Foodie Film Featured Moments

A couple weeks ago, Kinsey and I saw Julie & Julia, which focuses much of its time on the life of esteemed chef Julia Child. It made me realize something: I love food. And I love watching food in the movies and on TV. And, very recently, I've also developed a newfound enjoyment of cooking food. So that got me thinking about my favorite food moments in the movies:

Babette's Feast (1987)

I had to watch this movie three times (that's right, three) during my first semester of architecture graduate school. We were doing a project involving slow food and deconstructing a walnut... anyways, at the time I wasn't really able to appreciate the film. I still hadn't really become aware of the glories of foreign cinema. But what I do remember is the namesake feast. Its the type of extravagance that I know I've never seen. I don't know if I ever will have a meal that includes turtle soup, buckwheat cakes with caviar, quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce, and rum infused yeast cake with dried figs, but at least I can watch people eating one.

Big Night (1996)

The Big Night is a delightful little romp starring Stanley Tucci and a post-Wings, pre-Monk Tony Shaloub. These two star as brothers who run an authentic, struggling Italian restaurant in New Jersey. There is one dish that is served in the final third of the film that just looks crazy good: the Timpano (see picture above). A crazy combination of pasta, meat, pastry, and eggs that makes me drool. Now, I'm pretty far away from having any Italian blood in me (I'm German and Czech), but there's something about Italian food that draws me in. Maybe I'm watching too much Lydia's Italy on PBS, but I can envision Kinsey whipping up a Timpano some Sunday afternoon, cutting that first delicious slice, me going back for seconds and thirds, then realizing I ate the whole thing, and spending the rest of the evening lying on the floor moaning in agony/ecstasy while Kinsey stands above me, shaking her head. Yeah, I could totally go for that.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

This one isn't nearly as delectable but still a clever scene. I'm talking about the scene in Temple of Doom where Harrison Ford and Kate Capshaw are served monkey brains, beetles, eyeball soup, and pregnant python. This scene is so over the top that it goes beyond insensitivity. I've never eaten anything that looked as gross as this meal, but the character reactions remind me of a bear stew that Kinsey and I whipped up once. We took one jar of preserved bear meat and assorted vegetables, let it cook all day, and were greeted with the worst smelling, worst tasting meal we had yet made together. Thank goodness for Papa Murphy's pizza.

Spanglish (2004)

I don't think this film got much acclaim when it came out, but Kinsey and I both really enjoyed it. It's nice to see Adam Sandler in a serious role, this time playing a chef. We enjoyed the movie so much that we bought the DVD (it was also really cheap). One of the special features is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a special sandwich featured in the film. Its really just a BLT with cheese and an egg on top, but it is so good. Kinsey and I have made it a couple of times, and I think the DVD gives it an appropriate title as the "world's best sandwich."

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

This is a movie that Kinsey appreciates a lot more than me. I don't know why, I just don't get into it that much. It does have a memorable food fight scene with flour and blackberries that reminds me of Kinsey's cooking style a bit. The optimal comparable word would be messy. I could go on and on about the messes Kinsey has made in the kitchen, but the piece de resistance is the infamous hoison sauce incident. This involved a pan of hoison sauce, a wooden spoon, and the propellor-like motion of that spoon as it sprayed wall, ceiling, and floor with the sticky Asian sauce. Like Fried Green Tomatoes, quite the mess indeed.

Ratatouille (2007)

This is probably my favorite film about cooking. I can't even pick out one moment to mention because the whole movie is just so delicious (I've been using that word a lot in this post). Actually, if I had to, I would mention an early scene in the film, where Remy (the rat) is cooking a mushroom along with a few paw-picked spices over a chimney. If I had seen this movie in my youth, there's no way I could've appreciated this scene. I was a very picky eater. I especially had an aversion to mushrooms. I didn't have dietary problems or was allergic, I was just picky. And stubborn. But know, when I see that fresh mushroom post-lightning strike, well, I just wish it was real and on my plate, not animated and on a screen.