Netflix To Premiere Alex Gibney & Michael Pollan's Docu-Series Cooked On Feb 19

From best-selling author Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), and an all-star cast of directors and cinematographers comes the Netflix Original Documentary Series Cooked, which examines the primal human need to cook and issues a clarion call for a return to the kitchen in order to reclaim lost traditions and restore balance to our lives.

Each of the series’ four episodes examines one of the physical elements used throughout the ages to transform raw ingredients into delicious dishes: fire, water, air, and earth. Cooked takes viewers on a visually stunning journey to meet, among others: an Aboriginal tribe in Western Australia that fire-roasts Australian monitor lizards, a Connecticut Benedictine nun and microbiologist who makes traditional French cheese, Peruvian brewers who use human saliva to ferment a traditional beverage, and an ancient Moroccan granary powered by rivers. Each episode also returns to Pollan cooking in his Berkeley, California, kitchen, appetizingly delivering his core message that, surrounded as we are by fast food culture and processed foods, cooking our own meals is the single best thing we can do to take charge of our health and well-being.

“Fire”

With help from Aboriginal hunters and a barbecue pit master, Pollan shows how fire shaped human gastronomy, and weighs our duty to the animals we eat.

“Water”

Pollan looks to the kitchens of India for a lesson in the value of pot cooking and examines the consequences of eating highly processed food.

“Air”

Visit food labs and Moroccan fields as Pollan delves into the science of bread-making and the nature of gluten.

“Earth”

Discover how microbes help turn raw ingredients into delicacies like chocolate and cheese as Pollan tackles the mysterious process of fermentation.

The series is a co-production of Netflix and Jigsaw Productions. Michael Pollan, Alex Gibney, Stacey Offman, Caroline Suh, Lisa Nishimura and Adam Del Deo serve as executive producers.