Haute Cuisine Critic – Weekend
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“Nothing” by Argentines Mariano Con and Gaston Duprat is a five-part black comedy about a culinary critic. This completely un-Hollywood series is the first to star Robert De Niro.
Manuel Tamayo Pratz (Luis Brandoni) is a dandy, art collector, gourmet and the most corrosive food critic in Buenos Aires. He is also a grumpy, sarcastic old man who has lived for 40 years with his housekeeper Salsa (Maria Rosa Fugazot), who unquestioningly fulfills all his whims – and there are many of them. Cooking at home to please a food critic is doubly difficult when money to buy food runs out – and Manuel’s affairs are completely upset. The publisher, who paid the old man two advances for his future great work on cooking, is tearing up and complaining – three years have passed, and he has not received a single line and is now demanding the money back. Manuel finds a way out of the situation by persuading an art dealer friend to sell one of the lousiest paintings from his collection.
The series called “Nothing,” in which De Niro agreed to play for the first time in his life, is blatantly un-Hollywood. It’s not that nothing happens in it, but it’s definitely nothing that Hollywood screenwriters base their narrative on: it’s not grief if your leg hurts, it’s not drama if you don’t have enough for delicacies, it’s not melodrama if you have dinner with your ex every week and you smile at each other. The series has a different temporality and a different focus, and something else is important in this story: for example, it is terribly important to add dill and garlic not to the batter, but to the breading when preparing a Milanese cutlet. Salsa has perfected a 200-year-old recipe and made it perfect – that’s what’s important to Manuel.
However, something dramatic does happen in the series “Nothing”: one morning Manuel does not find the usual breakfast on the table, and when he goes to check on Salsa, he finds her dead in front of the TV on. But the creators of the series, Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat (this is a creative duo, they always film together) are not building any affectation or agitation around this event – life is life, and they are interested in how it will continue for Manuel. Yes, somehow, to be honest: our snob doesn’t even have a mobile phone, and he doesn’t know the password for bank cards. That same ex, Grace (Silvia Kutica), comes to the rescue; it’s not for nothing that they smiled at each other on weekends all these years. Grace sends a new housekeeper to Manuel – young Antonia (Majo Cabrera) from Paraguay: the girl knows little about housekeeping, but cooks intuitively and divinely.
It’s okay, the girl will learn the rest, it’s not for nothing that Salsa spent 40 years writing a detailed Talmud about housekeeping – Grace calls it “the bible of nit-picking,” because it takes into account Manuel’s slightest whims. There are instructions on what kind of bananas you should choose (in no case are Ecuadorian ones – they are not suitable for cooking!), when to buy artichokes (in April) and how to properly wash windows (not in a circular motion, but in longitudinal movements, without alcohol, with a suede cloth, adding a drop of glycerin to the water).
Manuel himself will teach Antonia the rest: he will tell her what saffron is, how much it costs and what it smells like (during this inspired story, full of metaphors, it becomes clear that he should write a book after all!), and also introduce her to the three approaches of the Chinese to food. In Chinese tradition, Manuel will say, there are three types of food: “wen”, “jiao” and “wo”. “Wen” is when you spent the whole day traveling by bus from the village to the city, got hungry and ate what came to hand, food to satisfy your hunger. “Jiao” is the sandwich you made for yourself at home after work—the food you chose. And “in” is when you and I went to a restaurant to leisurely enjoy the whole palette of tastes: food for the soul. Antonia also has something to tell the old man: you have so many friends, she will say, enough for eight pens. What kind of pens? Yes, coffin handles – a person must have at least eight friends so that there is someone to carry the coffin.
It’s amazing how a callous, ironic old man messes with a girl. After all, according to his bosom friend, New York writer Vincent Parisi (Robert De Niro), a Pulitzer winner and best-selling author who has long been friends with Manuel, this old man is a great “puteador,” that is, a person from whose lips insults sound weightier and who masterfully distinguishes between “boludo” and “pelatudo”. Both mean “idiot,” but the second is more offensive. These are two key words when traveling to Buenos Aires! As soon as the funny, clumsy Antonia appears in the house, Manuel’s affairs will move forward, and soon Vincent will take this very trip to Buenos Aires to present his newly written book. And we will understand why nothing happens in the series “Nothing” – it’s like with Chinese food: this is a series not for satisfying hunger or just something that came to hand, this is a series “for” – for the soul.
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