Les Blank never filled his documentaries with sweeping vistas or beautifully framed shots that wowed the viewer. Looking at the footage of a Les Blank film is often like sifting through the stock footage of an educational film. The genius was in how it was all assembled or, better put, the genius was that Blank knew what to leave in and what to take out. Something else Blank did, or didn't do, that becomes more refreshing with each passing day is that he never inserted himself into his films. Oh sure, he's there, but you only know it because occasionally Marc Savoy says something like, "Here, Les, taste this." As documentarians become more and more convinced that they themselves are the most interesting thing on the screen, it will be true that the story they present will not be. How can it when they spend so much time on their own image, on how clever and entertaining they think they are. Les Blank knew that was a fool's game and if you were actually documenting a fascinating subject, setting your camera up and letting it roll on the action would yield the best possible result.
In the documentary short, Yum, Yum, Yum, A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking, done as an extra for the full length documentary he did on Cajun music, J'ai été au bal, cooking, eating, and talking about cooking and eating, are the full focus of the mere 31 minutes of screen time but it's 31 minutes that feels like 10 when it's over. Many of the same performers from the full length music documentary are featured, including both Marc and Ann Savoy, as well as the legendary Queen Ida (Ida Lewis Guillory), the Creole accordionist who is one of zydeco music's greatest artists. They play their music, briefly, but mainly they make food, and talk about food and how it all ties into Cajun culture. When asked about Paul Prudhomme, the famous Cajun chef, they have no idea who he is. The point isn't that Prudhomme's a fraud, he's not. In fact, he's also a part of the documentary. The point is that Cajun culture is, for most people outside of the Louisiana bayou, simply a famous chef and spicy food. To the Savoys and Ida, it's a culture.
] At one point in the film, Marc Savoy talks about taking the family to Disneyland. They went to a fancy restaurant at the resort and, just out of curiosity, Marc ordered the Cajun blackened fish they had on the menu. First he asked the waitress, as if he didn't know, what Cajun meant. She simply described the spicy food but had no idea about the culture. Once the fish came, Savoy couldn't eat it. It was too hot and covered in pepper. He asked for it "to go" and cleaned it off back at the hotel at which point it was edible. People, he said, misunderstand Cajun food. Cajuns, he said, don't want food hot, they want it to have spices that bring out the flavor. Anyone who thinks "Cajun" automatically means spicy-hot food, doesn't really know what Cajun is at all.
Queen Ida also talks about the Creole culture that made up the foundational center of her life. It comes out in the music, the food, and the lifestyle of all those in the region she grew up with. As she, and everyone else in the movie, prepares food and talks about it, it's clear that this isn't a simple menu choice or musical preference, it's a cultural heritage embedded in its people.
No one is better at observing and documenting a cultural heritage like Les Blank. No one. No documentarian can outdo him when it comes to cultural documentation and it's a true loss that he's gone now and there is no one who has yet replaced him. Perhaps, there never will be. For now, and always, we have his work, and Yum, Yum, Yum, A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking is yet another fine example of how Les Blank can take even the simplest of tasks, like making food, and turn it into a fascinating subject and a true cultural exploration.
By Greg Ferrara
