This week is a true cinephile’s delight. We’re diving into They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, a new documentary directed by Academy Award Winning filmmaker Morgan Neville. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead chronicles the making of Orson Welles’s previously unfinished final film, The Other Side Of The Wind. Today on the podcast we have Karina Longworth interviewing director Morgan Neville about all things Orson Welles. Karina hosts the beloved Hollywood history podcast, You Must Remember This, and recently released her first book, Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood. Karina and Morgan talk about the making of They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, Orson Welles' impact and why they went with that title. Spoiler alert: it's a great title! While this interview is not actually spoiler heavy, both films are available on Netflix if you want to watch either before listening.
This week is a true cinephile’s delight. We’re diving into They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, a new documentary directed by Academy Award Winning filmmaker Morgan Neville. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead chronicles the making of Orson Welles’s previously unfinished final film, The Other Side Of The Wind.
Today on the podcast we have Karina Longworth interviewing director Morgan Neville about all things Orson Welles. Karina hosts the beloved Hollywood history podcast, You Must Remember This, and recently released her first book, Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood. Karina and Morgan talk about the making of They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, Orson Welles' impact and why they went with that title. Spoiler alert: it's a great title! While this interview is not actually spoiler heavy, both films are available on Netflix if you want to watch either before listening.
Rae: Welcome to You Can’t Make This Up, a companion podcast from Netflix.
[Music]
Rae: I’m Rae Votta, your host for this week’s episode. Here, on You Can’t Make This Up, we talk about different Netflix series and films with special guests, and all the stories are surprisingly true. This week, we’re going behind the delicious scene of Salt Fat Acid Heat. This new Netflix original series is part cooking show, part travel show, and all Samin Nosrat. Based on her best-selling James Beard Award-winning cookbook of the same name, each episode dives into one of the four main elements of Samin’s cooking ethos.
Rae: In “Salt,” Samin cooks soy-braised short ribs with New York Times Magazine associate editor, Jazmine Hughes, so we thought it’d be fun to bring in Jazmine to interview Samin and the series director, Caroline Suh.
[Music]
Jazmine: I’m thrilled to be here interviewing the both of you today, on the day that Samin’s billboard was erected in Times Square.
Samin: Ah-ha.
Jazmine: How’s it feel?
Samin: I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet.
Jazmine: Oh, you haven’t seen it yet.
Samin: But later, Little Me is going to talk to Big Me.
Jazmine: Were you expecting to get such celebrity treatment as a humble cook from Berkeley, California?
Samin: You mean ever?
Jazmine: Yeah.
Samin: No.
Jazmine: Is it something you ever thought about or, like, Netflix approached you to do this, that you’d be—your face would be in Times Square someday?
Samin: Well, the Times Square part is definitely a curveball. Yeah. But, as I’ve been thinking and talking more about this experience, I remembered recently that when I was little, I used to pretend that there were cameras in my house and that I was on camera. And I was like, “Didn’t everyone do that?” And it’s apparently becoming increasingly clear that everyone didn’t do that. [Laughs] So I guess there’s that, but I also remembered that in 2007, when I taught my first cooking class, I came back and told some other cooks how inefficient I felt it was. I was like, “Oh, I went and I taught 12, like, upper middle class ladies some skills, but wouldn’t it be so much better if I used a television show to teach people how to cook?” And, so, it has been in the back of my mind. I wouldn’t say it’s been, like, the singular goal toward which I’ve been hurdling. But I—it wasn’t out of nowhere. Yeah, it’s exciting. It’s very weird. The celebrity part—I don’t know about that. I mean…
Jazmine: I’m still thinking about the concept of food-famous because there’s always, like, there are always famous people in every esoteric industry. But the idea of a famous chef for so long, as someone who just read Kitchen Confidential and knows a couple of things, but this—you had, like, a rock star chef with, like—you coming from a very, like—or a kitchen with a lot of masculine energy, a lot of tattoos and burn marks and everything. And, sort of, like, their overwhelming love of food was, like, baked it into a rock and roll, drugs, or alcohol lifestyle, right? And, then, what you’re doing from this is radically different. There was—that review—I mean, that review in The Times—or a little blurb in The Times called you, like, “the most joyous professor you’ve ever had” or something. So it does feel like that you are ushering in—or you’re certainly part of, like, a very substantive change of how chefs and cooks in the food industry, in general, is being represented.
