidence and workmanship, Cordell’s cooking is not and never could be as exquisite as Hannibal’s.  I garland the glazed pig head simply with cauliflower and sausages (or overcooked penises – however you prefer to perceive them) to make the point. But I can’t resist wreathing Ms Piggy’s forehead with a pepper and radish flower crown as a wink to Fannibals.

Speaking of Miss Piggy, Hannibal writer Angelina Burnett tweeted this gem: BBHMM. Who would have thought Kermit could take on Mads' role with such aplomb.

A flower crown for Verger's Roast Pig's head

Yes, that fat-testing knife thing that Verger did to Hannibal is a real thing.

Pig farmers used to stab a very sharp knife into the back of the live pigs to measure the thickness of their backfat. The fat is much softer than the muscle so the farmer could tell by the resistance to the knife where the fatty layer ended and the muscle tissue began.

Although Google will tell you that modern pig farmers now use MRIs to measure fat, I suspect there might be a bit of this knife-in-the-back thing still going on as I can’t imagine most profit-minded factory farms and feed lots are willing to pay the high cost of fat analysis by MRI. Why are we so cruel to the animals we raise as food? Is it because we fear if we cared for them we wouldn’t want to eat them? Especially pigs which are very smart animals – much smarter than the dogs we so cherish.

I swear, this show is turning me into a vegetarian.

And reading this book hasn’t helped.

Great new book by Mark Essig on the history of pigs and pork

Everyone should have an insane Fairy Godmother with a rifle-wand.

Chiyoh is making pheasant pie out of everyone this episode. The girl is everywhere with that shotgun. She’s like Inspector Clouseau’s Cato, jumping out to assassinate people when least expected. Or an omnipresent one-woman cavalry. There was a crazy fight scene in Sogliari’s  elevator between Chiyoh and Jack that was scripted but unfortunately, wasn’t shot due to time issues. It would have been so much fun to see. I just love Jack when he gets mad. (USE THE LADIES ROOM!!!) Another reason we need Season 4 - to see Jack go mano a mano with everybody in the cast.

One of my early layouts for Hannibal cookbook proposal with Hokusai woodcut "Pearl diver"

  

Earlier in the cookbook planning, I wanted to make an octopus recipe for Murasaki because I would use any excuse to show my favorite Ukiyo-e by Hokusai that illustrates an ancient poem about a pearl diver's encounter with an octopus father and son. But then Murasaki became Chiyoh and now she's indelible as our very own crack-shot pheasant hunter. So now, a  recipe for Chiyoh Pheasant Pie is in the works. Which reminds me – I must end here and get back to work on that cookbook as I’m reporting in to Titan Publishing next week.

Next week:  Meeting the Red Dragon will shock, astonish and exhaust you so you’ll need something sweet…even if it’s made from blood.

Hannidinners are all Australian this week

It's all part of last month's contest from The Carousel.com which I am judging this week and will post results after Episode 8 for all of you to enjoy.

 *thank you Stevi Deter for that "train-brain" couplet you live-tweeted yesterday

All content copyright of Janice Poon and Feeding Hannibal. Photos by Victoria Walsh/Feeding Hannibal

Episode 6: Dolce

Circle closes

Noose tightens

Night falls

Up side umop

Our end becomes our beginning.

Dolce: figs, almond cake, comb honey, dates, pomegranates, dried apricots and seasonal fruits
All the sweet things that would have been on the table at the Last Supper are on the table for Will's Last Meal

Food? At a time like this? 

Of course no one wants to talk about the food styling until after we dwell on the bathtub scene for a few quiet moments…

 

Bathing the Bad One's wounds - Dr Bedelia Nightingale

Wet hot steamy dreaming...

A dreamy soak in a copper tub is the image I have in my head when Stephen, the Props Master shatters my repose with a call: what I would suggest for Pazzi’s “spilling guts”. The obvious answer is “guts, spilling.” By that, I mean although because of food safety laws, he cannot purchase or handle uncleaned eviscera, he can easily buy a variety of natural sausage casing or bung – which is cleaned gut – and fill it with oatmeal. Cuz that’s just what we do here with porridge and food colouring. It often stands in for partially digested food. He did prepare real guts but in the end, Francois made prosthetic intestines for Pazzi. Not as messy and easy to reset – they bounce instead of splat.

Bucket - o - guts

Ripped Carla's tweet right off the interweb- thank you Carla!

