Queer Eye regular Antoni Porowski dishes on No Taste Like Home, his new show exploring the heritages of various celebrities through cuisine
As a young Canadian, the last thing Antoni Porowski wanted to think about was his Polish heritage. “When I was young, I didn’t value it as much. I didn’t want to feel different and wanted to change things that I couldn’t necessarily control.” But even as Porowski rebelled against his roots, there was one constant in his life. “The food was always there,” he says. “The importance of tying in food to my Polish heritage, that’s been instilled in me since I was a really young kid.” As the resident chef on Netflix’s Queer Eye, Porowski has always emphasized how cooking creates a sense of home. On his new show, the ties to food go even deeper, with Porowski digging into the heritage of actors Florence Pugh, Awkwafina, James Marsden, Issa Rae, Justin Theroux and Henry Golding, through dishes that they associate with family. In the process, it has reignited an interest in his own ancestry. “It’s certainly provoked some conversations with my father and other family members about what we know,” he says. “And more importantly, what we don’t know and what there is to learn.”
How did your interest in culinary heritage turn it into this show?
I learned on Queer Eye that, as important as it is to teach someone how to properly make a vinaigrette and understand ratios and all that kind of stuff, I was always more curious about the conversations that happened while we were preparing food and getting to know somebody. I think it is a very intimate thing to make food with someone or for someone. When you’re there, it drums up childhood memories. So, it got me thinking, how do I want to pursue storytelling? I had an idea for a show that was a little different.
Do you feel like there’s a commonality between the participants other than the fact that they’re famous?
Some were friends of mine or people that I had been in touch with. The tricky thing is that you can have a wish list, but it takes three to six months of research for every single episode, so we did initial searches with their permission, but we needed stories that revolved around food. If they weren’t able to find that information, we weren’t going to book talent no matter how impressive their roster of projects. What they all have in common, some more than others, is that there was this shedding face that happened. With actors, they’re set to a script. They know exactly what they’re doing on a daily basis. They get to prepare. There was none of that for this. Truly, they genuinely had no idea what the hell they were doing every single day. And they were game, which was amazing. When you see their shoulders drop, some quicker than others, it was really beautiful.
You are used to creating chemistry very quickly on Queer Eye. Was this different? Did you have time to bond with everyone in advance?
Definitely, I had conversations with them. Understandably, with actors, they want to protect parts of themselves. As soon as you share something publicly, it’s no longer yours anymore. So, I wanted to give them a heads up and let them know that, yes, it’s work and we’re asking you to fly across the world and have crazy early call times, but I want this to feel like a gift. I want you to be armoured with this information that you can pass on to your kids and your loved ones. I also wanted to know what their intention was with this, what they wanted to gain from it.
With Awkwafina, or Nora Lum, you go to South Korea to find out more about her mother, and the episode is very emotional. What was it like to be there in those moments?
Knowing that she hadn’t been back since her mother passed away, I knew that I was going to approach it with a little bit more bedside manner than I typically would. I wanted to try to minimize any type of anxiety that was already in her, by presenting her with a little more information [than in other episodes]. But she was super open to it, and I think it clicked after day two or three, where she was like, “Oh, joy can exist with sadness at the same time.” It’s something that we talked a lot about off camera. And the idea of food as actual medicine — for her to learn that her mother was literally making this kelp soup to try to heal herself, and also for her own daughter when she was born, it was so beautiful. There wasn’t a dry eye on set that day.
What stood out to you about Florence Pugh’s episode?
She’s the one I knew the least and I was the most intimidated by. I’d just watched Little Women on a flight and sobbed hysterically. But her ripping her hand right into that lamb shoulder on day one and the fat dribbling down her cheeks, I was just like, “Oh, she’s a woman after my own heart. We’re going to have so much fun together.” When you meet someone at that level, you don’t know who they are as an individual, but she was very quick to remind me, “I’m definitely a person who’s obsessed with food,” and super game for us to meet her whole family, which is really beautiful because you never want to push for those things. But it’s something that a lot of people can relate to, the chaos of intergenerational conflict as to whether tomatoes belong in shepherd’s pie.
I love how in the narration, you’re like, “So I sourced this tractor,” in Justin Theroux’s episode, “and then I found this genealogist.” Did you, now?
We use the collective “we” a lot, and I get nervous with that. But with the tractor, the crew got there that day and found out where that house was, and they couldn’t get down with the cars, even though they had four-wheel drive. And there was this lovely old man on a tractor who was like, “I’ll take you down.” So, he took production down and our showrunner was like, “This is exactly how they’re going to get to that house. We have to show it as it is.” We couldn’t have produced this better. There were so many magical moments like that. The family that lived next door, on the day of filming were like, “You guys can use our bathroom. Come chill with our family.” And then to learn that fricking woman, who was the matriarch of the household, was related to the woman who took in Justin’s ancestor. I could cry thinking about that. It was so beautiful and that wasn’t planned. Those are things that happen when you go to these places and you’re welcomed with open arms.
No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski airs Sunday, April 6, on National Geographic