Fake Food | Visiting with Huell Howser | KCET

Visiting with Huell Hauser is made possible through a generous grant from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Look at this chocolate cake. This looks absolutely delicious. And I've got to tell you right now, I'm going crazy because Ron, I'm on a diet. And we are visiting this wonderful place here in Torrance. And the first thing I saw when I walked in was this chocolate cake and all these other cakes on the table. Look at these, Louie. There's a chocolate cake and a carrot cake and some kind of a strawberry swirl cake here. You've got a lot of good food here. But actually, I don't have to worry about falling off the wagon with my diet because I could eat this cake and everything on this whole table and I wouldn't be consuming a single calorie. There's not a single calorie in this cake, is there, Ron? Not a single calorie. All right. Introduce yourself and tell everybody where we are. Well, I'm Ron Shoahara, manager of sales and marketing here. And we're at Iwasaki Images of America, Torrance, California. And what do you specialize in making? Replica foods. Take another look at this because this is not really a chocolate cake. It's made out of? It's vinyl, plastic and resin. It's made out of resin. That's why there are no calories in it. And if I wanted to have some chicken, there's no calories in that either. No calories, no taste. It looks good, but it won't taste as good as it looks. It's all resin and plastic, as is this big hoagie sandwich right here, this cheese plate complete with mustard in the middle, this plate of cold cuts. Look at this. Tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, carrots. It looks real. Well, that's our job, to make this look as real as it can. Okay, let's get started and find out how this... Oh, wait a minute. Look at this. If you wanted something to drink, you've got beer, you've got wine, you've even got foam on the top of the beer here. The one good thing is no alcohol here. There's no alcohol in the glass and no calories in the food. No calories. You could be on a diet and be on the wagon, and you're safe here. All right, let's get started. Where do we go to see how this process works, because this is fascinating. Well, we're going to go over to the very first area where we start all of our projects. And what happens over here? And this is where we get all the actual food samples, which is the basis for how we start our replica food-making process. So the deal is, this is real food right here. What you're looking at are real food samples that our customer has sent us. A piece of salmon and a piece of what? And it's a rib eye teriyaki steak. Okay, so you make a little mold for it here. Right. And again, this is the very basic process where we're going to make a mold. Come on in here, Louie, and look, because I think he's going to pour it. He's got this resin over here. Well, it's actually a silicone. Silicone. Can we pour it on there and see what happens? Okay. He's going to pour it like thick pancake batter. So he completely covers it. And that is so sensitive that it picks up every single image that it's going around. The salmon, all the little lines in the salmon. Every texture, every nook and cranny, every detail on that piece of fish there is going to be captured in the mold. Much like a fossil. It's like a fossil process. Now, how long will that stay on there before he pops it out? Well, it's going to cure overnight. So about this time tomorrow morning, he'll be ready to pop it out. Wow. It's going to cure overnight. Okay, so we got the salmon going. Next, we're going on to the rib eye. This is fascinating. Just covering the whole thing up. And I'm just looking over here. Here's one of the molds over here. A piece of corn. And this is going to be the end result of what you just saw here. Tomorrow morning when he pops out the samples, this is what's going to be left. The texture of what this one was, was the corn. Was a piece of corn. You can see the details. Look at this, Louie. All the little details. You can see every single little kernel of corn in there. These were, this was a banana mold. And I'm looking over here. This was a, what was this? Those are ice cubes. Ice cubes. Well, you left two in there. I wonder how those got in there. Look at this. Ice. So there's, is there anything you can't make? Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Has he been with the company? He's been with the company more than 20 years. He's been doing this for over 30 years. And he is a master craftsman at this. Wow. Master craftsman. So it takes a lot of skill to do what he does. It's not only a lot of skill, but you've really got to know foods, different kinds of foods and how they're going to react to this process. Yeah, so he's figured out which ones, what to do, which process to use. He's got it all down. To make it turn out right. Thank you, Mr. Kim. Thank you. It's time for breakfast. Pancake with syrup and butter. And then you can have eggs and ham. And this ham looks like the real thing. Well, I sure hope so. Just don't bite into it. Now, what do you, who do you make this for? Who are your clients? Well, our main market would be the restaurant industry. They're the ones who would use it the most, and they're the ones we target the most. Dinner houses to coffee shops, everything in between. They can all use our replica food. So they basically use it because the displays that they would have of real food wouldn't last very long. That's right. After a while, it becomes real unappetizing. Begins to melt, begins to thaw out. Then you don't have a good display. You'll turn your customers off that way. And the other benefit, too, is if you don't have a display, you put it up and the customers will want to order it. They know what you have. And you're actually showing the food as it really is. You're not making it look better or worse. It's the real thing. And we'll actually make it the way they like it. Sometimes we make them too perfect, and they'll ask us to mess it up a little bit. Really? That happens a lot. All right, now where do we go next? Because I want to get into the food. Well, from the process you just saw. Now, wait a minute. I can't tell what's real and what's not. This is plastic. That's a real fake. It looks exactly like a piece of. . . Sometimes the only giveaway is when you look at the back. Oh, okay. Now, is this real food over here? These are a part of the samples that came with the steak and salmon that you just saw. Oh, okay, so this would have been a restaurant that would have sent you their food. That's right. And this is real food. Those are real foods. Now, they're all going to, once he's done with what he's doing, he's going to go back and make these in the same process that we just saw. So they send you the real thing, and you replicate it exactly. That's right. The tour continues, and now we're in the. . . These look like ovens over here, Ron. These are the ovens where the molds are popped out, and the parts are baked right out of the molds. So what you're seeing him here, he's adjusting the temperature. . . Something's coming out. Now, what is this? Let's see what he's got in there. He's got slices of bread going in there. Look at this, Louie. See where the molds are? Slices. You've got six slices of. . . You've got eight slices of bread in here. What he's doing is he's got them out of the oven, and you can see the bubbles in there. You see the air bubbles that we're going to take. . . This machine takes the air bubbles out. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, he's got things in the oven. Oh, what's he got baking up? It looks like. . . What's he cooking? It looks like tomatoes. No, they look like chocolate chip cookies. Look at this. Chocolate chip cookies. Now, keep in mind. . . Tomatoes. Oh, tomatoes. Tomatoes, okay. They're tomatoes. You can't tell. I was right the first time. So we've got to put them in there and cook up the tomatoes. Look, we've got some more bread going over here. There's the bread. This is. . . Oh, this is hot. Yeah, be careful here. This just came out of the oven. It's fresh out of the oven. Here comes. . . Boy, there's a lot going on around here. Oh, there's always a flurry of activity. Sometimes it's a lot worse than this. This whole place is all filled. Oh, now, wait a minute. Here's a tomato. . . Finished. I guess it's been colored. Where is it colored? All right. We're going to. . . We're going to get to that. Oh, okay. Right after this stop here. So you saw the color that he was pouring. Here it is. There's the flat spot. So this is the tomato as it comes out of the oven. Right. The tomatoes are probably going to go in there next. And when they're done, when all the bubbles are out, he's going to pull these out. And from here, we can move on to the next step. Wow, this is fascinating. This whole area here is what they're going to be doing with. Here are the molds. So you can see the molds. These are obviously the pie molds. These are molds for pies. So they're all going through that whole process that we just saw. They've all been through the heat of the oven. The whole works. They're going through some pretty hot treatment there. You got cheese. Cheese and these are onions. Onions, lettuce. Lettuce that hadn't been colored. Right. Where is the color in place? And this is really the heart of our operation. This is where all the artistry comes in. These are our painters. Oh, look at this. Now, I can't tell right now. When you look at this, I have no way of knowing that this is not real. But obviously, it's not. But the way it looks here is. . . Oh, you've got the whole system laid out here, don't you? That's right. Look at this, Louis. From the way it comes out of the oven to the various, just like this, just very uncolored and unattractive. And these just came from the area we were just at. We just baked these out. Now, they're going to be here for that artist back there to come by and paint these to match it like that. How