Samin: For sure. And, I think, you know, in a lot of ways, I’m a writer first. I mean, I’m also a cook first. I’m both things first. But I think about words and ideas a lot. And I have spent my entire career thinking about the word “chef” versus the word “cook.” And I’m a cook; I’m not a chef. And it’s—I’m, like, I’ve landed on that. You can quote me.
Jazmine: And what’s the difference between those two?
Samin: And the difference is, you know, a chef is a professional person at the helm of a professional kitchen. And it’s a title that is really earned over the years of a lot of work. It’s a person who manages other people and decides on the menu. And I’m a cook; I’m not that. But what I can do is—because I have existed in the chef’s world, and that—and I’ve, you know, visited that rock star place, I can translate the concepts of that place for home cooks because there’s a lot of value in it. But, what I have not seen a lot of on TV or in media throughout my career or my life, is the representation of the people who cook at home. And, so, when I had the opportunity to make a show, I knew that that was where I wanted to focus.
Jazmine: We’re talking a lot about fame. We have to talk about the thing that made you famous, which is first your book—
Samin: Am I famous, Jazmine?
Jazmine: You’re famous to me, and I am the only person that matters.
Samin: Okay, well, you’re famous to me.
Jazmine: Oh, my God, thank you so much. So let’s quickly talk about how the book came to be and then how it got changed into a television program. And then we’re going to bring Caroline in to talk about the magic that she wielded in bringing this altogether. Because it was all you, right?
Samin: It was all Caroline.
Caroline: It was a lot of people. It was a lot of people, as it always is. It’s different than writing a book.
Jazmine: How did the book even come into fruition? How’d this start?
Samin: So the idea behind “Salt Fat Acid Heat” is, if you can learn how to use these four elements in your cooking, you can make anything taste good because they are the fundamental elements of good cooking all around the world, universally, in any culture, in any cuisine. And it was an idea that I landed upon when I was a young cook at Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, where the menu changed every day. And I had come in there practically off the street. I didn’t know anything about cooking. And I was suddenly sitting amongst cooks, every day at this menu meeting, who knew everything about cooking. And they could cook anything, whether one day it was Italian food, and the next day it was French food or Moroccan food or Spanish food. And they never used recipes. They never used measurements. And they never really needed to refer to anything because, somehow, it was all in their heads.
And, so, for a person who knew nothing, this seemed like an incredible amount of information to hold inside. And it also seemed like I would never be able to get where they were. And, over the course of time, I started to see these patterns, that these four elements were what they referred to and what they used, rather than, like, setting a timer for 17 minutes or measuring 42 grams of something. It was so much more about tasting and using your senses and really guiding yourself through a meal, through a kitchen, through the recipes, through all of the parts of cooking with these four elements in mind. And, so, when I realized it, I went up to the chef, and I said, “Oh, I figured this out: salt, fat, acid, heat.” And he said, “Yeah, we all know that. Duh.” And I was like, “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been here struggling for a year and a half.” And he said, “No, this is just something that’s understood.” And I was like, “Well, you gave me a huge stack of cookbooks to read, and this isn’t in any of the books.” And, so, it really became the way that I understood information and the way that I eventually started teaching other people how to cook. And, so, then I taught, and I taught, and I taught, and that became eventually a book.
Jazmine: And how did it get turned into a TV show?
