Cartoonist Jul. “Gastronomy is an exceptional marketing argument in favor of Christianity”

Back Hungry for history, gastronomic critic Alfonso Aitor and designer Jules want to tell no less than the history of the world through the prism of gastronomy. Scholarly, accessible and full of humor, the work is divided into chapters, from “Eating with a Cro-Magnon man in Lascaux” to “Eating on the International Space Station”, including feasting with the Aztecs, Egyptians or Vikings… The book, which is a hybrid, mixes comedy and historical narrative; “A dialogue in two parts, some pages sometimes contain only drawings, sometimes only text. We have taken the magic formula that has worked Planet of the Wise with philosopher Charles Pepin, explains Jul. We wanted to impart knowledge, but with joy and lightness, offering a panorama of human experience in all its diversity. What we ate at a given time, in a given environment, says a lot about us… » Meeting with a designer with automaton flow and multiple projects.

Madame Figaro: What is your favorite chapter? The hunger for history ?

Jul.- A difficult question. each includes incredible anecdotes told by my co-author that I’m always surprised to discover on a personal level. But I think I have a weakness for “Eating with Jesus and the Apostles” because it involved painting scenes we all know; The Last Supper, Mass… Especially giving Jesus a body and image was very interesting, because he was; so much painted, presented, clowned… Imagining him as a waiter whose customers ask if he can turn water into wine was quite funny. The topic was equally fascinating. It is not generally known that food and gastronomy have been a marketing argument in favor of Christianity. It’s a bit like the Mac Donald of old. “Come as you are.” Christianity is omnivorous, with it there is no longer any food restriction, while in antiquity the latter defined belonging to an environment, a community, a religion, starting with the Jews, where Jesus comes from. Unclean is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out. it is one of the rare Christian words that have come down to us. A very modern position… Telling about this paradigm shift, being at the ground level, really interested me.

How did you work with Alfonso Aitor?

We were constantly in dialogue. We set each chapter together to be present in each continent and each historical period. Alfonso is a gastronomic critic, but also an academician and teacher of preparatory classes, he is very strict. Thus, he wrote summaries that were both erudite and entertaining, based on the sources he studied. He drew incredible things… From his texts I improvised an interpretation in the drawings. “Eating with the hippies at Woodstock” really inspired me. imagining how we were dressed at the time, the atmosphere that prevailed was very inspiring. Titles played an important role. From The Stomach to Eating on Plantations with Scarlett O’Hara to Saké Soirée to Eating with Samurai to Ring the Toasts to Eating with Benedictine Monks, they’ve often been very good. the starting point, the spark that ignited the dust to allow us to move forward.

Was your training as a historian also useful?

Two great French passions are gastronomy and history, and I happen to love both. So it was a pleasure to marry these spaces. I wanted fantasy and humor, but, like Alfonso, I had some concern for rigor. His texts are very detailed and therefore I paid attention to many details; I tried to be as reliable and realistic as possible. So I did a sort of grand pictorial walk, from Tuareg tunics to Viking helmets, which allowed me to give a historical anchor but also a unique tone and color to each of these chapters.

Are there any chapters you regret not doing?

In fact, we had so many regrets, we had so much rich material that we decided to make a three-volume series. It was impossible to tell the history of the world through gastronomy in one volume… We have started working on many other chapters. For example, we’ll have Taste Buds Resist Eating in a Macchia with Jean Moulin and So Chewed Zarathustra Eating in Ancient Persia. We can see it like this. we went scuba diving and brought back treasures that we sorted chronologically. We’re going to do a second dive for Volume 2, which will probably go from “Eating in the Ancient East” to “Eating in Ukraine or Syria at War”… Then Volume 3 will come.

What are your plans now?

A new one good luck Luke! which will probably appear in the fall of 2024, it will be my fifth. Otherwise, I’m working on my first feature film Flint and the City which will be ready in time, I hope, for the spring holidays. It includes a sequence where the characters go into another dimension, and there I’m going to shoot twelve minutes of live footage, near Brussels. If I have about 180 episodes Flint and the City For Arte, I am a film director for the first time, I will work with actors, costume designer, make-up artists… It is a certain responsibility and a great source of stress, but also my way. respond to the turmoil and terror of today’s world; to create things that make us a little better and that we can pass on to others. I like this idea that knowledge and gastronomy, like comics, are meant to be shared. Children, parents, grandparents can read the same album, everyone can, regardless of political, community or religious affiliation. If I have a fight, this is it.

Hungry for history, Alfonso Aïtor and Jul, t. 1, ed. Dargaud, 112 p., €22.