"Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma" - Review of a food anime

For a guy who considers himself a pop culture junkie, I must confess I've never gotten into Japanese comics or animation, better known as manga and anime respectively. Manga always felt out of reach for me because I don't know Japanese, and I suspected something would be lost in the English translations; I remember feeling confused rather than awestruck when I saw "Akira" back in high school. When I stumbled upon the animated version of the comic series "Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma" recently, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's about a teenage boy's adventures at an elite culinary school where only 10% of the students graduate. The competition is fierce, with cooking duels being issued like samurai battles from feudal times. Luckily for the story's protagonist, Sōma Yukihira, he is a culinary ninja of a chef and is always ready and willing to test his cooking skills against his fellow students, or anyone else. The story plays out like a combination of "Top Chef" and "Dragon Ball Z", with lots of action and drama, and is quite knowledgeable about food with the author consulting with a professional chef to ensure the recipes portrayed are legit. That said, this anime plays up the pleasure one experiences when tasting exquisite food to the point it gives new meaning to the term "food porn' - you will see nude characters in various states of ecstasy from time to time. Whether you're a hardcore foodie, anime fan, or someone who likes their food programming on the wild side, "Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma" won't disappoint.

Volunteering at Baconpolooza

Bacon has gone from something you ate with your eggs at breakfast, to a culinary obsession that makes tofu and kale fanatics jealous. Among the many bacon-enhanced items available, there's bacon ice cream, bacon-infused vodka, bacon salt, chocolate-dipped bacon... even bacon-flavoured lip balm and rolling papers. Bacon fashion is a thing, as well as bacon-of-the-month clubs, and bacon camps that feature lectures on bacon as art, and bacon recipe contests. It's the meat that even vegetarians have their own version of it to consume.  Whether it's a holdout from the Atkins diet craze or a tasty way to thumb one's nose at more health conscience lifestyles, bacon is eaten and enjoyed by many. Baked, boiled, fried, grilled, or smoked, people can't get enough of the stuff. Today the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum celebrates this love of cured pig meat with its Baconpalooza event, Ottawa's foremost celebration of all things bacon. Wanting to get a behind-the-scenes perspective for an event of this magnitude, I decided to volunteer my services for it, and after attending an information session Monday, and filling out some paperwork, it was made official. The following is how my four-hour shift went:

• I got up at 6:30AM to grey skies, cool temperatures, and damp conditions - perfect bacon festival weather. As I sipped my first coffee of the day, I began to wish I had volunteered for the VIP event that was held the night before. I now may not get the chance to ask Lynn Crawford what it's like working on "Chopped Canada", but parental duties prevented me from hob-knobbing and rubbing elbows with the special guest chefs, as well as the bigwig vendors and partners who helped put this thing together. 
• Just as I turn into the volunteer parking area, I realize that I left my parking pass at home - not the start to the morning I was hoping for. I did manage to get checked in after explaining the situation to Security and managed to get another pass for my car once I found the Volunteer Coordinator at the morning briefing. After getting my spiffy orange Baconpalooza shirt, the Coordinator outlined what he wanted us to do, and where he wanted us to do it. I was one of the lucky ones to get to work outside in the drizzle, but at least me and the volunteer I was partnered up with (Josh) got some umbrellas to use. A little after 8 o'clock, we were on our way to the Market area to help with the setup.
• Between the two of us, we set up tents for several vendors: Fat Boy Soaps were selling their new beer soap; Muckleston & Brockwell had lots of sauces, marinades, snack foods, and BBQ accessories for people to purchase. Griffith Farm & Market brought their best meats for sale, as did Kiefro Wild Boar Farm, and Seed to Sausage. Rounding out the vendors were Lowertown Canning Company, The Unrefined Olive, and One Sweet Idea. As we did our best to be available to everyone who needed help, people began to slowly trickle into the grounds, proving that it takes more than a little rain to keep people away from bacon
  


• Once that was done, I went to get the free Bacon Bites Breakfast the folks at the Ottawa Marriott were serving in the area that was usually a sheep field. Scrambled eggs served with chives and sauteed onions, with grilled baby potatoes and a bacon weave you could use as a taco shell to eat everything with. Add a bit of hot sauce to that, and you got a breakfast I'd wake up early every Saturday for.
  
• With all the vendors' booths finished, we went back to the Learning Center to be reassigned new tasks at the halfway point of the shift. This time we were sent to Barn 76 to help set up and man the beer ticket tent with two other volunteers. With it still not yet eleven, it was a pretty easy task, but as soon as we were legally able to serve alcohol, we got customers. The offerings were wine, a pumpkin beer from the Clocktower Brewpub, and a freshly made bacon Caesar. I handed out tickets and chatted with the others until I was relieved at 12:30PM. Not a bad bit of volunteering if I don't say so myself.
• Random observations:
• with all the food trucks around, you hardly notice the usual barnyard smells you associate with the Agriculture and Food Museum
• there was an animal rights protest happening across the street from the museum. The activists hoped to get people to think about what they were eating by laying naked on a plate. If it was anything like a similar protest done at last year's Ribfest, the protesters will have all their titillating parts covered, and their protests will fall on deaf ears.
  I'll assume they would not have liked these pictures of what was cooked over at the Meatings tent
  
• Favourite foods tried - the bacon sticky bun and the pulled pork and applewood bacon sandwich
  
  Apparently, pumpkin beers should be served warmer than usual brews to really get that pumpkin taste, but the one I had tasted pretty good chilled.
• This is the closest I got to Lynn Crawford and her cooking demonstration.
  
  Looks like I'll have to ask her about Dean McDermott next time.

The fun continues until eleven tonight, with performances by Drew Nelson and Monkey Junk. Come on down and get your bacon on.