Cuisine as a Bridge Between Cultures by Kennedy Thompson Sharing and preparing meals are activities thought to bind people together. Kitchen staffs form families, generations connect through inherited recipes, and friends reunite over scones at beloved bakeries. Unity, however, is not food’s only function in The Hundred-Foot Journey. In this film, food is a double-edged sword, first dividing and then uniting characters across cultural lines. The 2014 film portrays an Indian family that forges a path in France’s restaurant landscape. The Kadam family restaurant, Maison Mumbai, rattles the foundation upon which an esteemed restaurant, Le Saule Pleureur, stands. The physical restaurants and the differences in their dishes mark the Kadam family’s “otherness” in France until a scene in which Hassan Kadam’s unparalleled culinary talents bridge the cultures. The restaurants’ positions, an element of mise-en-scéne, perfectly align across a street, creating both proximity and division. Such a configuration evokes a battlefield formation with each restaurant in line, mere feet away, to defeat the other. This notion is in keeping with the film’s frequent war references as the restaurants battle to be the top restaurant. Recurring extreme long shots accentuate the street as a physical division and emphasize the contrasting cultures they embody. The pristine exterior of Le Saule Pleureur contrasts with that of Maison Mumbai. Fluid tracking of activity in Le Saule Pleureur’s kitchen, an elegant machine, differs from the relaxed and high-speed activity across the road. With its palace theme, cobblestone walls, whimsical gold detail, and loud music, Maison Mumbai has a great deal of flavor. Similar disparities exist in the restaurants’ approaches to food. Le Saule Pleureur’s food is simple and minimal. Madame Mallory, the owner, finds value in “certainty of flavor,” and close-ups of white plates show tiny and neat portions. Food served by Maison Mumbai, like most Indian food, brims with curry and other potent spices. Customers enjoy colorful dishes, garnished and overflowing. Papa Kadam and Madame Mallory often quibble over which approach to cooking is correct. Aside from the romance and shared recipes between Hassan and Le Saule Pleureur’s sous chef, Marguerite, culinary techniques of the two cultures do not merge until the scene in which Hassan makes an omelet for Madame Mallory. The scene begins when Hassan approaches Madame Mallory as she scrubs the hateful words, “France for the French,” off Maison Mumbai’s wall in the rain. Her scrubbing is the first olive branch extended to the Kadans, which is reciprocated when Papa offers his umbrella. Hassan asks Madame Mallory if he may cook an omelet for her, a challenge that all Madame Mallory’s employees face. Serene music plays in the scene, which is shot in slow motion with no dialogue, as Hassan instructs Madame Mallory. (He cannot perform the task alone because his hands burned when Madame Mallory’s employee attempted to destroy Maison Mumbai.) The injury requires the scene to proceed as a sort of dance. Hassan places his hands on Madame Mallory’s shoulders to guide her after an extreme close-up of her apparently improper egg whisking. Each movement is delicate, and a warm, natural light comes from a window, adding to the tenderness of the scene. The beauty of the dance and melody are not even interrupted by diegetic sounds of cooking. Indian and French cultures physically consolidate when Madame Mallory sprinkles traditional Indian spices, the only remains of the fire that destroyed the Kadan’s original restaurant, into the omelet, a French dish. Although Madame Mallory frequently looks to Hassan with confusion and irritation, she obliges his instructions. Diegetic cooking sounds return as the omelet pours into the pan. The surreal blending of culture through cooking is complete, and the French and Indian components melt together with a sizzle. Madame Mallory’s satisfaction with the omelet confirms her acceptance of Hassan as a chef and strengthens the transculturation achieved by food in this film. The omelet scene occurs halfway through the film, leaving the rest of the plot to reinforce harmony. Hassan even works for Madame Mallory with his father’s blessing, and it is with Hassan’s incorporation of Indian techniques that Le Saule Pleureur gains a second Michelin star. A final scene shows a joyous celebration with characters and foods from both restaurants at a shared table. While each culture maintains its essence, the final scene marks a bridging of cultures over the breaking of bread. Work Cited The Hundred-Foot Journey. Dir. Lasse Hallstrom. Perf. Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte le Bon. Touchstone, 2014. DVD

Reap What You Sow by Na'dayah Pugh Based on the novel of the same name, Gary Ross’s 2012 blockbuster The Hunger Games follows sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen after she volunteers to take her younger sister’s place in the titular Games. After being whisked away from her impoverished hometown, District 12, Katniss navigates the new worlds of the wealthy Capitol and, later, the violent arena of the Games. During preparation for the Games, Katniss—along with the other tributes—is presented with substantial feasts. These meals continue until the tributes are thrown into the arena, where they must forage, hunt, and kill, all while being watched by an audience that wants nothing more than to be entertained. This invokes a sense of cannibalism: after being fattened up like animals, tributes are then “consumed” for entertainment, thus becoming the meal for a privileged and elite audience. The opening of the film establishes the fact that the government deprives the people in the outer districts of bare essentials, including food. Citizens appear thin and malnourished, and hunting game oneself