do you paint? Have we got painting going on over here? I think we should. So, these guys literally paint food. See, what they do is the key here is to have an actual piece of food that he's going to match the colors to. So, he's matching these colors over here. And these are all done by eye. Remember, now, this is an old-world art form, so he's matching all these by eye, matching it to a sample, matching it to the real food. And that's what he's doing right here. So, this is very labor-intensive, artist-intensive. There's no mechanization here. None whatsoever. This is done. . . You know, I was going to say it's done the way it was done years ago, but this is probably a whole new industry anyway, isn't it? Well, it's pretty much been the same. We've always refined different components, different chemical elements that we use, but the craftsmanship has never changed. We're improving there. We're using a little bit more sophisticated equipment like air guns, hand brushes. What's he doing over here? These are designed to be made light, so he's filling these up with foam to give them a little bit more density so that it looks like a . . . It's going to look like a . . . See, this is being made for a restaurant chain that wants their products to be as light as they can be. These are very, very light. Look at this cake. Who are your customers? Chains? Individuals? Chains. This one here specifically, we say, is for the Claim Jumper restaurants, and you'll see these throughout their whole restaurants. You do things for other national chains? You can check any probably top 100 chains, and we've probably done something or currently do something with all of them. Like what? Give us names. Like a Red Lobster or even a McDonald's, Denny's. Really? Sonic Industries, you name it. The bigger they are, the more we like it, of course. Well, sure. We do from small to big. You're making food for restaurants literally all over the country, all over the world. How big of an industry is this? Well, it's a fairly big industry. We're just a part of it here in the States, but worldwide it is a viable industry. We do worldwide provide replica foods for all of America, and we also do international as well. How much competition is there? There's maybe 1.2 other companies that are out there, so really about— 1.2? Maybe about three of us. And you're all based here in Southern California? Amazingly, yeah, we are. And you were the first? We were the first. Oh, I just smell this. Now, the smell does not smell like chocolate. Oh, you don't like that smell? Well, it's kind of a— I'm used to it, I guess. Kind of a resin, plasticy smell to it. It goes along with the taste, and it's going to look good, but it won't taste good. It smells good. Oh, this is great. Oh, now here he is painting. Now we're getting down to the— He's actually putting little spots. Yeah, see, now these lobes have little grain embedments in them. These are like flax seeds. So he's putting those in by hand. Isn't that amazing that it goes down to that kind of a detail? Remember when we made the molds back there, every detail is captured. So all the little flecks are in the molds, and now what he's doing is just filling them in with a little bit of color. That's right. He's got to let them stand out. So we capture every little detail. Now, how did you get started doing something like this? I started—you have to paint on the—this comes like this. Well, he's kind of an artist at heart, so that's how he got started. He's been with us for 22 years. Really? He's home trained, so he learned this process from start to finish. Is it hard to do this? For me, no. Not now. Now it's very easy. He says he can do it with his eyes closed. What is your favorite food to do? What is your favorite cakes, pies, sandwiches? What do you like to do? Everything. You like it all? Everything, yeah. Now, yeah, it's very easy for me, everything, making everything, yeah. All this time, yeah. Well, you do a very good job. It looks like the real thing. Very good. Your name is? Ubaldo Barbosa. Nice to meet you. He is our lead craftsman and artist here. He's the man to come to. Everything ends with him here. Look over here. This is like being in a grocery store. Look at this. You even do fish. This is one of the more harder things that we do in our company because every scale has to be—you can't just spray the whole thing, and it has to be done in stages. So how long would it take to do a fish? To do one fish takes about 10 days from start to finish. About 10 days because you've got to make the molds, you've got to make the part, and you've got to color it in stages, let it dry, color it again. I bet it's the color. You've got to do the arrays. And also, when you make the mold, boy, that resin and the plastic really has to go right over everything to capture it. It has to capture the whole thing. So the sample we get has to be perfect as well. The gills have to stay down, the fins have to lay flat. Wow. More chocolate cakes. I think you all like making