Samin: Well, along the way to becoming a book, my writing mentor, Michael Pollan, was writing a book about cooking, about the history of cooking, so he hired me to teach him how to cook. And, so, I played myself in the book. I was the character of the cooking teacher. And, when that book got turned into a series for Netflix, Caroline was the showrunner, and she directed the episode in which I played myself. And we met. And, so—and it was this amazing day when we met. And it was just—it was the first time I was on a set with, like, real professionals and [laughs], and, certainly of that, of that scale, and everybody was just working so hard and wanted to make something so beautiful together. And I could feel that, and it felt so awesome.
And Caroline said to me, she said, “Oh, Jamie Oliver—he was discovered walking through the background of a scene of another TV show.” Like, and she’s like, “That’s what’s happening right now.” She’s like, “You’re going to have your own show.” And, so, she shepherded this book to Jigsaw, to the production company. And, when Netflix wanted more food shows, Caroline had that teed up and ready to go.
Jazmine: So is that how it went?—as someone, you know, who doesn’t know how TV works.
Caroline: Yeah, they give me a lot of credit for something—no, I, I mean, I met Samin, and Samin was very infectious and energetic. And we realized that after Cooked came out, the series that—where we met—that she—what she said really resonated with people. When she said, “Cooking…”—she was peeling garlic and she was—she said, “Cooking…” People say, “I don’t have the time in my life.” And she said something along the lines of, “Cooking is life.” And that really hit home with a lot of people. And Stacey at Jigsaw saw this woman—I mean, it’s hard to get a TV show on the air—so she and Ben Cotner really championed Samin, and it’s great because they saw something in her that was really new and different and wanted to get, you know, a different kind of person on the screen. So, you know, a lot of people had a hand in the show coming to life, and I think it’s great that the people who are gatekeepers really went out of their way to, kind of, nurture the show and Samin and bring it to life.
Jazmine: You’re right that Samin is so, I mean, she’s just like a bunch of bubbles right in your face, right? And, sort of, like we were saying before is that I feel as if there—at least the traditional depictions of what goes on in food media that I’m familiar with, are so radically different from this. So was there any, like, trepidation on behalf of, like, keeping Samin to be the real Samin? Did you think, “We have to tat her up and give her a handle of vodka and then put her in front of the camera so people really believe that this woman is a cook?”
Caroline: No. The short answer is, no. We really wanted Samin to just, like, wear her own clothes, do her own hair, wear very little makeup, and really be herself because—I mean, I am a documentary filmmaker, so I like things that are real. I didn’t want it to seem like we had this, like, huge production value that we were putting into Samin and that her wardrobe was done and her makeup and—
Jazmine: Or that anything was ever staged.
Caroline: Exactly. We didn’t want anything to seem fake. And I—and things really weren’t fake. We really did.
Samin: [Laughs] I was—
Jazmine: What’s the one fake thing?
Caroline: The kitchens.
Samin: Well, the kitchens were fake. Yeah, that’s true. None of—they were just not mine.
Jazmine: They weren’t fake. They were just not your kitchen.
Caroline: We would have shot in Samin’s kitchen, but it—
Samin: It was too small. We tried.
Caroline: … it was a postage stamp.
Jazmine: How many kitchens is one woman supposed to have, Samin?
Samin: It’s true, I do—I look like a…
Jazmine: Stepford wife.
Samin: Yeah. I look very wealthy, and I’m…
Jazmine: You’re in a Nancy Meyers movie [laughs] [crosstalk 10:48] .
Samin: No, but the thing I was going to say was that, that where really the documentariness really shines through is—we became very aware at my lack of acting skills. And, so—and, so, Caroline always wanted to capture, like, the truest moment of surprise or, like, the real interaction. So we learned pretty quickly that I’m completely unable to fake it. So we always sequestered me from anybody who I had to say hello to on camera so that the true surprise and delight would be caught.
Caroline: We have great outtakes of Samin’s acting skills [laughs]—
Jazmine: What are they like?
