I grew up watching a Japanese cartoon (伙頭智多星) about cooking and still do today. It was on TV every Sunday morning at 10am, so I always made sure to wake up early to watch. It’s about a talented 10-year-old boy taking over his father’s business in a restaurant.

The show is all about his process behind the making of good food and everything is very exaggerated, he is super happy whilst cooking, and when the characters find a good technique they all start doing a happy dance, and jump into a giant bowl of soup, or whatever else they are concocting in that particular episode.

Despite all the trippy happy dancing and swimming in food, looking at the cartoons today it’s clear that the cooking instructions given were pretty accurate! In the show there were two experts, one of them was the King of Taste and he really liked the boy and would often visit him to listen to his philosophy on cooking and try to enter him into competitions.

The happy energy and process of how to create something good is what makes this cartoon so special to me.

用心料理

小時候最愛看‘伙頭智多星’的卡通卡，喜歡那描繪味吉陽一研究菜式的過程，喜歡片中怎樣描繪他當時心情，味王怎樣感染他，讓他明白作為廚師應有的心態；喜歡他們對試味後那誇張表情，抱著大型魚蛋在向上走， 在大型拉麵上游泳，喜歡他們試到好吃食物時與輕快音樂在跳舞， 哈哈，料理及試菜過程都變成可愛快樂的事。

雖說卡通卡的天真瀾漫跟現實有點距離。但這些以人為基本的卡通片卻能悟出最真實的道理。用心就能煮出好的料理，懷著小朋友的好奇心就能去研究食譜，用有條理的心就能做出好的準備，用愛心就能烹調出感人的菜式。廚師在整個過程中都能跟著那跳躍拍子，舞動身體去享受那烹調過程時的興奮，那，就不已經很足夠了嗎？