desserts. We must have a thing about chocolates. You've got a whole sandwich plate made up here. You also put a little something on it to make it look like the mayonnaise is still there, don't you? I mean, it's kind of shiny. It looks fresh. It's designed to give it a fresh look. Just a store-bought freshness is what we're looking for here. Now, how long would this display last in a glass case in the front of a store? It'll probably last longer than the folks care to own them. So it'll just go on and on for years, virtually unchanged. Five years, ten years? Possibly ten years or more. We've had things out there for more than 15 years and very little went on. Do you just dust them off or wash them or how do you keep them from getting dusty? Yeah, that's all they need to do is just dust it, wipe it off if they need to. If there's smudge marks, they can take a sponge and wipe it clean. This goes on and on. You can't get rid of this stuff. This is great. It just goes on and on. These folks now, these plain jumper restaurants, they've been using it for about three years now. They started in with just the dessert trays where they're carrying them. Now they've stocked their entire bakery display case and the dessert trays. Now we're hooking up with... Carmen. Hi, Carmen. Carmen, here's Hillhauser. Nice to meet you. What's cooking in the kitchen today, Carmen? Mustard. Look at this, Louie. Now this looks like mustard. But I have found out... Oh, you put it in these little mustard jars. But I have found out the way to tell the real stuff from the plastic stuff. Excuse me for just a minute. The way to do it is to smell it. Uh-oh. And it definitely does not smell like mustard. It smells like plastic. Well, that's an Iwasaki-style mustard. Wow. But it looks like mustard. You're doing a very good job. Now what's going to happen with that? So we're ready to pour? Let's pour it. What she's got there is a sample. She's going to mash the color into this and she's going to be pouring it right into these little cups here. Oh, okay. Can we pour it now? Carmen, can you pour some here? Okay. Wow, this is great. Who would ever think of fake mustard? But I guess everything in these exhibits has to be fake, doesn't it? It has to be fake, yeah. This is a part of a package that goes on a display, so it's got to last forever, just about. So she's filling it up. What are these little things? Little spots right here. Those are seasoning specks that are in the mustard. Now that shows how much detail you go through. That's what we're all about. We've got to get it precise. Oh, wait a minute. Is this a Bloody Mary? Can I open this up? Sure. Not that I want a Bloody Mary this time of morning, but let's open it up and take a look at it. You probably need one. Look at this. There's that Bloody Mary. That's great. Do you make these, too? Yeah. Do you make real Bloody Mary? Not in my house. Do you make real mustard? Yeah. Are you a good cook? I try. She does all her cooking here. This is a very interesting job. How long have you been doing this? 14 years. Really? Yeah. And is it hard to learn this job? If you like, so it's easy. Are there some that are easier to do than others? Are there some that are very difficult to do? Yeah, someone like the champagne, that's too hard to make. Why is it hard to make? Come on over here. Let's look at this champagne. We're going from Bloody Marys to champagne. Oh, look, it's got the bubbles in it. Yeah. Now, Ron, how do you get the bubbles in this? Well, Carmen could probably explain it to you very well. How do you get the bubbles? They mix 50-50 material, so we started to mix it. And then when they're hot, so we put in that glass, so they're going to melt it like this. So when she pours it in, it's a natural flow in the bubbles, just like carbonation, if you will. And you capture that in the resin, in the mold. That's right. And what she does is once it's poured like this, she'll dry it from the top to let it sit much faster. It doesn't go through that vacuum process you saw back there to take out the bubbles. This looks like real champagne. Here, let's have a toast. Oh, let's have a toast. That's a good idea. Now, Ron, of all the things we've seen today, this, to me, is the most fascinating, and we almost missed it. And you said, well, we've got to come over here and take a look. Explain what this is, because it looks like a piece of sourdough bread and a head of lettuce. It sure does. This is from our novelty line. This is called the Hide Your Dough, and that's a lettuce hide. And what it is, it's got a little container. Put a stop in here, and you can hide your valuables right in here. And then you put it away. Put that back in the fridge. Or on the shelf. On the shelf. And thieves will think that it's just a piece of sourdough bread, but really it's got all your jewelry and money and everything else. So long as they're not hungry, they won't find this. Well, I don't think we have any thieves watching our station, our program. But the thing is, even if they