Independent American documentary director Les Blank is best known for his films on musicians, including The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1968), Chulas Fronteras (1976), about the musical traditions on the border between Mexico and Texas, and Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella (1995). Blank, who died in 2013, was also an obsessive chronicler of America’s diverse sub-cultures, community traditions, and working-class lives. Films such as Always For Pleasure (1978), about the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, In Heaven There’s No Beer? (1984), about polka dancing and the immigrant Polish community, and Dry Wood (1973), about Creole music in Mississippi, reveal uniquely American folk traditions that have been seldom explored by mainstream filmmakers. Blank’s interests were wide-ranging, and it is not surprising that his filmography throws up the title Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers. America celebrates April 19 as National Garlic Day, and if there is one commemoration that deserves to go global, this is it.
The 1980 documentary depicts the sub-culture that has sprung up around the sharp-smelling plant. Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers is in the same mould as Blank’s other deeply empathetic and affectionate portraits. It comprises interviews with experts and ordinary people, all of whom attest to the delights of garlic. Blank meets chefs, restaurant owners, authors, farmers and garlic connoisseurs in his attempt to dig deep into the roots of the plant’s popularity across classes and races. His trademark use of humour and warmth and his impressionistic camerawork produce some lovely conversations. One fan declares that “Garlic appeals to people passionate about life,” while another notes that the ingredient “provides the bass note” to any dish it is added to.
This love has led to the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in the Californian town, where Blank finds participants wearing t-shirts with slogans extolling the seasoning ingredient and a belly dancer twirling her waist with a chain of pods around her neck. Blank also spends time at Chez Panisse, the legendary restaurant set up by Alice Waters in Berkeley in California, which also hosts an annual garlic festival.
Fittingly for a film about a vital element of cuisines around the world, Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers is packed with demonstrations of recipes. Blank also tracks down songs that are sung about garlic, and tucks snappy anecdotes about its popularity in Egypt and Spain into the 51-minute narrative. While its curative properties and indispensability in the kitchen were never in doubt, Blank also brings poetry to the table.
Blank loved food, and local gastronomic traditions show up in several films, including Dry Wood and Always For Pleasure. His prolific output includes the food-themed documentaries Chicken Real (1970), about the industrial production of broiler chicken, and Yum Yum Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking (1990). Other unorthodox documentaries include Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), in which Blank gets his filmmaker friend to cook his shoes and consume them at Chez Panisse, and the delightful Gap-Toothed Women (1987), a cheerful set of interviews with women who have space between their front teeth. Like many of Blank’s films, Gap-Toothed Women takes an everyday reality and spins it into a cheerful yarn about what it means to be American.