is a criminal offense. Katniss’s parting words include a desperate plea to her friend, Gale, begging him not to let her family starve while she is away. Though Katniss is starved while she is in District 12, that quickly changes after she becomes a tribute. Once in the Capitol, she is presented with feast after feast, and platters upon platters of food are offered to her with ease specifically in preparation for her entry into the Hunger Games, to better prepare her to entertain the millions watching the event. She is also groomed: her eyebrows are tweezed and her legs are waxed, similar to how garnishes are added to fancy dishes in order to visually enhance the meal. At the beginning of the Games, tributes are placed on pedestals surrounding the Cornucopia, comparable to dishes surrounding the centerpiece at a Thanksgiving feast. In this way, Katniss and the rest of the tributes are served as a meal for the Capitol. They are given food and fattened up before the Games, then “consumed” as entertainment while they battle each other to the death. Despite the extreme violence of the Games, they are casually televised, playing quietly in the background of some scenes and being eagerly watched by smiling audiences in others. The Capitol is the host of a cannibalistic dinner party, but they feast for neither need nor celebration. They “eat” the tributes for pure amusement. The Hunger Games,Dir. Gary Ross. Lionsgate. 2012.

Food and Political Strategy During the 1930s by Christian Ortiz Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) tells the story of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s love affair with his distant cousin Margaret “Daisy” Suckley amidst the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited FDR at his home in Hyde Park, New York. On the brink of war with Germany, the King and Queen of the United Kingdom came to the United States to seek support from FDR, making for an unforgettable weekend with the Roosevelt family. There is an evident cultural and social disconnect between the Roosevelt family and King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth II, however an unsuspecting meal, a hot dog, bridges the gap between the two parties, ultimately giving the United Kingdom our support in the war. When the Royal Couple are first shown in the United States, they are clearly uncomfortable. They stop on the side of the road on the way to President Roosevelt’s home for George VI to smoke a cigarette, ensuring they wouldn’t arrive at the home too early. Further, he tries, with little success, to “talk to an American” who was riding a tractor in a field nearby. Even from the first scene, the audience can tell that the couple feels out of place in the United States. This apparent discomfort builds the foundation for the entire plot and is crucial to the resolution of the film. The culture shock continues when they get to FDR’s home which is decorated with comics that seem to make fun of the British. When Elizabeth is shown her room, she stares around the room with apparent discontent, examining the wall paper and beds and commenting on the shared bathroom. The Royal couple lock themselves in their room, make drinks, and discuss their discomfort and goals for the trip. However, FDR recognizes the disconnect and invites George VI to his office for drinks. FDR has an ongoing debate with his wife about whether he should drink with guests in the house. She doesn’t think it is appropriate to do so with The Royal Couple, but FDR insists that he wants to have a drink with George VI. While his wife doesn’t agree with him, FDR very strategically uses alcohol to establish common ground between them. George VI, although he still seems nervous, graciously accepts a drink and they begin to bond over the drinks. FDR understands how drinks can unite people and uses this to make his guests more comfortable. George VI and FDR drink for most of the night, opening up to each other as it gets later. FDR’s plan proves to work and the King expresses some of his worries about being in the United States and in his home. Namely, he thinks that serving hot dogs at the picnic was especially peculiar. FDR responds that it was “one of his wife’s silly ideas” as they drunkenly discuss the topic. However, FDR ensures him that it is an American tradition and that he will love it. Despite his uneasiness, FDR again is using something as simple as alcohol and food to help bridge the gap between him. Unlike FDR, George VI is not outgoing and social, and FDR, recognizing this, goes out of his way to bring him out of his shell. At the picnic, The Royal Couple seem tense. When they are served the hot dogs, they each eye them, but eventually happily dig in. The entire crowd applauds, and FDR smiles. Was it really his wife’s silly idea to serve hot dogs? While the film doesn’t explicitly answer this question, I believe that FDR uses both alcohol and hot dogs to expose the couple to American culture and ease their discomfort. Further, after the picnic, FDR sits down with George IV, and FDR agrees to support the United Kingdom in the war. While food does not play a large or immediately apparent role in the film, with careful analysis, the viewer can see how food is crucial to the film. Without FDR’s strategic use of alcohol and traditional American food, he would not have been able to connect with the King in the manner that he did. FDR shows he is a normal guy who enjoys drinking and grilling out, and this helps George IV relax with and relate to FDR. It also exposes the couple to American culture in a way they had never seen it before and brings them out of the safety of their wealthy lifestyle. According to this film, a hotdog and alcohol, arguably, were crucial to our support of Great Britain in the war and established a strong relationship between our respective governments.