are, this means it's going to slow them down, because when they break in a house, they'll have to go through every single item on the shelves and in the refrigerator just to check and see if there's a Hide Your Dough piece of... That's right, and they won't know it either. They'll pass this head of lettuce up any time. So this really works. It works. This one here has been on the TV show called Miami Vice about 15 years ago. Showed in the fridge. Can you buy these things in stores? You can. I don't know where they are, but they're out there. We sell enough of them, but they are out there. This is amazing. A piece of sourdough bread. Hide Your Dough. A big carrot. Now, what in the world would anybody be using a carrot this big for? Well, places like Disneyland, stage playhouses will use these, like a Jack and the Beanstalk type. That's where we've made some of these oversized... So these are props as well for other things other than just restaurants. Oh yeah, movie industries, production companies use our products all the time. So could a private citizen come down here and say, I want a big carrot? They can. Do you just do wholesale stuff or do you do retail stuff as well? We don't do retail. You're not set up for retail. No, we don't do retail. We are suppliers. We just do strictly list. So they'll come to us for that. This is great. Film industries are big. Look at this. These shelves just go on and on and on. All of this, full of... Now this looks like... Could I open this? Sure. This looks like it would be something that McDonald's or Denny's or somebody would have. Yeah, this is like one of the little breakfast sandwiches. Yeah, these are all generics. These are all magnets. You can see the magnet on the other side. Refrigerator magnets. Just plop them up there. Ha! Look at that. It's another part of our line, what we call our gift line. We've got cheesecakes, pizzas, a little bit of everything. So you can put a pizza or anything right up on the refrigerator. Now those would be things you would buy in stores. So you all are really covering the market, aren't you? We go with the demand. We've kind of added these lines here within the last couple of years. The magnets. Magnets. They're the large ones. We've had these smaller ones that you see here, our miniatures. You see these are miniature items. There's a miniature hot dog. Look at these. That's just another part of our line. Key chains. Look at this, Louie. Corn key chains. Hello. Hi, this is Hiroko. Hi. Nice to meet you. He's packing this fellow over here. He's packing all this stuff. Howdy. That's Pablo. Nice to meet you. How long have you worked here? I've been working for like five years. Yeah, this is a. When you tell people you work here, do they understand what you're talking about, your friends? I have to tell them, you know, that everything we're doing here is like when you go to a big market and you see all this stuff that they got it, we have it here. But it's not real. It's not real. Now, wait a minute. Here's a guy. Here's the first guy we met. He's actually eating something. Is that real? Is that. What are you eating? That looks like it's real food. I want something real. Can I have one? He only eats everything everywhere he goes. So you got to. I just wanted to eat something that was real. Let's end up over here by the cake, Louie. Thank you very much, Ron. This has been fascinating. We started off with the cake. Here it is right here. And I'll bet you're still hungry. And I'm ending up with a little cookie right here. Oh, I hope that was real. But at least it's real. Good. You've had a great day. And I'll tell you what, the next time we walk in these restaurants, these chains, these individual stores, the chains, wherever they are, Denny's, McDonald's, Claim Jumper, all these other places, and we look at all this food in the display case, now we know where it came from and how it was made. A very interesting part of the folklore of Southern California, the business of Southern California, because you send these things all over the world. All over the world, starting right here from Torrance. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's been a great day. And with the exception of this one bite of the cookie, I haven't put a single calorie in my body. We're glad to hear that. Good day in Torrance. You're making food for restaurants literally all over the country, all over the world. How big of an industry is this? It's a fairly big industry. We're just a part of it here in the States. But worldwide, it is a viable industry. We do worldwide provide replica foods for all of America, and we also do internationally as well. How much competition is there? There is maybe 1.2 other companies that are out there. 1.2? Maybe about three of us. And you're all based here in Southern California? Amazingly, yeah, we are. And you were the first. We are the first. Visiting with Hewell Hauser is made possible through a generous grant from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.