Food documentary resonates emotionally

BEIJING - A Chinese documentary series "A Bite of China II" - a sequel to the 2012 hit "A Bite of China" - has insighted widespread nostaligia for hometown tastes.

Since the first episode was aired by China Central TV on April 18, people have been pouring out their regrets that they are no longer capable of cooking their hometown dishes.

"Once my mom spent a week in my home leaving our fridge full of dishes with hometown tastes," white-collar woman Du Wenwen said. "However, I am afraid that I will only leave fast food coupons for my grandchild."

Comprised of eight episodes, "A Bite of China II" covers the stories of more than 150 people and over 300 dishes, with each episode filmed by a different team.

"The new season focuses more on spiritual stories, while keeping a relative stable proportion of delicious food," said Liu Shuo, sub-director in charge of the "Realm of Mystery" episode.

"We did not choose some specific food, but filmed the food with feelings from the bottom of our hearts with our best intention to tell stories to the audience," she added.

Food culture is very important to Chinese people, and season II shows a strong desire to express emotions, said He Suliu of the Communication University of China. The new season depicts partings and reunions stories of the Chinese through delicious food, He said.

According to chief director Chen Xiaoqing, every one minute that viewers see has been refined down from 150 minutes of footage, covering more than 150 locations and over 400,000 km. It was a process which was "both physically and intellectually challenging, " Chen said.

"We have a common will to win not only higher audience ratings, but to appeal to the audience to taste different seasoning, cook a domestic course and travel for new tastes, as soon as you have the desire to eat," said Deng Jie, sub-director of the episode called "Daily Domestics".