Connecting One to Home Through Food in I am Love by Suejette Black Food carries with it memories. In the film I am Love (2009) food serves to preserve ties to one’s identity and heritage and ultimately be a source of reconnection to one’s true self. The Russian protagonist, Emma Recchi, married into an influential Italian family and has become so absorbed in the Milan lifestyle that little of her Russian heritage remains identifiable. In the film she even claims “when I moved to Milan, I stopped being Russian” and that she doesn’t even know her real name anymore. One of the only semblances of her Russian home is a dish, Ukha, which is made several times throughout the film and leads to the climax. It is a Russian soup of fish in a clear broth that was made for her by her grandmother and that then became her son’s favorite dish as he grew up. As she makes the soup with her lover and son’s close friend, Antonio, a whole different side of Emma is seen. She reveals to Antonio her story of how she came to Italy, and a little bit of her background is finally revealed. The cinematographic effects of the scene, seem to transport Emma back to her Russian past and connect her to her home in a way that the viewers have not seen up to this point. As she begins her story the camera does a point of view shot from the window of the house she is in with Antonio and pans out over the Italian rural mountains. The only sounds are her voice, the diagetic sounds of insects, birds, and trees rustling, and soft non-diagetic orchestra music in the background. The sun shines bright in the middle of the shot and causes a sort of magical glare. The natural setting being shown seems to be similar to a memory of home, away from the bustling city life of Milan. As the scene comes back to her cooking Ukha in the kitchen, her outfit alone gives the sense of a change happening within her. It is as if she has removed the fancy Milano façade she has been wearing for decades and a more authentic side of her is coming out. She is dressed in loose pants and a tank top, with a sort of head scarf keeping her hair back. The camera then pans over the set table and into the garden where she and Antonio are picking plants. A brief shot is shown of Antonio cutting her hair into a short bob and then the camera returns to shots of nature. There are close-up or flowers, and leaves, and bees buzzing, all while the orchestra music continues to play. Over these few minutes of shots, Emma appears to experience a reawakening and complete transformation back to someone she used to be. The alternating shots of nature and the rural surroundings, give the sense of her being absorbed back into her natural self. Ultimately when the Ukha is cooked again by Antonio, their affair comes to light and leads to the tragic death of her son and Emma running away with Antonio. Despite the tragedy, the Ukha seems to save Emma from the life she has been trapped in and brings back the Russian side of her she had almost forgotten. The ability of food to reconnect one to memories and home is exemplified in I am Love. Works Cited: I Am Love. Dir. Luca Guadagnino. Perf. Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti. Mikado Film, 2009. ITunes. First Sun. Web.

