Movies/Films with Food-Related Themes

[phaelon56]

Also loved the coffee maker that was used... sort of a cloth bag contraption. Anyone know what that was?

I'm familiar with this little device from Puerto Rican culture but it's a traditional way of making coffee in many Hispanic and Caribbean cultures and yields a great brew.

It's called a Chorreador de Café in Costa Rica and here are instructions for How to brew a Great Cup of Costa Rican Coffee

[viva]

Thanks Owen! I feel a bit like Gollum... "me wants it."

[sladeums]

Pieces of April

This was an enjoyable little movie.

Synopsis paraphrased from IMDB:

"...April Burns invites her family to her first attempt at cooking a Thanksgiving dinner at her teeny apartment on New York's Lower East Side. As her family makes their way to the city from suburban Pennsylvania, April must endure a comedy of errors - like finding out her oven doesn't work - in order to pull off the big event..."

[bloviatrix]

The musical Gigi was on Turner Classic Movies the other day. There is a great scene where Gaston opens the lid of a pot and smells inside, saying that it smells good. "Just a pork cassoulet..." Mamita Alvarez explains, "It was impossible to get any goose this week." She adds wistfully. Gaston promises to send up a brace from the country.

Later, while Gigi and Gaston are playing cards, Gigi asks what he is having for dinner that night. (This is all preceeding the Night They Invented Champagne song). Gaston answer the question, "Oh, the usual.... filet of sole with muscles, for a change. And filet of lamb with truffles. But it can't compare with your Grandmother's cassoulet!"

All-in-all, one of my favorite scenes, but the entire movie is studded with foodie bits (Uncle Honore offering him some cheese, the entire Champagne song, teaching Gigi to eat ortolons, etc.)

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Hey, I watched that too!

[chromedome]

All-in-all, one of my favorite scenes, but the entire movie is studded with foodie bits (Uncle Honore offering him some cheese, the entire Champagne song, teaching Gigi to eat ortolons, etc.)

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The ortolans are my favourite part. The look on her face as the little bones crunch between her teeth is just priceless, largely I'm sure because that's how my face would look.

I'm somewhat surprised that no-one's mentioned Fried Green Tomatoes yet. Besides the eponymous house special at the Whistlestop Cafe, we also have the honey-gathering and that, uh..."special" batch of ribs...

[wkl]

I really enjoyed Mostly Martha.

Classic line near the end when Martha's (the chef) therapist (?) makes her a cake from a recipie she gave him.She takes one bite and asks if he used a certain type of flour.He replies that she can't possibly tell what type of flour he used, and she says "True.But I can tell what type of flour you DIDN"T use!"

[phaelon56]

They wouldn't have used butter today. They'd have used Flora

Confession - I've never seen it.  They did screen it a college but I was so fr**in bored that I walked out after 1/2 hour.

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You are joking right? Along with Apocalypse Now, Last Tango has to be one of the most brilliant movies of all time. That said.... the character development is slow and the really interesting stuff doesn't come in until about 70 - 90 minutes into the film. But it's still brilliant. And the score by Gabor Szabo still haunts me every time I hear it.

Food: After watching the "Can he eat 50 hard boiled eggs in one hour?" scene in Cool Hand Luke many times, I have never once had the desire to eat anything afterwards, especially eggs. I also lacked any interest in having dinner with Andre after viewing My Dinner With Andre.

[Fresser]

"Diner" was a favorite of mine--especially the scene where one character eats every dish served on the left side of the menu.

I won't even mention Popcorn Suprise...

[LoveToEatATL]

I love Like Water For Chocolate

Adore Big Night

Nobody mentioned The Big Chill there are a ton of cooking and eating scenes in it.

[petite tête de chou]

Napoleon Dynamite. Good lord, Im going nuts with this flick!

Steak, milk, egg salad sandwiches, a funky '50's casserole, ham, tater tots...

Please, someone say that they have seen this film and allow me to expell this obsession!

-wimper- Im afflicted...

Edited January 15, 2005 by petite tête de chou (log)

[hazardnc]

Napoleon Dynamite. Good lord, Im going nuts with this flick!

Steak, milk, egg salad sandwiches, a funky '50's casserole, ham, tater tots...

Please, someone say that they have seen this film and allow me to expell this obsession!

-wimper- Im afflicted...

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Are you kidding - my kids walk around wearing their "vote for Pedro" t-shirts and asking for "ques-a-dill-as." Yes - others loved this film, too.

Favorite foodie films: Like Water for Chocolate, Chocolate, The Big Night. Also loved Notting Hill (remember the chef-friend who's restaurant failed and the dinner party?)

How about the food scenes from Nine 1/2 Weeks with Kim Bassinger and Mickey Rourke?