Caroline: … which are very robotic. They’re very robotic, and her body becomes very stiff, and her arms only move at 90-degree angles.
Samin: [Laughs] But whatever.
Jazmine: Well, this is a good transition into, like, one of my favorite moments, which is in the trailer where you’re eating this really, really spicy food, and you’re freaking out.
(Clip plays)
Samin: Part of the reason why that scene was so funny was it was so spicy that my, like, my body temperature went up. I started sweating, like, tears came in my eyes, and I just had never—I don’t think—I think it might be the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten. Also, because you have to realize—
Jazmine: So, what is the thing that you were eating?
Samin: What it was was—it was just a really typical salsa from the Yucatan. And there were several of them, and each was spicier than the last. And I don’t remember which one, in particular, was the one that I had this crazy reaction to, but these salsas are basically just habanero pepper and sour orange. Like, there’s not tomato in there to cut it. There’s not other stuff. It’s pepper and juice. And, so, I would drizzle it on and take a bite. And, also, the thing is—for camera you have to do everything a lot of times. So, I took a bite. It was so spicy I started cracking up because I was like, “I’m going to have to take 10 more bites of this.” And, so, part of it is me just laughing at the, like, absurdity of the whole thing of...
Jazmine: Do you think Caroline was trying to kill you?
Samin: I think Caroline wants to kill me most of the time. Yeah. [Laughs]
Jazmine: I wish people could see the look on Caroline’s face right now because she is confirming what you just said.
Caroline: No, I was actually pondering it because we were getting along at that moment in time. And we were.
Samin: We were at that time.
Caroline: We were. Yes.
Samin: That was not a fight day. [Laughs]
Caroline: But it was so spicy, actually, when they were charring the peppers, the whole crew—it was like tear gas just from cooking the—in this big, open warehouse space. It was that—the peppers were that intense.
Jazmine: And, with whom were you eating the salsa? Because they were totally fine.
Samin: Yeah. This was a classic. I mean, so, one really interesting thing, that I’ll just say a little tangent to, is that throughout the process of making the show, I realized how similar cooking and TV production are. And the kind of person who is going to be a great cook in a restaurant is also the same kind of person who’s going to be great at production because both are about, you know, limited resources, getting the—the thing still has to get done. The show must go on, right? Like, people need their food. It has to be done at great quality under whatever circumstances with whatever constraints you’re given. So…
Caroline: And no waste. You don’t want to waste.
Samin: Yeah, and no waste, exactly because you’re like, “Oh, we don’t have time. You know, we don’t have money, and dah, dah, dah, and the sun’s going down.” All this kind of pressure. The pressure is the same. And, so, we, you know, we’re in Mexico, and we’re like, “Oh, we need another scene.” We’re like, “Where—what are we going to do?” And I was like, “Guys, we’re in Mexico. We have to talk about salsa.” So we’re, like, we orchestrate this, like, elaborate salsa scene, but then we’re like, “Who’s going to be in it with me?” And we didn’t have anyone, so we chose Rodrigo, our production assistant. [Laughs]
Caroline: Who I found to be very magnetic while driving the bus.
Samin: Yes. He was like—yeah, yeah. He had a lot of star quality. [Laughs] And, so—and he was totally fine. I mean, he, like, breathes salsa. Like, he breathes chilies. Throughout that scene, he was telling me about visiting Thailand and how he just wanted the next spicier thing. So he was just very funny. The whole situation was so absurd; I couldn’t but crack up.
Caroline: It was very jerry-rigged. It was very—
Samin: Held together with duct tape.
Caroline: … spur of the moment but fun, and I’m glad we did it.
Samin: And it was, I think, one of the best moments in the whole show. Yeah.
