Food in Film

We are what we eat.

Since I was ten years old, I’ve wanted to work in the film industry. I hate saying this because of how pretentious it sounds, but all my life I’ve felt like a storyteller and film is the ultimate form of storytelling. In my opinion, it’s the perfect combination of audio and visual creation. I am currently a rising senior at a film school on the west coast, and there’s few things I love more than a good movie. If it wasn’t already clear by the fact that I created this blog, another one of my major interests is food. I love eating food, I love learning about new foods, and naturally, I love watching films and TV shows that have an emphasis on food.

Over the past decade or so, there’s been a clear boom in content that discusses the food we see on our screens. Excellent YouTubers like “Binging with Babish,” “Feast of Fiction,” and “Rosanna Pansino” have devoted their entire channels to recreating meals from fictional media. Major digital networks like “SortedFood” and “Buzzfeed,” have done series on fictional meals in real life. Giant media houses like “IndieWire,” “Vice,” “Time-out,” and “The Independent,” among others, have made listicles on the best food scenes in film and TV. A culinary cinema panel is now commonplace at film festivals worldwide For years, The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has done a series of events under their “Food On Film” banner, that “brings together chefs, food experts and film lovers to enjoy the best in culinary cinema and conversation.” The San Diego International Film Festival invites local chefs to serve their cooking at a panel about food films. Berlinale’s Culinary Cinema section is their most popular event, year after year, and with the ever-growing number of “food films” being made, this excitement doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

When I first had the idea to start Food&Culture, I began thinking about the impact food had had in my day to day life. Naturally, I began to think about the intersection between food and film and I realized something about “Culinary Cinema” that I think applies to a larger conversation about food.

There has been a lot of great things that have been said about “food films” and why they’re so popular. Most obviously, food in film just looks great. Audiences love the pleasant experience of beautiful food being created and I think this serves a large reason for the popularity of the genre. On a more analytical note, New York based film critic and the genius behind @meals.on.reels on Instagram, Kristen Yoonsoo Kim, writes “In films, meals have become iconic symbols of camaraderie, societal status, tension, budding romance, and many a sexual innuendo.” Like Kim says, food is a great narrative symbol. It can represent something in a film that adds to the way the story is told and therefore is often included in movies. Brilliant video essay channel “Storytellers,” made an excellent video about “Food in Film,” that spoke about “the role of the chef as the mediator of raw nature to high culture” and how it was an apt allegory for the “process and frustrations of the Hollywood filmmaker,” breaking down the comparisons between the two artists and their “shackled” creativity. The video also makes an excellent point about how the act of cooking food is used as a device to represent humanity and civilization. Using primatologist Richard Wrangham’s 2009 book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human” as basis, the video essay details how showing someone cooking/eating can both humanize and dehumanize certain characters. In the book, Wrangham makes the bold claim that the act of cooking is what separates humans from their primate ancestors and that cooking food was a big step in our evolution as a species. Using this belief, the essay does a great job in exploring their thesis and offers another great reason for the existence of the “culinary cinema” genre as a whole. All of these are valid and nuanced explorations of “culinary cinema,” that truly show the brilliance of the genre and the beauty that lies in the intersection of food and film.

Ratatouille (2007)

Yet, while I couldn't agree more with everything mentioned in the paragraph above, there is another important point that I believe is spoken about less due to its simplicity. The food we see in our films are props. Like costumes, or set dressing, the food we see in our movies are carefully chosen by the creators to tell us something about each character and their culture. In arguably my favourite “food film” ever, “Ratatouille,” the titular dish serves as an allegory for the movies main message, “anybody can cook!” As Ego says, this doesn’t mean that just anyone can cook, but that a good chef can come from anywhere. What exemplifies this more than a “peasant dish” being served at a upscale french restaurant? Or in the “Parks & Recreation” episode “Soulmates,” when Ron Swanson beats Chris Traeger in the burger cook-off, it’s more than just a funny joke that mocks overzealous foodies. The simplicity of Ron’s burger reflects who he is as a person. It’s a classic, simple meal with no bells and whistles. It does not need a “taleggio cheese crisp” or “papaya chutney.” It’s a no-fuss, reliable option that perfectly reflects the the no-nonsense libertarian we all love. It can be as simple as Peter being able to see the “imagination pie” again, in the film “Hook,” as him rediscovering his childhood or as layered as the “Ram-Don” with Korean Hanu steak, from “Parasite,” being a perfect reflection of the film’s main class divide. These foods reflect the culture and themes of the characters and they allow the audience to understand a different depth of the stories they love. YouTube channel “Fandor,” has an amazing video say that explores the question, “What Does Food Say About A Character?” with many more great examples.

The reason I’m highlighting this, is because just like in the movies, the food we eat on a day to day basis reflects our lives and cultures. I’ll be honest with you, I never really understood the phrase “you are what you eat.” Obviously, we are what we eat because our bodies are made-up of the energy we get from food in a very literal sense and the punchline “that’s funny because I don’t remember eating an absolute legend this morning” is at least chuckle worthy once, but I don’t think I ever really got it until now. The food we eat and enjoy literally reflects who we are. Every dish that makes me nostalgic, every meal cooked and every recipe executed in my house, tells me something about my cultural history. I grew up with two religions and every meal my parents made for me was a version of a dish they had eaten before them, sometimes even an amalgamation of two. My palate, my comfort food, even my least favourite food, tells you something about my personality, history and cultural makeup. We are truly, what we eat.

Burger Cook-Off, Parks and Recreation (2009 - 2015)

That’s exactly what I want to explore with this blog. I want to take a look at what is on my plate and understand how it reflects who I am. Why does my family cook and serve the Sindhi dish “Sai Bhaji,” the way we do? How does my father's love for cooking inspire the movies I want to make? How has my love for the classic American burger increased my interest in learning to cook? These are just some of the topics I want to explore and figure out through my journey with this blog. I’m excited to to use this as a chance to not only learn more about the world of food but also figure out how it has shaped me into the person I am today. At the end of the day, few things tell you more about us than our Food&Culture.

Visuals by Anshika Bajpai (@funshiksart)