“I don’t think of you as a provocateur, but as someone who bends the narrative,” I’m heard saying in episode 5 of Hard to Swallow, a 6-part series by host, chef, and writer Tunde Wey and director Theo Schear. It’s from a podcast interview I did with Wey ages ago. It’s characteristic of me to put it that way, because I don’t like food media’s neutralization of any difference or warranted antagonism by putting a negative or inaccurate spin on it (other ways of doing this that come to mind are calling someone an “activist” or an “academic,” which puts them outside the norm even if those words don’t accurately apply to what they’re doing—ask me how I know!). 

“Bending the narrative” is also precisely what Wey and Schear are doing in Hard to Swallow, to great effect. It’s a food TV show about making a food TV show; it’s “essayistic” in that it follows its own logic; it’s cultural criticism because its own logic expands into the critiques of audience members at screenings, Zoom meetings with production executives, and a premiere at Cannes. Now streaming on TVOD for purchase, it—spoiler alert—didn’t land with any of the big platforms. 

The show sort of starts with Wey in New Orleans having conversations with white restaurateurs and journalists about gentrification, generational wealth, and race—but immediately goes to black-and-white in an office, where Schear and Wey are filming their consulting producer Karen Wong watching the fourth episode. “What am I really watching here?” she asks them. Wey notes in a voiceover that this is what everyone who watches the show ends up asking. 

In a production diary published in 2023, Schear writes that one goal was “updating Bourdain with critical race theory and uncomfortable confrontations.” In the finished product, the show is more about Wey dealing with being in the public eye and confronting what role he really does occupy in these food and food media spaces—from being a chef in Detroit, taking Nigerian cuisine on the road to often inhospitable places, to being detained for being undocumented, to trying to understand the success ceilings for Black chefs in New Orleans, to racism in the south of France. Wey and Schear themselves are depicted arguing about how to finish the story.

This kind of food media production is rare and special. I don’t want to say too much more about it in case you haven’t watched yet, but I am really excited to discuss their process with them on Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST. Sign up at the link for an email reminder or, as a non-member, to purchase access.

Below the paywall is the Zoom link, and I will send an email to signups and ping the Discord on Tuesday 30 minutes prior to starting. As always, this will be archived for members. Catch up on the full Salon Series.