/! Please, notice that this article is not about ponies and unicorns, if you’re vegetarian, you’re not going to like it! /!
At first, I was looking for some ideas for Halloween. My penny drops by watching Hannibal, an awesome series if you are an Hannibal Lecter – the famous cannibal – and dark worlds fan.
Hannibal is the prequel of The Silence of the Lambs. A terrific casting (Mads Mikkelsen is just remarkable), disturbing episodes with tremendous pictures, for a series clearly dedicated to horror and thriller movies amateurs.
I have a tendency to get crushes on pieces of decor when I’m watching a film or a series.
Once, I completely reproduced a lamp that I saw while watching Kill Bill, and I ran over all the antic dealers to find a mirror similar to the one I saw in Midnight Meat Train, until a dealer tells me that the model doesn’t exist and has probably been created especially for the movie.
To return to our subject Hannibal, this time, I freezed on the dishes. Not because they are particularly appetizing, but I don’t know, I had a fascination for the staging…
For those who don’t know the series, (and without any spoil), on each episode, Hannibal prepares a dish (I let you guess the principal ingredient) for his guests.
While looking for scene pictures, I found Janice Poon’s blog, the food stylist of the series. To my complete disbelief, practically all the dishes were presented, with recipes, explanations and sketches! A goldmine!
Janice Poon describes how the dishes are prepared, but also her setbacks, knowing that sometimes some ingredients are impossible to find. This is where the race starts to find a replacement. And it’s just priceless!
As expected, after reading her blog (or I should say devoured), I couldn’t resist. I had to reproduce one of those dishes. However, choosing one of those incredible preparation was a bit tricky. As 95% of the recipes are made with tripes and guts, even if I present you shady stuffs, the purpose is not to disgust you.
Finally, I choose two dishes, the wine jelly and the “foie gras en torchon” – knowing that I’m not a foie gras lover, because of the taste and the ethical point of view as well -.
And I won’t tell you how hard it was to just find a chicken head. Yes, a chicken head! You’d think that every chicken arrives to the butcher packed into plastic. So I believe that for Janice, it’s an other story…
Ok, but the result? Well, I didn’t expect a result as shady as that. Modeled on the series after all! It just goes to show you that, simply by choosing the right ingredients and elements, it’s enough to create an atmosphere, even if it’s just a dish, and this is where the Janice Poon talent reveal itself.
The original version
My version
Original dishes: Wine Jelly & sugared Roses
my crappy version
So, no recipe this time, the purpose was not to make you hungry 🙂 But you can find almost all of the Hannibal’s recipes on the blog of Janice Poon, Feeding Hannibal.
And I hand the conclusion over to Dr Lecter:
