This documentary definitely felt like a television travelogue type show. There were two well known chefs who went around Peru and talked about how cooking is making social change in that country (the film is subtitled Cuisine as an Agent of Social Change), one of whom is the chef of El Bulli (which you might recall has its own documentary about it)—Ferran Adria. The other is Gaston Acurio, “the most famous chef you’ve never heard of” who has 31 restaurants in 12 countries.
Several people/things are profiled. One is a cooking school in a desolate desert-like locale, where students live and cook. One of the hosts note that instead of careers like soccer player or actor, teens are beginning to see cooking as a "cool" career to have. (I’m sure the Food Network and other similar cable shows and channels has helped on this front.) As expected these students are not rich and their families have to give up a lot to get them there. One student even admits that money her mother gave to her for another reason, she used for tuition at the school.
Other people who were interviewed include home cooks or people who didn't take to cooking as their first career, but who ended up loving it. One is an older lady who started making her food to sell on the streets and now has a pretty popular foodstall. Another is a woman who inherited the family restaurant but had no desire to continue in the line, except her mother on her deathbed made her promise not to sell the restaurant for a few years. During this time the woman grew to love the work and understand her heritage, seeing how far back the restaurant's history extended.
Adria and Acurio also travel to street markets to see and taste the abundance of exotic produce and speak to fisherman about the seafoods that Peru has to offer, despite it being a very poor country.
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