But to meat of another kind: Fingers and toes pigtails.

chopped up pig tails 

Cordell tests his Hannibal Fingers recipe on pigtails.

We all had quite a time running around getting pigtails for this episode. They just don’t make them like they used to. Now that pigs are raised in vast factory farms they get quite crabby (not “happy as a pig in shit”) and bite each other’s tails. So instead of giving them better conditions, industrial hog farmers just dock the piglets’ tails.

One of the dishes that I took out to the set.

The dish as it appears on the monitor hidden completely by a lid. OK.  Fine, that's just fine.

Pig tales, continued 

Ergo, when I open the 50 lb box of pigtails I ordered, I discover only 5 decent tails. The rest were sad stubs. (Just what I need right now - another dreary metaphor for life.) I make an emergency cross-town Chinatown dash to buy up all the pigtails I can find. For various reasons, we re-shot this scene so many times that eventually, I found a Jamaican grocer who stocks piles of pails of lovely salted pigtails. I go to him often now – pigtails have featured prominently in several interviews I’ve done for Season 3 -- it amuses the grocer hugely when I stress how I need the l-o-n-g ones to make a movie so he doesn’t mind fishing through barrels of pigtails to find the most lurid ones.

Pigtail pointing with the French film crew doing a Hannibal documentary for 13eme in Paris

Hot Dogs and Hot Docs 

I have made stand-in fake pigtails as well for Joe Anderson, who is our new Verger behind that prosthetic face, because I didn’t want to inflict all that pigtail fat, skin and bone on him in the multiple retakes of the eating scene. So I made little edible “bones” out of dough and pushed them into lengths of chicken wieners which I wrapped in winter melon “skin” and brushed with mustardy ketchup. Tah-da! Hot dog heaven! Except he can't get them in his mouth because of the prosthetic. So emergency measures...I grab some apples off the craft table to make little bones and push them into the wieners I had brought along for just-in-case. Now he's got mini-tails to eat comfortably and we shoot the scene without further ado. And another note

Faking the fake pigtails which are Cordell's fake fingers.

A little footnote about the ringing charcoal that Cordell speaks of as he's describing how he will roast Hannibal: it's called Binchotan and is high carbon coal made from very dense hardwood that has been kiln-charred slowly. It is odorless and pure and burns for a long time hence is highly valued by Japanese yakitori chefs. It's referred to as white charcoal and when you strike it, it rings like a bell.

photo of White Charcoal from ChefsArmoury.com

And another footnote about the Tibetan Singing Bowl that Cordell offers to Verger: These are gorgeous bronze or copper bowls that sit on a lovely silk cushion. They ring like a bell when struck and have been used since 500BC for meditative healing with sound. It is so like Verger to spit pigtail bones into something so sacred.

Buddhist Singing Bowls are used for healing and rebalancing 

Hop Sing goes to the store with Annie O'Toole

Director Vincenzo Natali, whom I adore, makes a little request after shooting the pigtail scene. He has an idea that Verger will hold a bit of Peking Duck on his fork as he is imagining Peking Mads stretched out on the table. So of course, he turns to me and says "I'd like some Peking Duck, Janice. In about 20 minutes?" Well, wouldn't we all? I'd like a Day at the Spa but we are on location at The McLaughlin Estate in the middle of Hamilton, not downtown Toronto. Even if we were, it would still take at least an hour. But this is the movie business and "No" is not an option. I don't know Hamilton except that it is full of one-way streets. So I do what I have to do. I grab the Museum curator, Samantha George and force her to drive me to the nearest Metro where I know they sell roast chickens to go. Luckily for me she is Steve McQueen and Wonder Woman rolled into one and she gets me to and back with chickens in 12 minutes flat, laughing all the way. I have 8 minutes to glaze and colour those babies into pieces of Peking Duck. 

But I know I don't have to tell you that just as I pull off this Miracle of the Duckflesh, Vincenzo changes his mind and we don't want the Peking Duck after all. He's going to have Verger dip his fingers in Hannibal's honey glaze instead. Because he's not immobilized in a wheelchair - it's an imagined scene. My fake Duck-chicken gets mobilized into the trash.

Supermarket roast take-out chicken on the left, Peking Faking Duck on the right

Yah, Friends of Hannibal - it's the way we roll...