[halloweencat]

 Whilst we're talking James M Cain, how about the "recipe" for iguana in "Serenade". You have to put them in a pot of boiling water alive so they purge their bowls . The bones make great soup according to Cain.

i'm confused... is some real person actually advocating putting a live iguana in boiling water? or was this just a character in a movie?

cheers --

hc

[JasonZ]

The DVD of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman includes an interview with the director, who is a "stay at home" dad and loves to cook for his family. He was intimately and technically involved in setting up the cooking scenes from his own experience. There were 8 kitchens used to make the scene in which the hero is called back to his hotel for a food "emergency" -- review the scene and see if you can see the merges (I can't). Anyway, my favorite food film, by a country mile.

JasonZ

[SBonner]

Mostly Martha from Germany is a great food flick.

Cheers,

Stephen

Vancouver, Canada

[Andrew Morrison]

anyone remember the linguine incident with david bowie?

also, that breakfast spot in david lynch's twin peaks that agent cooper frequented (you know, with the coffee).

andrew

[petite tête de chou]

anyone remember the linguine incident with david bowie?

also, that breakfast spot in david lynch's twin peaks that agent cooper frequented (you know, with the coffee).

andrew

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Dont recall the Bowie incident. Enlighten me?

Twin Peaks. I might be familiar with it.

[BonfireCuisine]

Big Night, Dinner Rush, Tortilla Soup, Eat this New York - the list goes on but what about "Once upon a time in Mexico?", ok not a true food movie but I've made the dish thats in it a few times and its pretty good.

Jason

[BonfireCuisine]

oh almost forgot - Sideways, not a total food movie but more about wine. But still one I'm planning on getting. - J

[IML]

I think a distinction should be made between films truly about food -- Tampopo being damned near the best, in my opinion -- and films that feature food as a backdrop, like most of those listed (my favorite being Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, which is Lee's best film to date).

[Culinista]

Does anyone know the title of a Korean language film about two women who live next door to each other? My memory is fuzzy, but I recall a good deal of cooking, and one I think ends up killing and eating the other. The title on the English VHS version was two sequential 3-digit room numbers, separated by a slash (371/372, or something like that).

I once offered to cook a "Big Night" timpano dinner for a charity auction. 8 guests paid over $200 each to come, but it turns out that none of them had heard of "Big Night" or understood what the dinner would involve. They must have been very confused by the "Meet Louis Prima" invitations. Fortunately, I planned to screen the movie while serving the antipasti, so by dinnertime, they got it.

[petite tête de chou]

Does anyone know the title of a Korean language film about two women who live next door to each other? My memory is fuzzy, but I recall a good deal of cooking, and one I think ends up killing and eating the other. The title on the English VHS version was two sequential 3-digit room numbers, separated by a slash (371/372, or something like that).

I once offered to cook a "Big Night" timpano dinner for a charity auction. 8 guests paid over $200 each to come, but it turns out that none of them had heard of "Big Night" or understood what the dinner would involve. They must have been very confused by the "Meet Louis Prima" invitations.  Fortunately, I planned to screen the movie while serving the antipasti, so by dinnertime, they got it.

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I remember it. click

[BonfireCuisine]

Culinista - how did the dinner go? Love that movie - did you have the sound track too? How did you end it? Do tell - do tell... - J

[etamny]

This is a little after the fact, but I was curious -

I finally saw Vatel, and now have a better understanding of how whatever French film co. made it went bankrupt. Okay, not the point.

My question is: Nowhere have I found commentary or questioning about how it changes what few known facts there are known about him. That is, Vatel goes from the martyr who offs himself in the name of perfectionism, who takes himself too seriously, to a man chafing under the slavery of his court position, who kills himself rather than be promoted (to Versailles) into more slavery. (I thought it was interesting also that they didn't play up the cheffy/foodie side to it all in their marketing, even if Vatel was more properly a maitre d' of the court or whatever his title was.)

A very different tack, seems to me. Maybe there are few enough facts to make him whatever people want him to to be, but still--an interesting choice, then, and kind of out of line with how you might guess this guy would be portrayed. Even in France. Even in pre-post-Loiseau France. Whatever.

Anyhow, just wondered if anybody had thought about it.

Cheers!

Liz

[afn33282]

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.

Has anybody mentioned this one yet?

[Grub]

Anyone mentioned Bend It Like Beckham yet?

It's not really about food, but food does figure into it. A quick synopsis: An Indian girl living with her family in England is a talented soccer player, and against her parents' wishes -- and behind their backs -- she starts playing on a formal team. She is found out, and her mother admonishes her by demanding she stop "this silliness" and start dressing like a good, traditional Indian girl and learn to cook a full Indian meal -- vegetarian and meat.

The girl replies, "Anyone can cook Aloo Gobi, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?"

Now, on the DVD, the special features includes an awesome segment where the director cooks Aloo Gobi (and admitting that she's always dreamt of having a cooking show), with her mother and aunt in the background, instructing her, correcting her, and generally interfering... It's funny, charming, and just plain enjoyable.

Makes for a damn good dinner-and-movie night...

Edited June 10, 2005 by Grub (log)