For those who firstly see how Li Wenlong, the 37-year-old owner of a small restaurant in Macao, works in the kitchen, it is a surprising moment. As introduced in Once Upon a Bite, Li is performing difficult physical acts to prepare the dough for Zhusheng Noodles, a type of traditional food in southern China.
To make sure that the dough gets its taste, Li Wenlong takes out a long bamboo pole, riding it on one end and putting the dough on the other. Just like being on a seesaw, Li goes up and down around 3,000 times.
The amazing scene is seen in the fourth season of Once Upon a Bite, a popular documentary series which tells stories between people and food. The six-season programme has a global view to look for a variety of grains — such as wheat, rice, millet, beans and potatoes—and tell the stories of how they became part of the human diet through different kinds of cooking ways.
Besides the stories in different countries, the producers also discovered some of villages the most faraway in China, interviewing locals to describe how their centuries-old growing and cooking traditions have been kept.
"Each grain was once the source of energy for the people of a land and the foundation of a culture, " one of the producers says. "And the development of grain is highly related to the historical development of humankind. We hope everyone can have more knowledge of different kinds of grains, sort of as a way to protect and remain the diversity of cultures. "