Can you believe the wheelchair count in this season? This show is maiming all of us. I know I sure could use a sit-down and the location is littered with them -- actors were bobbing in and out of their wheelchairs at various times to stretch their legs and get snacks from the craft table.

Cordell (Glen Fleshler) and Verger (Joe Anderson) have a break at the craft table

The Cook, His Boss, The Prisoner and His Bestie

At last to the scene we have longed for all our food styling years: a homage to Peter Greenaway’s monstrous marination of Helen Mirren’s boyfriend in The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover. In the script, Verger was imagining Hannibal roasted like a Peking Duck. The director asked me if I wanted to work on Mads or if we should get a prosthetic body double. With a heavy heavy heart (sobbing!!!) I said it would be too onerous for Mads to endure being naked, covered in glaze and laid out naked on a table while I drape his nakedness with fruit. So on set, I glaze and garnish the Man-o-Latex instead of the Man-o-Dreams. 

Making tiny last touches in the fruit garnish as the camera crawls along the length of my latex Peking Man.
photo by Brilynn Ferguson

DUCK! It's Hannibal!

The fun we have goofing around with the prosthetic Mads head almost makes up for not having Real Mads in for the scene. (Did I mention "nakedly draping his naked body with fruit?")

I apologize to Karola, the head hairstylist and wizardly wig-maker, for getting BBQ sauce on Mads’ oven wig.

If you can't take the heat, get your head out of the oven.
Here's incredibly talented director Chris Byrne burning Peking Hannibal's head..
photo by Brilynn Ferguson

Hey - what’s that buzzing?

Do you hear the squeal of a bone saw? Oh no, here’s the scene I have always dreaded:  brain alive, sautéed at the table. I knew it would come one day…

I can't stop myself from mentioning that the prop bone saw was fake (well not surprisingly, we couldn't use a real saw - Hugh already had his haircut) and the fake blade kept falling off which took a bit of the gravitas off the scene. Oops.

 

This episode was all about coming full circle along a tortuous winding way, face to face with your frenemies. 

I think back to when I first got the call to be Hannibal’s food stylist and, unfamiliar with the books or films, I searched Google for “Hannibal food images”. All I got was Anthony Hopkins sauteeing Ray Liotta’s brain. Which was too grisly for me to watch but the idea of it threw me into a long search for a fryable brain substitute. For the first year of shooting, I experimented in my spare time with gluten, poached fish paste, transglutaminase, steamed eggplant, pain perdu made in a custom mould. In over 3 years I still haven’t found a decent stand-in for brains. 

And now I read the scene…my fate on a page in front of me.

Some of my brainier efforts

Happily, a few pages down, I’m delighted to read the very last topsy-turvy scene: the Vergers’ meat delivery system has whisked Hannibal and Will away from Florence to Muskrat Farms USA and averted my having to fry anybody’s brains. Especially my own - metaphorically of course and as always...

After all, it’s never ever been people, has it?

Here's an Eel in Black Bean coiled in a dish I had last week. Damn! If only I could have cooked Verger's eel like this!
photo by brilliant cookbook author Lucy Waverman

What, still no recipes?

Normally, I sadly tell you here that I am unable to include recipes and sketches in this recap because of the wishes of the publishers of my forthcoming Hannibal cookbook. Then when Hannibal didn’t get renewed by NBC, I thought perhaps the cookbook would be axed as well. Now, I am ELATED to tell you there will be no recipes here and no sketches because publisher Titan has confirmed they are committed to the Hannibal cookbook and it will be available next fall! Yay!! I will be unable to show you sketches and recipes til then. Yay - with a soupcon of sadness, of course.

And Hannidinners?

There are a couple of your Hannidnners that I have lost among the floating files on my messy messy desktop. But I promise to get them posted. Just as soon as I get clear.

Here's one that just came in today:

Stephen B made this horn-ucopia of delicious looking Sun-dried Tomato Gnocchi for 210-Naka choko

PLUS: This is an Australian food styling competition I’m judging. And I'll be posting entries weekly to tempt any Aussieannibals into giving it a shot!

Here's the link - but it's open only to Aussies -
If you are not among the lucky who live in Australia, lobby your local station to have a contest.

Details of contest are at the end of this article:           

 http://thecarousel.com/recipes/entertaining-wine/the-allure-of-hannibal-its-food-to-die-for/

Here's one of the early Aussie entries! (love that left eyeball!)

