Netflix will premiere the original docu-series Cooked, from filmmaker Alex Gibney and food author Michael Pollan, Feb. 19. The four-part series “examines the primal human need to cook and issues a clarion call for a return to the kitchen in order to reclaim lost traditions and restore balance to our lives,” according to Netflix.
Gibney’s films include Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Each episode examines one of the physical elements used throughout the ages to transform raw ingredients into food: fire, water, air, and earth. Cooked “takes viewers on a visually stunning journey,” says Netflix, “to meet, among others: an Aboriginal tribe in Western Australia that fire-roasts Australian monitor lizards, a Connecticut Benedictine nun and microbiologist who makes traditional French cheese, Peruvian brewers who use human saliva to ferment a traditional beverage, and an ancient Moroccan granary powered by rivers.”
Each episode returns to Pollan cooking in his Berkeley, California, kitchen.
The series is a co-production of Netflix and Jigsaw Productions. Pollan, Gibney, Stacey Offman, Caroline Suh, Lisa Nishimura and Adam Del Deo are executive producers.
Gibney is also involved with a docu-series project on Amazon, called The New Yorker Presents.