The First Taste: Revealing Desire and Identity in I Am Love by Lan Vy Phan I Am Love, whose original Italian title is Lo Sono L'amore, revolves around the wealthy Recchi family, who reside in a lavish villa located in Milan, Italy. Their meals are elaborate affairs, meticulously equipped with fine china, luxurious seating, and rigid adherence to social conventions. These meals only run smoothly thanks to Emma, who marries into this dazzling aristocratic lifestyle. Emma, who left Russia to live with her husband, Tancredi Recchi, adopts the role of a hostess, successfully integrating herself in the Recchi family as a detail-oriented and genial wife—at least on the exterior. The opening scene involves her reviewing the dishes in the kitchen and planning out the seating arrangements for her father-in-law, Eduardo Sr.’s birthday. Everything is presented step by step like an orchestrated performance, and Emma is satisfied to witness nothing go wrong. Although she shows no signs of discontent, it is obvious that Emma is not completely fulfilled with her life in Italy. Emma’s current life is like a beautifully plated dish, but one devoid of personal flavor or choice because she is subjected to familial hierarchy and Italian culinary traditions. Although it is Emma who is in charge of organizing the entire dinner, the individual who wields the most power is Eduardo Sr., who sits at the head of the table as the main patriarch. Emma takes a place on Eduardo's left, while her husband takes the opposite end of the table. She is seated at a place where she can observe everyone else, ensuring that they are enjoying the food and each other. Once she fulfills her duty, she retreats back to her room, a routine that occurs during every special occasion. Her complacency is challenged by her son, Eduardo Jr. who professes his love for his mother’s homemade ukha, a traditional Russian soup, clear in color and including fish. This dish is served at the birthday dinner, and when it is presented, the son and mother share a knowing glance with one another and smile sweetly. Their dynamic and the role of food unveils Emma's hidden desires, establishing her identity as an individual separate from the Recchi family. During the dinner, the members of the Recchi family express disappointment upon hearing the news that Eduardo places second in a horse racing competition on his grandfather’s birthday. Conversely, Eduardo Jr. is not upset but rather eager to introduce the new friend he has made from the loss, Antonio, who is an incredibly talented chef. When Emma meets Antonio, she is pleasantly surprised by the innate artistry he possesses. While the Recchi family meals represent control and restraint, Antonio's cooking embodies passion and sensuality as seen in his plates ordained with delicate flora. In a later scene, Emma has the chance to try one of his dishes, an elevated prawn dish, and is amazed. While the two other Recchi women are engrossed in a conversation, Emma is hyper-focused on trying the food. Along with the two lamps, Emma, in her bright red dress, is the only thing that illuminates the scene. This draws attention away from the conversation to Emma's first encounter with Antonio's food, which strays from the traditional Italian dishes she is accustomed to. Her moment is only interrupted by Antonio approaching her. Although she is initially infatuated by his skill, Emma eventually falls in love with Antonio and they partake in a passionate love affair. Eduardo Jr. begins to grow suspicious when he pays a visit to Antonio, but misses his presence only to find a lock of hair that resembles his mother’s. He finally catches on when another dinner occurs in the family villa, and ukha is presented again-- only now, the dish is made by Antonio. This scene nearly mirrors the previous, except now instead of a smile, Eduardo Jr. is seething with rage. He storms out of the room realizing the development of Antonio and Emma’s relationship. Tragically, his anger leads to a fatal accident, forcing Emma to confront the devastating consequences of her actions. Struck simultaneously with grief and the realization that she can no longer be entangled with the Recchi family, Emma frantically returns to the villa to pack her belongings and disappears without a trace. In I Am Love, food becomes a metaphor for desire, transformation, and personal liberation. Emma and Antonio’s shared veneration for the culinary arts leads not only to their entanglement, but also the unraveling of the picture-perfect Recchi family. Lo Sono L'amore (I Am Love). Dir. Luca Guadagnino Perf. Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, and Edoardo Gabbriellini. Mikado Film, 2009. Streaming.

Communion and A Search for Friends by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez In the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man, a man named Peter Klaven goes on a search to find a best man for his wedding. The film talks about how Peter was always a girlfriend guy and never really had any good guy friends. When he hears his fiancée talking to her girlfriend about how she does not know who Peter will have as his best man, Peter sets out on a journey to find a male best friend. He goes on many different outings with men in the process of finding his best friend, but one thing is common through all of his match-ups: food. On Peter’s first few outings, he and his potential friends eat foods that would not be defined as comfort foods. Food was used in these instances to show that the outing was not going well. On his unsuccessful “man dates” Peter ate foods that were cold, formal, and strong. Some of the things he ate included beer, wine and bread, and a melon filled with cottage cheese. All of these foods are not something that make you comfortable and the director used them as a way of showing that none of those dates would work out. In one scene in particular, it is obvious from the food that Peter is in a weird situation. His mom had set him up with a man who was new to town and they got wine and bread at a restaurant (18:57:00). This food immediately conveys a message that this date was much more romantic than it is platonic. Wine and bread are foods that do not make you feel very comfortable, in fact they would make one feel very formal and even romantic. In fact, after the date was over, the man Peter ate with kissed him. Yet, when Peter finally meets Sydney, the person that would become his best man, they bond over a dish that was much more casual and comforting, fish tacos. From the moment that the camera pans over Peter and Sydney eating the fish tacos, the audience can tell that this date is going to work out for Peter. The camera zooms in on them putting cilantro and salsa on their tacos and eating with their hands in a very casual way (33:33:00). The friends were so comfortable with each other that at one point Sydney even asks about Peter’s fiancée: “How is the sex?” (31:55:00). Throughout the film, we see that sharing a meal together can bring people together. Every time that Sydney and Peter hang out they eat a meal together and this helps them develop an even closer bond. Yet, it is important to note that the meals that they share are usually not sit-down, formal dinners. Often, it is just a casual meal like fish tacos or crepes. What people eat when they try to relate to each other is extremely important because it can almost define the relationship. When the director wanted to show that Peter’s date would not work out, he would have the potential friends eat an obscure food or a harsh beverage. Yet, when Peter meets Sydney, they only ever eat comfort foods that you can eat with your hands. These kinds of foods define their relationship and show that they are becoming increasingly comfortable with each other. Work Cited I Love You, Man. Dir. John Hamburg. Perf. Paul Rudd, Jason Segel. Dreamworks, 2009.