Jazmine: Definitely. Hands down, it was. I liked it because I can’t eat spicy food anymore, and I feel like, if I can’t do that, then I might as well just be white. And I want all the attendant privileges of that too. So there are, I mean, there are a wide variety of food shows and travel shows. And your show is, sort of, like, an amalgam of them both. But what are some things that the both of you guys talked about when you were envisioning the show initially? Like, what things did you want to avoid? What things did you really want to trump it up? What were you thinking about?
Samin: No timers. No, no kitchen competitions. [Laughs]
Jazmine: No children crying because their souffle has fallen.
Caroline: To be honest, I don’t want to alienate any portion of the Netflix audience, but no man buns was, like, one of our major—
[Crosstalk]
Caroline: We did have a list of things that we did not want to include in the show. When we started the first brainstorming session, we had man buns—
Samin: Yeah, I did write, “No man buns.” I remember that. Yeah.
Jazmine: What else was on the list?
Caroline: We didn’t want it to seem too precious and perfect. I mean, part of Samin’s aesthetic is this great, kind of, Berkeley, not hipster, but slightly Bohemian, vibe. And, you know, it’s the beauty of the imperfect. What she taught me was wabi-sabi, which Samin can explain.
Samin: Wabi-sabi? Oh, it’s an amazing Japanese concept that’s, kind of, untranslatable about that, like, God is perfection, so humans are, by definition, imperfect. So anything we make must have a little bit—the human touch is what makes things beautiful. And I love that idea that it’s okay if, you know, the pot is chipped. Or it’s okay if the apron is stained. And I constantly have two parts of me that are at war about that because I think my truest self believes that. But I also have really intense perfectionistic tendencies that I’m constantly thinking about like, “Oh, how’s this going to be perceived in the larger world?”
And Caroline was really good—like, we would go to peoples’ houses—like, we were in the freakin’ Yucatan in, like, the most rural part of the Yucatan at a granny’s house. And I’m, like, cleaning up the kitchen, and Caroline’s like, “Stop. Like, this is a documentary. We are at a real person’s house, and I don’t want this to be perfect.” And that’s okay. And, so, there was a lot of that, sort of, just reminding me that what I am and where we were was enough. And that is really good because it helps me bolster the message that like, “Whatever you cook is enough. You know, however it turns out, is fine. And, if it’s not good enough, tomorrow you can try again.” So that was a big part of it.
We also, I think, we—you know, Caroline asked me to make a list of all the things that I love, which was a really amazing exercise.
Jazmine: Which I imagine was also a very long list.
Samin: Yeah, it was really long. It was a long list. Yeah. And, so, and, so—and, I think, she really took that to heart and stayed true to the—you know, she really tried and succeeded, I think, to make this show a visual version of me and my energy and my spirit.
Jazmine: So I keep talking about, like, your vivaciousness and your bubbliness and everything, and, like, what I’m not saying is that I’m very clearly comparing you to, like, an Anthony Bourdain-like character, who has now passed, as we all know. So how do you see the current state of food media, I guess, with this gaping hole?
Samin: Oh, he paved an incredible path forward. And I also know that he was a mentor to a lot of incredible people, who I’m excited to see come up and, hopefully, fill his shoes. And I think, you know, one thing that I’m so grateful to him for is that he—I mean, Anthony Bourdain was so complicated, and what he put into the world was so complicated. On the one hand, I do think that he contributed a lot to the idea of, like, glorifying Marchese Moen [phonetic 19:35] kitchens, maybe unintentionally, but, with Kitchen Confidential, that, like, went so big. And how could he have ever anticipated that? So there’s that. And, on the other hand, he grew into being one of the most sensitive, open-minded, and generous storytellers that we have ever had in food media. And I say that as a person who comes from a country where we don’t get a lot of positive representation in the West. And he went to Iran, and he made a beautiful episode about the people and the warmth of the people. And I think he did that for a lot of countries. So I’m, I’m so grateful to him for the example that he set for future people to come forward. And I think there’s a lot more work that we can do to expand upon that.
