Unforgettable is the taste

Pearl 2022-03-22 09:03:02

"The Republic of Spice" Politiki kouzina, the first time I heard the name of this film, was in the ancient city of Pingyao on New Year's Day in 2007. At that time, I was chatting with two friends in a warm inn, drinking locally brewed 6-year-old rice wine. The rice wine that day was as mellow as syrup, so that on a winter night of minus 14 degrees, I was sweating profusely.



My taste is relatively light, and I can't eat spicy food very much, maybe that's the case, so my sense of taste is more sensitive and I can pick up the complex flavors in the food. Many meaningful things in my life will be remembered along with the taste. For example, the deepest impression of a certain place is not the scenery seen, but the food that has happened and the people I have seen. The taste was recorded. Because the scenery I have seen will be like a painting, and it may stay on that wall forever; people who have eaten together may one day become passers-by A and B, but the taste of tasting together is like being left behind after being electrocuted. Like scars, it will always remain in the body and in the blood.


I finally downloaded this film online today. Although most of the dialogue in the film is in Greek and there are no subtitles, the actors' wonderful performance and excellent soundtrack are enough for me to taste it.


The Middle East in my impression is such a place with complex tastes. Complicated history, complicated politics, complicated culture and complicated spices, everything is mixed in that land between Europe and Asia. In Istanbul-Blue Mosque, behind the chanting sound from the top of the tower, there is a soundtrack that is sometimes melodious, sometimes sad, sometimes passionate, sometimes psychedelic, which completely fits my imagination of that Islamic world. From the movie, I can see the taste, it flows through the whole body with the blood: it is commitment, faith, nation, country, family, love, time, waiting...


taste, it is actually very difficult to use Expressed in words or words, it can only stay in everyone's memory, just like in my memory - the meals cooked by my parents, the cantaloupe in the old town of Kashgar, the vinegar fish by the West Lake, the sour bean juice in Houhai, the Muslim Street The mutton steamed buns, the durian ice cream next to the University of Macau, the navel oranges on Qiandongnan Road, the black tea after reaching the top of Poon Hill, the beer from the Himalayas, the Massla Tea when looking at the Taj Mahal, and the hot ginger tea by the Nanxun River...



It is not so much the unforgettable taste, but it is because the memory has become the taste; as long as you live in a simple life, you can taste the complex taste.

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Extended Reading
  • Barrett 2022-03-23 09:03:33

    About history, about growth.

  • Anderson 2022-03-27 09:01:22

    I have never understood the ups and downs between Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, and I didn't expect it to continue until now... Sure enough, there will be a history of such battles everywhere. The last scene is so beautiful... Every taste represents memories and beauty.

Politiki kouzina quotes

  • Fanis Iakovides: Our cuisine is made by people who left their meal unfinished somewhere else.

  • Fanis Iakovides: I was afraid... of the moment of having to leave again.