Chinese food is the world's oyster

From mushrooms in the mountains to broth in the Central Plains, the documentary repeatedly asks: Where does xian come from?

"We wanted to find out," says Zhu Lexian, the documentary's supervising producer. The production team uses the history of China's pursuit of xian as its narrative thread, exploring it across time and space.

"We start with fishermen by the sea, then follow the journey through harvesting and simmering, and eventually to people applying new technologies. Then we connect all these stories," Zhu says.

The search links culinary knowledge, cooking practices, production technology, and everyday life.

"Eastern and Western understandings of xian are different," Chen says at the documentary's premiere.

In his view, Western discussions of freshness often emphasize the original state and immediate quality of an ingredient. The Chinese idea of xian, by contrast, can refer to a more layered form of deliciousness created through cooking, fermentation, concentration, and time.

"Westerners can be very concrete in their approach to food, while Chinese culinary life can sometimes be more abstract," Chen says.

Chinese cooking, he explains, often allows ingredients to transform, extracting and reshaping their flavors before using them in other dishes.

Behind this is a broader philosophy of eating. Chinese cooks have continually explored how one flavor can bring out another, how heat and time can transform ingredients, and how flavors from mountains, fields and oceans can complement one another at the same table.

For the filmmakers, the central challenge was how to turn the intangible quality of xian into something viewers could see and imagine tasting.

"People cannot actually taste the food or experience its xian through the screen," says producer Li Jie. But visual and auditory stimuli can activate memories associated with taste.

"Rather than simply presenting flavor, we are stimulating people's senses and building connections between them, so their brains can fill in the taste," Li says.

The filmmakers found visual counterparts for flavor: the texture of ingredients, bubbling broth, rising steam, and the colors of finished dishes. Images such as a flower blossoming or honey dripping evoke sweetness and roasted aromas through visual association.

"First, you have to give xian something tangible to attach itself to. Second, you have to give it movement," Li says.

The documentary was filmed over about four months in nearly 20 Chinese cities and abroad. From coastal aquaculture farms and remote forests to neighborhood eateries and family kitchens, the camera sought to connect flavors with people.

A modern food factory became another important stop on the journey. The production team was struck by the complexity of its production lines, research systems and laboratories.

"We had never imagined that oyster sauce was made on such a complex production line," Li says. After seeing the raw materials, production process, and research and testing systems, the team realized that this side of food production was "particularly worth documenting".