One thing I would really like to see, that he couldn’t have done just because of who he was, is, you know, when a white man is the host of a travel show and goes to different places, by definition, the viewpoint is coming from outside of that place. I would love to see some show constructed or some storytelling made that is told by the people of the place. And that’s something I’m, I’m really looking forward to.
Jazmine: Do you think that you would ever film a show or an episode in Iran?
Samin: I would love to. We almost did for this show, and, at the last second, it kind of—just the State Department recommended that we didn’t go. So we changed course and went to Mexico instead, which ended up being amazing and, kind of, beautiful because some of the ingredients that we were looking to feature in Iran ended up being the same ingredients that we featured in Mexico. And I loved that, sort of, beautiful analogousness. I would love to go to Iran, and I hope, in the future, that there’s an opportunity for me to. I kind of feel relieved that I didn’t on this show because I’ve learned so much more about how to make a show and how to produce. And I take the responsibility of representing that place really seriously. And I understand the weight of it, so I would like—I would like to do it when I could really give everything I have to it.
Jazmine: It feels as if a recurring theme in your work is food and cooking as a ritual and tradition, whether this is in your column in the Time Magazine or in the show or in the book itself. So how did you think about replicating that in every episode?
Samin: I think a big part of it was I knew I wanted people to gather around a table to eat and to really prioritize images of that as something that’s for all of us and something that, you know, is available to everyone and is within reach. And, also, is really important, I think, emotionally for people, is a part of the human experience. And, so, that was a big part of it. I also am very much a traditionalist. I believe in, sort of, immersing myself in culinary traditions, educating myself about them, and then, if I’m going to change stuff, I want to, with knowledge, with care, decide to make those changes. And, so, it was important for me to convey that, and it’s a tightrope because there’s a point at which, if you’re too much a student of tradition or bow down too much to it, things can become precious. And that, like Caroline said, is something that we both really sought to avoid.
So I was constantly thinking like, “How do we honor these artisans? How do we honor these ingredients? How do I tell the full spirit of these things and also make it seem like it’s available to you, like, anyone can do it?” And the example that I always think of is the soy sauce that we—the soy sauce factory that we visited in Japan, where, you know, probably most people have never tasted soy sauce like that. Most people in Japan have never tasted soy sauce like that. He said only one percent of the soy sauce made in Japan is made in this way, which is aged and fermented in these incredible wooden barrels that are over hundred years old, each of them. But, if I can show you that, and then we go home, and we just use regular soy sauce for our thing, we make it, and it’s really good, maybe the next time you’ll be like, “Oh, maybe I should seek out that special stuff. Maybe I should pay a little bit more for my next bottle of soy sauce.” Maybe, you know—and, then, maybe, along the way, that helps that guy, this amazing Yamamoto San. And, maybe, along the way, it inspires a few young Japanese people to go learn how to make the barrels so this dying tradition doesn’t disappear.
And, so, there’s always, sort of, an ulterior motive for me, and it has to do with people and supporting people. And food just happens to be, like, the easiest way to do that.
Jazmine: For the both of you, what would you say your ideal takeaway would be for someone who’s totally unfamiliar with the book, with Samin’s work, maybe who’s not really a big cook, but who watches the series? What would you want them to take away from that?
Samin: I just want you to get off your butt and cook something and feel like you can do it.
Caroline: Yeah. I mean, I think the message is that it doesn’t have to be perfect, that it’s worth it just to try, and that’s worthwhile is important. And I, actually—this is the one thing I took away from Cooked, from working on it, was that you don’t have to make the perfect organic meal. You know, I think there’s a lot of people who feel a lot of pressure when they’re in their kitchen, like, “I have to make this incredible, you know, two-course meal, or it’s not worth it.” But you can really just boil pasta and add some vegetables, and that’s really much better than ordering out. I’m a big Cosimos person, so this really—so Jazmine—you and I—so when I think like, “I’m just going to order out something,” I might just do something else instead.