Next week:

Birth. Death. Blood. Escape. Capture. Murder. Mayhem. Oh, and oysters.

All content copyright of Janice Poon/Feeding Hannibal, except where noted.

Photos (except where noted) by Victoria Walsh, copyright Feeding Hannibal.

Episode 5 Contorno

Looping back.

Future’s face is traced
upon the past.

Looping back again, again

to find myself.

To find out who I was
when I lost all

trace of you.

As Chiyoh tells Will, some species of snails can survive being eaten by birds, pass through the birds’ digestive system and emerge from the feces unharmed to procreate in a new location. (sounds exactly like a flight on Air Canada to me) In dark times, we might feel lost in a gizzardy grind but hey – if we gird ourselves against the eroding acid of uncertainty, in time, we might discover we were actually soaring in the belly of an eagle and are about to get pooped out on an island paradise to live again! #SaveHannibal!

snail photo by Vyacheslov Mischenko

In the Writers' Room, a butterfly wing flutters: clever, funny Angelina Burnett discovers that firefly larvae are the main predator of land snails and from that detail spools out the gloriously gruesome scene that might send many of you into a vermiphobic (or trypophobic) flap.  Thank goodness the hideous larvae soon make their transformation into fireflies - beautiful dots of magic that illuminate the death tableau that Will has made from the Caged Man.

If this show teaches you nothing, it at least shows you how fascinating and cruel Mother Nature is.  She is a towering powerful Monster. Hannibal is a punk compared to her.

Hey - it's time for me to get back to work

Our Jack is having dinner with the ill-fated Inspector Pazzi and his lovely young wife. She has made Pappardelle alla Lepre: a Tuscan dish of hare, braised in red wine  with aromatics: carrot, onion, celery and herbed with parsley, bay and fennel. It is nice with Parmisano Reggiano - pounds of which she shaves - discreetly in the back larder - as Jack and Pazzi talk cop.

Pappardelle with Rabbit Ragout

I am thinking this will be easy-breezy. Usually every fine butcher has got one or two buck-toothed babies in their showcase.  But this happened to be The Week Without Rabbits. I called every butcher in town, cajoling them to look deep into their freezers for me. Finally, I rounded up enough bunnies to make what I needed for the scene. Traditionally, the rabbit is cut up into small pieces and tossed with the wide strips of cooked pasta, but I left the meat in joints and placed them on the side so you could see that it was rabbit. Not people. Mrs Pazzi is a nice lady and there won’t be any of that mystery meat on her table.

Salad of Trevise Fennel and Endive

That scene down, it was time to find a table’s worth of gourmet goodies for the scene where Alana to show Verger how she tracked Hannibal through his shopping habits. I got Alba truffles from my caviar supplier but when they came in they were too small! So I called the Truffle Lady. She had a couple big ones that had just come in. Her family’s property is next to Anthony Hopkins’ place in Croatia, that was pretty kismet-y I thought and  plunked down the $450. (wholesale) for two nuggets. 

Then the only remaining challenge for me in the script was the “single Anatolian fig wrapped in a package that springs open like a flower blooming”. Paper flower was no problem for me – by the time I was 17, I’d decorated enough school gymnasiums  to cover that off. It was getting the figs out of season. I don’t want you to think that I am a lying cheating conniver who will stop at nothing to get the job done – so I’m not going to tell you how I got lovely huge figs in the dead of winter. But I got 12 of them and we sent 8 to Florence along with the tissue flower wrapping so they could replicate the wrapped figs when they shot the scene in Vera Dal. Which we reshot here anyway.

Vera Dal - Ontario branch office

Yes, Virginia -- at the risk of shattering your romantic perceptions of the episode, I’m revealing here that the Vera Dal interior shots were shot in Toronto. Bryan hated the store they shot in Florence so, at the last minute, we threw together the version you see in this episode and the previous. I built the food displays in a store set that our production designer and our set decorator pulled together from other sets and everyone loved the results. Our little Vera Dal cobbled together in the Toronto sound stage was more authentic looking than the real thing.

Hannibal’s rich dish

Hannibal has a snack

As Mason and Alana plot his capture, Hannibal enjoys a little snack: Venison entrecote with seared foie gras (whose liver is it this time?) decorated with amaryllis petals speared on the horns of a red chili pepper. Decorated with a spider orchid – symbolic of the Spidey-like escape that Hannibal makes as the episode ends.

