Johan Croneman: Tareq Taylor gets moved – then food is cooked

In Professor Leif Furhammar’s classic « With TV in reality », there are some time depictions from SVT’s documentary film department in the 1960s that do not go off for hacking.

There was obviously plenty of money and resources, and access to new lighter equipment – filmmakers and journalists went in different directions all over the world. They could be gone for months, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America-they opened a TV window to a world few had seen before. War, conflicts, poverty.

It was an awakening for a lot.

When did it last at SVT? « You, Janne and I were going to go to West Africa for a few months and try to find out what is happening there! » « Good idea, please come home with a movie before Christmas. »

Sierra Leone is one of the world’s absolute poorest countries

It is a little politics and a little history even in Tareq Taylor’s food trips, but certainly it is both striking and telling that when SVT now sends people in the world, you do it to – cook.

This time, Tareq Taylor travels with chef Zeina Mourtada and her sister Fathme to Sierra Leone, a country they were forced to flee as very small. Zeina was only four.

Sierra Leone is a of the world’s poorest countries, but rich in natural resources. Here are large diamond deposits, gold, iron ore, bauxite and a lot of other important minerals.

People live despite the riches in the greatest, worst poverty. Only 60 percent have access to clean water, only 20 percent have access to toilets and other sanitary necessities.

Violent military coups and civil war have characterized the country’s post -colonial history (the country left the British Commonwealth in 1971). Throughout the 1990s, a cruel and brutal civil war collapsed, the country was later hit hard by a massive ebola outbreak-and so the pandemic on it.

It is cooked to take me fuck food in every TV program, the chefs are like rock and movie stars

I have only harvested the first two episodes. Here are definitely some moving sections with the two sisters’ traumatic memories from an escape in the middle of the night (we are kept in the first two episodes completely unaware of why the family is forced to flee). But it is very complicated and stingy – tiny social history, zero analysis, zero attempts to describe the real country. And its incredible problems, especially corruption.

But the food is spicy.

Is that just accepting That we live in this type of media cynical reality? It is cooked to take me fucking food in every TV show, the chefs are like rock and movie stars. Highest status.

The food and culture can of course tell a lot about a country and its inhabitants, but is this kind of closest to ethnochica impact in the world really what we need most of right now?

Historians who have studied the collapse of various civilizations have, of course, found many similarities – a civilization on their way to their resolution, for example, has always had an absurd over interest for food, kitchens and chefs. An escape from the waiting disaster.

It is nicer and definitely easier to look in that direction. Smells good too.

It is possible that Tareq Taylor and sisters Mourtada have some political aces in the sleeve in the four sections that remain. In part two hits Tareq Taylor a bunch of young men, all have lost an arm or leg in the war, yet they play football with their crutches on the beach.

In the past we called it « human touch » in journalist circles, it should spice up the dish with some sad looks, maybe some tears folded – Tareq Taylor turns out to be very moved at least. And that was fine of him.

Then it quickly becomes a little cooking again, we cannot ruin the mood altogether. This is an entertainment program, after all, and some limit to the brutal really we still have to draw. Right?

Read more texts by Johan Cronemanfor example: Hand up the one who feels sorry for Håkan Nesser