Jazmine: Right. So you guys traveled a lot. You guys spent a lot of time together. What did you learn about each other in this crazy process?
Caroline: Oh, I have the indelible memory—Samin and I both had our favorite places in the van.
Samin: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. We had, like—because there’s a lot of traveling in vans—so we had, like, the seats that we preferred in the van. [Laughs]
Caroline: Things like that become very important.
Samin: Yeah, very important. You know, you need your comfort because there’s just so much discomfort.
Caroline: Yes, and they’re exhausting.
Samin: And, then, like, yeah, and we get to know everyone’s—like our director of photography, Luke, he loves bananas. And, like, he cannot start work without a banana, which was amazing. You know, and you learn all these quirks. What did I learn about Caroline? She can fall asleep anywhere, which is amazing.
Caroline: Really?
Samin: Yeah.
Caroline: Not when I’m in New York, actually, I can’t sleep at all.
Samin: Oh, on the road, you were able to sleep anywhere, which was amazing. I have photo documentation of it.
Caroline: I was pretending so not to chat.
Samin: She likes to swim in her full clothing. [Laughs] Caroline is obsessed with slowness, which I think really is the signature of this show and why it looks good.
Jazmine: Did you realize that you started slowing down your speech as soon as you said that?
Samin: No, but apparently I do that. [Laughs] You know, it’s very funny because I’m always like, “Let’s get there faster.” And, also, because I very much have, like, the efficient cook’s mind. And, so, I was constantly like, “I’m going to do this step. Then I’m going to chop this. Then I’m going to do this.” And she was like, “That’s not the way it works on camera, boss. Like, you got to slow down everything. We’re going to shoot it seven times.” You know, and, also, my mom would have been really happy to hear you tell me to talk more slowly because my whole life she’s like, “You talk too fast.” But I think it really paid off, you know, and that’s the kind of stuff that is, like, her vision, right? And you don’t see a lot of food TV that’s so slow. And the slowness is really meditative and beautiful, I think. And, yeah, I’m glad you made me do that. Thank you.
Caroline: Oh, you’re welcome.
Jazmine: Was there anything that didn’t make it in that you guys really cherish that you will, sort of, miss?
Samin: Oh, I know, when I cried at the soy sauce factory. I really wanted—
Jazmine: You cried?
Caroline: Samin, we could not put that in. It made you look insane. It was like, “Why are you weeping?”
Samin: [Laughs] It was so moving. I was so moved and emotional.
Jazmine: Wait. Tell us exactly—okay, give us the context for that scene.
Samin: So we go in, and this man is telling us he’s fifth generation soy sauce master and he works so hard, and he speaks, you know, he says at one point…
(Clip plays)
Samin: I don’t make the soy sauce; the microorganisms make the soy sauce. And I just care for them and keep them alive. And he talks about these barrels, and the barrels are very precious, and the mold is very precious. And you can’t touch it; that will disturb them. So there’s just this sense that you’re in this temple to these microorganisms. And he talks about how each batch takes anywhere from two to four years to produce. And I asked, I said…
(Clip plays)
Samin: And he said, “Three months.” And, so, you—you just start to get this feeling of how much care he has, how much respect he has for this process, how committed he is. And then you taste it, and it’s so unbelievably delicious. I mean, it tastes more like salty caramel than it does soy sauce. It’s something completely other. And I was so moved by his dedication. And he just was an extraordinary human, so I just fully started weeping. And, in my mind, I’m like, “This is great TV.” [Laughs] But apparently not.
Caroline: It wouldn’t have represented you well and your vision, especially with the translation issues. He was just stone-faced. He was very confused, and so, “Why is this woman crying?”
Jazmine: This is a question for the both of you. If you were a kitchen utensil, what would you be? And why?
