Could ‘mouth cooking’ be the next crazy viral food trend?
A YouTube video featuring a woman preparing an entire Christmas turkey with ingredients that she has chopped and warmed up in her mouth has gone viral. The almost six-minute clip has been viewed over 81,000 times and garnered such YouTube comments as “Why did I watch all of this” and “Looks like fresh vomit.”
The video, titled “Cooking With Your Mouth,” begins with a refined-looking woman standing in a clean kitchen. “Hello,” she introduces herself. “I’m Riva Godfrey and I’m going to show you how to make my Christmas turkey stuffing recipe using only my mouth.”
She begins with her first ingredient, an onion, and takes an enormous bite. “You want to finely dice it,” she says chewing up and spitting out small onion bits into a bowl. She then repeats her steps with a carrot and some celery, and even takes some big bites of parsley which she then spits (and not elegantly - I mean spits) into the bowl. Instead of ripping the bread apart for the stuffing, an act easy enough to do with your hands, she takes large bites before combining them with the other ingredients. Perhaps the hardest moment to stomach is when Godfrey cracks a raw egg in her mouth and treats it like mouthwash before spitting it back into the bowl.
The internet is clearly disgusted.
“>mouth cooking,” tweeted 42believer.
https://twitter.com/42believer/status/949344222959763457
“I saw this on FB and I was so disgusted. Even more by the ppl saying “the cooking will kill the bacteria from her mouth.” WHO IS EATING YOUR POTLUCK DISH?!?!?”
https://twitter.com/NatalieGreaves/status/951437031875448833
“If I had to watch this then by God your day will be ruined too!” shared Christiana who also used the hashtags #thecaucasity and #theturkeyLORDhelptheturkey.
https://twitter.com/NaturalExample/status/948241136870678530
Although the internet briefly clung to the idea that maybe the video was satirical, director Nathan Ceddia claims that it was made with the utmost sincerity. Berlin-based filmmaker Ceddia uses food as an art medium in his videos and said that “Cooking With Your Mouth” was “made in all seriousness.”
“We wanted to create a new type of cooking. No one’s pushing the boundaries, no one’s thinking outside the spoon or the plate,” Ceddia told the Chicago Tribune. “I wanted to create a type of cooking that makes people think a bit more.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQQZ2hje42E
Perhaps that is why he cast Iska Lupton as the Nigella Lawson-esque “Riva Godfrey.” Lupton, a comfortable and persuading presence on screen could be a highly trained actress but also seems just as serious about the idea of mouth cooking as Ceddia. “Cooking with your mouth is an incredible feeling of freedom, creativity and control over your ingredients and finished article,” she told The Washington Post. “It’s hard - garlic really hurts - but the feeling of control [is] so worthwhile.”
Luckily - or unluckily for many people on Twitter - there will be a follow-up episode to “Cooking with your Mouth” that, according to Ceddia, will be “maybe be a little bit grosser.” So keep an eye out for that; it will be posted in a few weeks.
However creative and eye-catching these mouth cooking videos are, we do not predict that it will be a new food trend this year. You can check out all of our more-likely food trend predictions for 2018 here.
More on Twitter
Eat your way across L.A.
Get our weekly Tasting Notes newsletter for reviews, news and more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
