CHEF YASMINA AND THE POTATO PANIC

When potato products engineered for maximum addictiveness wreak havoc on her city, it is up to aspiring chef Yasmina and her friends to find a cure.

Eleven-year-old Yasmina creates delectable vegetarian meals for herself and her widowed father, Omran, who works at a frites shop in Brussels. The family is tight on money, so Yasmina relies on foraging, free produce from her friends’ community farm plots, and the occasional theft from the rooftop garden of her reclusive upstairs neighbor. But after a corporate potato company buys up the farms to grow their starchy produce, the city’s appetite for potato products becomes aggressively insatiable, with consumers displaying odd, animal-like behavior. Separated from her food supply, Yasmina increases her rooftop visits. When she discovers a connection between her neighbor and the genetically modified foods, it is up to Yasmina and her crew to save the day. Mannaert’s graphic novel is a silly romp of a corporate takedown heist, with charmingly drawn characters and well-paced action sequences. Sequential vignettes with free-form borders instead of panels add whimsy to the story’s flow. A bit oddly, given the story’s themes, food insecurity is not directly addressed. Mannaert’s cityscape is multiethnic, and contextual clues suggest that Yasmina and Omran are Muslim, but there are no identity markers to indicate ethnic heritage.

A wacky, stand-alone foodie adventure.