In Netflix’s ‘Waffles + Mochi,’ Michelle Obama helps kids learn about food

When Barack and Michelle Obama signed a deal with one of the largest content platform/production companies in the world, viewers became curious about what kinds of projects they would present. Now comes “Waffles + Mochi,” a new educational food show that recently began streaming on Netflix.

Created by Erika Thormahlen and Jeremy Konner, it’s geared to children and combines puppets, live action and animation and this first season was filmed on location in Italy, Peru, Japan, South Korea, Uganda and the U.S. An all-star cast of chefs from around the world make guest appearances, including José Andrés, Samin Nosrat and Bricia Lopez, co-owner of  Guelaguetza in Los Angeles.

We spoke to Lopez about the show and put together her insights with the latest info from Netflix on what viewers should expect. Here’s what you need to know if your family has young children, loves food, and is searching for new programs to watch together.

THE CAST

The show stars former First Lady Michelle Obama as “Mrs. Obama” and her segments bookend each 20-minute episode. She guides the cuddly puppet characters, created by Swazzle and Viva la Puppet, before they take off on their missions and after they return.

Waffles and Mochi look like their names, Busy is a cranky busybody bee. Waffles has a childlike curiosity, inexperienced but eager for adventure. Mochi speaks in a wordless, Chewbacca-type language, making all kinds of high-pitched, excitable sounds that convey a lot of meanings and emotions that children are sure to understand.

THE SETUP

Waffles and Mochi live in The Land of Frozen Food but they long to become chefs. They escape and journey to a grocery store where they meet Mrs. Obama in a rooftop garden and begin to learn about fresh foods firsthand, making recipes and investigating the origins of produce and other ingredients. They take off in a flying shopping cart for locations around the globe and the fun begins.

LEARNING ABOUT NEW FOODS

The show almost seems designed to speak to picky eaters. “I was a very, very picky eater as a kid,” said Shaun Diston, one of the show’s writers. “I wanted to work on a show that made it easier for picky eaters to have fun with food.”

A note from Higher Ground Productions explains that the creators of the show were inspired by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. They aim to use the universal language of food, “to take kids on an adventure around the world, and bring culture and the joy of cooking into their lives.”

Higher Ground Productions and Michelle Obama will work with Partnership for a Healthier America to launch programs with retailers, food banks and other organizations to help families have fun with food as they also become healthier.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join in this hilarious, heartwarming and simply magical show — and I’m not just saying that because of the flying shopping cart,” said Michelle Obama in a production note. “I only wish ‘Waffles + Mochi’ had been around when my daughters were growing up, because it’s the kind of program that’s fun to watch together as a family, and gives parents the peace of mind to know that their little ones are learning something too,” she said.

CHEFS AND FOOD INDUSTRY WORKERS

Waffles and Mochi have encounters with salt harvesters, food industry workers and lots of chefs. In the “Tomato” episode they learn that this versatile fruit can be cooked in savory dishes when they visit internationally renowned chef and humanitarian José Andrés, who shows them what goes into Spanish gazpacho. In the “Salt” episode, Los Angeles restaurateur Bricia Lopez blends tomatoes, chocolate, spices and other ingredients into a sophisticated Oaxacan mole dish.

“I think that it’s our responsibility as adults to understand that children deserve our respect and I really applaud Netflix and the production house for giving them quality content and not dumbing anything down for them,” Lopez said.

The show’s creators aim to teach culture along with food, and Lopez said she enjoyed serving her mole coloradito recipe at a family dinner attended by her son and his cousins, her sister, and special guests Waffles and Mochi.

“It’s really an essence of who I am,” she said. “It’s a dish that has different layers of flavors. It’s one of my favorite things that I had growing up; as children in Oaxaca it was a dish to have on a regular basis. And I wanted to break the misconception that it’s difficult to make, and also to make it relatable to children. And to bring more awareness to the beauty of Mexico and Oaxaca.”

In the “Salt” episode Waffles and Mochi learn about seasoning dishes properly. In Lopez’s kitchen she explains the concept of sazón.  The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines the word as “the point or maturity of things, the state of perfection in its line.”

But that’s not its entire meaning. It’s a complicated concept, but Lopez explains it so anyone can understand.

“It’s that invisible ingredient that we all have inside of us that really comes forth with practice, with love, with patience,” she said. “Everyone has their own taste, their own palate, it’s sort of like your DNA, it’s your own and it cannot be replicated. So I wanted to encourage everyone to just really tune into that — your own sazón — and keep working at it. It only gets better with time.”

THE FUN FACTOR

While the children learn along with Waffles and Mochi, there are many moments of whimsy: a heavenly choir sounds when they taste delicious foods, animated fairy dust effects appear when they sprinkle seasonings into a recipe, a cartoon break in which a tomato sings a torch song about being a misunderstood fruit that often gets mistaken for a vegetable.

Even the grownups cut loose. José Andrés and Bricia Lopez both dance wildly with the puppets while the blender twirls, and that enthusiasm for food is an important element of the program, Lopez said.

“I think all of us should always tap into the inner child that we have. I think as adults we take ourselves so seriously sometimes, and we can be very stern. It’s, you know,  ‘Go! Go! Go!’ Like myself right now, I still have to put out fires everyday, all the time,” she said. “But going back and speaking to your inner kid — that we all have inside of us — it’s super important to maintain a joyful spirit. I think that’s the healthiest thing to have.”

‘Waffles + Mochi’

Find it: All 10 episodes are currently streaming, visit netflix.com.

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