Cape Town — at the opening moment of ‘recipe for love and murder, Acorn TV’s gentle new murder mystery series, a woman emerges from a farmhouse with live chickens and picks up an axe. squawk.
But only the watermelon was slaughtered. It’s a chicken treat for Tany Maria, the show’s heroine, played by Irish actress Maria Doyle Kennedy, as she prepares to bring an ostrich mince pie to the office. (Yes, it’s an ostrich.)
It’s a tonal cue for the series set in Karoo (pronounced Ka-ROO), a vast, sparsely populated region in the south of the country that’s home to some of South Africa’s most austere and beautiful terrain. Aunt Afrikaans) is a 50-something resident of the fictional town of Eden, a pink-painted butcher shop, a supermarket cashier who knows everyone’s business, and the police dealing with the wrong sheep.
The “recipes” available to stream on Acorn TV in the US and other international territories on Monday are: Tahnee Maria Book by Sally AndrewAnd while the TV series quietly weaves in deeper issues such as domestic violence, racial inequality, and the legacy of apartheid, it also presents human drama, gorgeous landscapes, local color, and mouth-watering cuisine. We will combine them in the same way.
However, there are some very different things in the novel, starting with the identity of Tahnee Maria, who is South African. In the TV series, she has a South African mother and a Scottish father and was raised in Scotland before moving to the Karoo house she inherited from her aunt.
“I know some people are disappointed that we didn’t use a South African actress,” screenwriter Karen Jaynes said in a recent conversation at a seaside coffee spot here. But for the show to exist, it had to appeal to a global audience.” She added that the rest of the cast and crew are entirely South African.
Jeynes, who is also lead writer for Both Worlds Pictures, a production company in Cape Town, said she and company director Thierry Cassuto were looking for a South African book to adapt to when they came across Andrew’s novel. . “There were so many interesting elements,” she said. “The food, the Karoo landscape, the epitome of small-town society. And did I mention the food?
What stood out to Christian Olwagen, who directed six of the episodes (Janes directed the remaining episodes), was “the idea of a small town where people escape from their past. form a motley community embedded with.” According to him, Karoo is a tourist destination in South Africa. “I wanted to draw the audience in with an almost pastel postcard cuteness, so everyone looks delicious, but there’s something dark and dangerous underneath.” It’s a meeting between The Killing and Chocolat.”
In a Zoom interview from Dublin, Doyle Kennedy (“Downton Abbey,” “Outlander”) said that when he first read the script, he loved it so much that he persuaded his husband to “put things in the oven and crush the herbs. Tokoro” was filmed. She’s trying to make me look like a great cook.” And she sent the footage as part of her audition tape.
“I was starting to get pissed off because I was reading so much material that was violent with so many serial killers and the many ways they dispose of women,” she said. , was very funny, even comedy, tender and warm, but also darkness.It was not trivial.
At the beginning of “Recipes”, Maria writes a cooking column for the local newspaper. Its staff consists of smart editor Hattie (Jennifer Stein) and ambitious young reporter Jessie (Kylie Fisher). When the newspaper was forced to change its recipe column into an advice column, Maria volunteered to do so and incorporated her recipe into her response. Her first letter is from Martine Burger (Tinarie van Wyk Loots), a woman who is being abused by her husband. Despite appeasing him with her Maria’s lamb curry recipe, Martine is soon found dead.
Kaya Meyer (Tony Kgoroge), a handsome and taciturn police chief, appears as a black man from Johannesburg. He went to work in a predominately white and colored neighborhood (an apartheid-era racial classification). people of mixed heritage, which are different identities and still widely used in South Africa).
In a Zoom interview, Kgoroge said playing a black man in a position of power was a way for the series to hint at the racial tensions that still exist in South Africa, without elaborating on that point. “The reality of what we are experiencing in South Africa is that we are still experiencing elements of segregation and exclusion for different groups of people,” he said. It’s patterned like that.”
The most overt representations of racial inequality and prejudice on the show were people of color, writing about the lives of domestic workers and the injustices of farm labor practices, while hosting local church celebrations and social gatherings. Just as Jessie’s hot-burn romance with white cop Regalto (Arno Greif) is about to fall apart, her teenage sister sternly reminds her of the small-town racial prejudices. Let (The series was partially filmed in Prince Her Albert’s real-life Karootown.)
Fisher, who graduated with an acting degree on the first day of lockdown 2020, said, “I loved that Jesse was a person of color, a well-read, intelligent, powerful character. was like a mirror of South Africa, we haven’t changed.Even if we try to the best of our individual abilities, we can’t ignore the existence of these problems.But this series shows that human problems are human problems, regardless of race.”
Jesse and Maria begin investigating Martine’s murder (police chief Kaya is apparently attracted to Maria, despite herself). When a second murder victim is discovered — Lawrence, a black gardener — along with Hattie, a newspaper editor, the women go further. They go to talk to Lawrence’s mother, Grace (Lee Durr). Grace is a domestic worker who suspects her son saw something the night of Martin’s murder.
“Grace’s character description had the word ‘gravity’ for dignity and respect,” Düll said in a Zoom interview. And her story speaks to how any mother feels, the love a parent has for their child. ”
Stein, who plays Hattie, said the development of relationships between people of different races and occupations was “full of subtlety and truth”. “These women are very different, but sisterly.”
Despite the murders and seething racism, the show maintains a warm and humorous tone through Maria’s quiet, down-to-earth character and her empathetic, practical advice. recipe — in response to a letter she received. (Those who wrote the letter speak directly to the camera, explaining their problems as we look at their lives. )
The variety of characters and nuanced relationships in the small town “probably shows a South Africa that many have never seen before,” said Grief. “It’s not a struggling African country. It’s quirky, fun, and charming.”
Doyle Kennedy said he loved the way “Maria is a tormented aunt and solves murders and everything else through food.” She licks Martine’s kitchen counter and considers the contents of her shopping basket. She is Miss Marple crossed with Julia Child. ”
A fictional amateur detective costs a dozen dollars, Olwagen said. “But there is something very appealing about someone’s superpower being food.”