Filmmaker Kyle Finnegan's peppery short subject is a conversation starter about a gourmet controversy that also has food for thought amidst Asian-American interest collections and groups.
The "no MSG" slogan has appeared on menus and grocery stores for more than a generation, often associated with Chinese recipes and ingredients. But what does it really mean? The scoop here is that the origins of the anti-monosodium-glutamate campaign in the 1960s were hardly scientific. Scholar Jennifer Lin LeMesurier traces it to a single written letter of complaint that Chinese-American restaurant fare induced headaches and malaise.
Somehow the critique went "viral" (before anyone even appreciated what that meant), and the commonly used salt monosodium glutamate was arbitrarily blamed. This being the era of ecology awareness and dread of DDT, napalm, saccharine, and other industrial-chemical boogeymen, MSG was rapidly demonized without in-depth research.
Tim Ma, an eminent Chinese-American chef-restaurateur, here defends MSG as being essential to the "umami" taste sensation elemental to many dishes, Asian and otherwise. Too much of anything can be bad for you, but there is nothing intrinsically harmful about MSG, and he hopes to redeem the spice in his culinary masterworks. However, within the brief run time of the film comes the message that this is mainly a beginning call for deeper inquiry into health aspects of MSG instead of the rush-to-judgment of earlier.
Viewers will also have to swallow a certain "woke" attitude, asserting that MSG's outcast status went along with longstanding racist-white attitudes towards Chinese Americans and a verdict that even the meals of Asian immigrants were inferior. This is brought up to date with the anti-Chinese hatred that surfaced during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Still, with widespread "health-food" fad-diet stances taken, sometimes hysterically, against wheat gluten, partially hydrogenated oils, fats, meat, sugar/corn syrup, GMO crops, etc., it seems a bit simplistic to call MSG phobia largely a matter of ethnic bigotry.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
Food/cooking shelves should set a place for the title, as well as Chinese/Asian culture and history.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Asian-American studies, not to mention culinary (and perhaps restaurant issues/kitchen management) could order this up in equal portions.
What are the costs and options available for streaming or screening this film, including public performance rights?
For streaming options, the costs are as follows: $559 for Digital Site License (DSL), $129 for an internal 14-day stream screening hosted by Good Docs, and $399 for a public 14-day stream.