Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Les Blank: Always for Pleasure.

Chances are that unless you have a specialized interest in some of the indigenous folk music(s) of the United States, your recognition of the name Les Blank, if indeed you recognize it at all, may well come courtesy of Burden of Dreams (note that the link points to a DVD, not a Blu-ray), Blank’s fascinating documentary about the filming of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. That piece was actually kind of an outlier in Blank’s oeuvre, a large body of work that otherwise tended to focus primarily on musicians (though there are a couple of exceptions in this set). Criterion’s collection of fourteen Blank documentaries may understandably be thought of as a niche product, but for those interested in this subject, it’s a virtual smorgasbord of great performances and at least some biographical data.

What go together better than fine music and fine food? Nothing, at least if one is to take this appealing documentary's bifurcated focus as an example. Blank is back in Southwestern Louisiana again, ostensibly profiling accordionist Marc Savoy, but there's a "traditional" Blank-ian emphasis on cuisine as well, with interesting information imparted about both Cajun and Creole specialties.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1.

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the transfers in this set:

All fourteen films are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right side of the image to maintain the proper screen format. These new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on a Scanity film scanner from internegatives at Technicolor Los Angeles. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise management.

This is another transfer with some of the expected rough grain in several of the opticals in this piece, and there are some noticeable variances in clarity and detail levels, especially with regard to some of the on the fly location shooting Blank employs. Close-ups of food enjoy some good detail levels, but some midrange shots of elements like actual humans can be a bit lackluster at times (see screenshot 2). This was evidently one of Blank's efforts shot on 16mm, which may contribute to some of the rough appearance.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the soundtracks:

The original monaural soundtracks for The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins; A Well Spent Life; Dry Wood; Always for Pleasure; Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers; Sprout Wings and Fly; In Heaven There is No Beer?; Gap-Toothed Women; Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Creole and Cajun Cooking; and The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists were remastered at 24-bit from 35 mm full-coat magnetic tracks. The original monaural soundtrack for Hot Pepper was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance was remastered at 24-bit from a restored DA-98 tape and the restored 35 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for Spend It All was remastered at 24-bit from a restored WAV file. And the original stereo soundtrack for Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation, and iZotope RX3.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking features another fine sounding LPCM Mono track, one which handles the spoken elements (some of which offer what amount to spoken recipes for various foodstuffs) without any problems.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Marc and Les (1080p; 6:40) is a 2014 piece featuring frequent Blank collaborators Chris Strachwitz and Chris Simon.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blank seems to have had a taste (pun intended) for fine food and fine music, and this homage to "spicy" eating and tunes is itself very flavorful and enjoyable. Video is a little rough looking at times, part of which can be attributed to the 16mm source, but audio is fine. Recommended.