Here’s the place where I would normally give you a recipe but I am still hoarding them for the Hannibal Cookbook which I have decided to be optimistic about.

Also here is where I would normally post your Hannidinners. But you have been too busy on Twitter to cook. You darling Fannibals, going all out Saving Hannibal instead of enjoying yourselves at the dinner table! You are truly the best fandom ever.

Next week: Sauteed cerveaux

When you hear the sound of Hannibal chopping capers and frying them in butter, it’s time to hang onto your hat and RUN!



Photos by Victoria Walsh. all content copyright Janice Poon/Feeding Hannibal (except snail photo by V Mischenko)

Episode 4

Less
Is more

 Next to nothing.

 Save Hannibal.

 

Hannibal's empty kitchen cold and heartless - altho I think there is still some liver in the fridge...

Normally, I am fairly outraged when there aren’t any food scenes in a new Hannibal script. How is a food stylist supposed to deal with being left out of the fun and blood? And although this episode was all about how each of Hannibal’s victims fared since we last saw them bleeding out on Hannibal’s lawn, surely they had a snack or two in those intervening years. Other than hospital food.

Really, Writer’s Room. Just a pick-up of the Sacrificial Lamb dinner scene from last year? Really?

reheated from Season two - Sacrificial Lamb tastes as good as it did last year.

But given this week’s cancellation of Hannibal, one realizes that a Hannibal episode without food is a small complaint compared to No Hannibal Ever Again.

It's not over til it's over...

We always knew our beautiful show didn’t have the ratings for automatic renewal. But NBC did renew, in large part due to the outcry from Fannibals around the world. For two additional seasons, you amazing incredible Fannibals saved Hannibal. And now, you are doing everything you can to save him again. If you can it will be some resurrection!

antique cookbook from Katia, portrait by Lauren, plushie mini-me and baby wendi by Nancy, flower crown by TattleCrime and buttons, stickers, cards - sent to lucky me!

Working on this show has been fantastic but the most moving experience of all has been getting to know you – reading your tweets and comment and seeing your Hannimeals, your fabulous art, hilarious GIFS, generous praise – and occasional swag (thank-you for the lovely thoughtful presents you sent me!) You really are the most wonderful community on the internet.

Our Fearless Leader's winning ways 

 Although Bryan is doing a new series, Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods”, he has said he foresaw no problem doing both shows and is very motivated to find a new home for Hannibal. Still actively looking for a broadcaster, he even hinted at the idea of a feature movie that would tell the final story of Hannibal and Will. And why not – Hannibal has quite the track record on the big screen.

Saturn Award to Bryan for Best Network Show (plus wins for Hugh for Best Actor and Lawrence for Best Supporting)

There are lots of extenuating circumstances and conflicting complications – like Hannibal’s current streaming agreement with Amazon which  disallows an arrangement with Netflix. And the very avid support of international distributors which, however strong, is contingent on the NBC deal. But anything is possible in the wacky world of Hollywood dealmaking. So we live in hope.

couldn't resist retweeting @hanni_candyman's Disco Hannibal "I will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor
(illustration by Omix)

#SaveHannibal

Will Hannibal be saved? Who knows what the Fates have in store?

Mostly, we should remember – there is still so much more Hannibal on our plates this season. We still have 9 glorious episodes to thrill upon. Instead of drowning in the sadness of NBC's departure, we should relish the feast that is before us with all the love and keen attention we have always given this most deserving of shows.

Now serving Season 3 – Team Hannibal’s best effort yet.

The rest of Hannibal’s summer stretches out before us in all its splendor. Let’s pour the wine and dine!

(Dear assistants, Victoria @victoriaMwalsh and John @Crustcrumbs - if you are reading this, could you comment with a cocktail suggestion to boost our spirits?)

Feeding Fannibals one episode at a time. With love.

Next week:

Hannibal is really, really bad. Don't make sausages for dinner when you watch Episode 5.

Last word as always to you and your Hannidinners and Hannibal art.

Yuwei made this portrait, a jello brain and jello heart that looks just like the cover of Art of Hannibal!
It was for an art project and Tiny Hanni looks like he wants a slice!

Solya made this Sacrificial Lamb and blogged about it:
http://filmsandpies.blogspot.ca/2014/06/cooking-with-hannibal-rack-of.html

Hui at The Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC designed this Hannibal-inspired butcher paper for her art project