Samin: I mean, the thing that comes to mind—because I have, like, a secret rage that nobody ever knows about—is a mortar and pestle, so that I could do that—so there’s, like, pounding involved, pounding that I would, like, do to release rage. [Laughs]
Jazmine: Okay. Caroline?
Caroline: I think I’d be a light-weight mixing bowl—
[Laughs]
Caroline: … because that is something that I covet, and I won’t buy it for myself. I don’t know why.
Samin: Oh, you—what?
Jazmine: Samin, now you know what to get for Caroline for Christmas.
Samin: I already just got her a really nice present.
Caroline: She did.
Jazmine: What was it?
Samin: It’s cool. I can get you a…
Caroline: It was a beautiful pan. It’s, kind of, like, a very fancy cast-iron pan, and just the thing I needed to make things crispy on the outside.
Samin: Yeah, it’s a carbon steel pan. Like, it’s so beautiful.
Caroline: I’m afraid to use it a little bit because it’s so beautiful.
Samin: Don’t be afraid. No, no. I was afraid to use mine. I have one too, and I was afraid to use it for, like, six months, and it just sat there. And then I just started using it, and the blue, kind of, goes away, which is sad, but it gets another sheen of beautifulness. It’s the most perfect, nonstick pan I’ve ever had. And it can go in the oven or on the stove. This is a commercial.
Caroline: Can I make [unintelligible 30:47] in it?
Samin: Yeah, you probably could. Yeah. Yeah.
Caroline: Okay.
Samin: It’s the best pan I’ve ever had.
[Music]
Jazmine: Thank you, both, so much for talking with me today. Congratulations on the show being out. I imagine that, at this point, you guys are just, like, fighting people on the street who are coming up to you and, like, trying to give you pans or talk to you about “Salt” or something. So, I hope that…
Caroline: Jazmine, you will have many fans shortly. In two days, you’re going to be getting fan mail, so…
Jazmine: No, I watched the “Salt” episode, and then as soon as I came on the screen I was like, “You know what I should do? Clean my bathtub.” And I just walked out of my living room.
Samin: Thanks so much for having us.
Caroline: Thank you.
Jazmine: Thank you, both.
[Music]
Rae: That was Jazmine with Samin and Caroline. And, now, let’s hear from you. It’s time to hear some of your reactions to Salt Fat Acid Heat.
@AmandaMole tweets, “I’ve been trying to figure out why I find Salt Fat Acid Heat so calming, and I think it’s because it’s mostly women talking to each other.”
@BrewLickBro says, “Salt Fat Acid Heat is our generation’s Eat Pray Love.” He then responded to that first tweet clarifying, “That’s meant to be a compliment.”
This tweet is from @AlisonTubby: “Salt Fat Acid Heat is such an excellent mental break from how horrible so many things are. Samin’s love and appreciation for food are infectious. It’s shot beautifully, and it’s also genuinely helping me understand how food and cooking work much better.”
Rae: Share your thoughts on any upcoming Netflix true story. Just search for You Can’t Make This Up on your social media of choice. And that’s it for this week’s episode.
We’ll be back in two weeks to discuss They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, a documentary detailing Orson Welles’s unfinished, final film. Karina Longworth, host of the wildly popular podcast, You Must Remember This, will be in conversation with Academy Award-winning director, Morgan Neville.
As for You Can’t Make This Up, you can find us on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this show. It helps other people find it, and it also makes us feel as happy as Samin Nosrat at that soy sauce factory. You Can’t Make This Up is a production of Pineapple Street Media and Netflix. Our music is by Hansdale Hsu. I’m Rae Votta. And thank you for listening.
[Music]
Caroline: By the way, I made those short ribs today.
Jazmine: Oh, my gosh. And?
Caroline: Yes. I haven’t eaten them yet.
Jazmine: Because you salted the fuck out of them, and the ribs—
Caroline: I want to make the cucumbers—
Jazmine: … are marinating in the salt.
Caroline: So, if you want to re-enact that scene, you can come to my apartment afterward.