Fast Food, Globalization, and the Decline of Human Intellect by Jordi Gaton Private Joe Bauers is a very dedicated army library veteran, who has made it his mission to contribute as little as possible to the army and to be the most nondescript person in existence. Average according to every metric and test, Joe suddenly finds himself awake in 2505 after a 500-year cryogenic experiment gone wrong. As he slowly gains consciousness, he finds himself in a dystopian world rife with filth and bright bold advertisements abounding on every building and street corner. For the 500 years in cryogenic sleep, “the intelligent became an endangered species” and natural selection failed, allowing for humans to become lazier and revert to their more primal selves. Now individuals, like Frito Pendejo, and the rest of humanity waste away on their couches consuming buckets of processed Carl’s Junior fast food and suck down Brawndo (Gatorade) from their la-z-boys watching the hit new show “Ow! My Balls,” as humanity rapidly declines around them. In this world, Joe, the most average man of 2005, is the smartest man in the world and may be the world’s only hope to solve the crop failure problems and mass starvation of 2505. Joe’s quest to combat stupidity and to return humanity’s ability to produce and prepare food by non-processed means also satirizes contemporary society’s growing dependence on globalized food markets and processed, fast food. Fast food is simple, quick, and mind-numbingly delicious. Most importantly it takes out any thought or stress that may be associated with the preparation of food. One person grows the soy, another slaughters the cattle, and you the consumer simply fulfill the simple act of mastication to absorb the minimal nutrients that this food posses. In Idiocracy, Mike Judge feeds on this negative association between fast food and lack of effort to fuel this cautionary fiction of humanity’s inevitable devolution at the hands of both globalizing forces. This devolution is contrasted with the growth of both fast food and global chains, as represented in the devolution of “Fuddruckers” in Figure 1 and Figure 2. After the cutting-edge human cryogenics project falls to the wayside, it is quickly replaced by an American fast food chain Fuddruckers. The devolution of this restaurant’s name seen with side-by-side shots helps to establish both the timeline of the story and represent the decline in intelligence of the human population. The lack of maturity and base enjoyment that the human populace gets from this restaurant’s vulgar name acts as satire to demonstrate the destructive effect that globalization will have on an unwitting American populace. The director Mike Jones further cements this connection between fast food and a lack of intelligence by portraying many people from 2505 consuming fast food pried from grease-filled buckets reminiscent of KFC’s chicken bucket and sipping either beer or Brawndo (this reality’s Gatorade substance, Figure 3). In observing these links, it becomes clear that the director wishes to criticize modern society’s current obsession with the production and consumption of fast food as lacking the intelligence and culture that non-processed food contains. The hope for a better future therefore lies with the reclamation of local food production and cooking methods lost to the rise of globalization. In order to accomplish this, however, Joe Bauers and the next smartest man in the world, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, must use their brainpower to figure out how to grow crops. After rising to the challenge, Joe Bauers makes the groundbreaking statement to the president’s staff that they need to use water instead of Brawndo ( Figure 3 ) to water the plants. Met with incredulity, the staff replies “Water, like in the toilet?,” “But Brawndo has electrolytes; it’s what the plants crave.” After many hours of debate, Joe uses his superior intellect to delude the group into believing that he can talk to plants, so that they will start to water all of the crops. In this outrageous exchange, Mike Jones satirizes how globalization fuels a growing lack of appreciation for both the origins of food and of vital resources like water. With Coke and other soft drink consumption rising within both American and global markets in 2005, the director challenges the viewer to consider whether or not foods and drink prepared in such a processed and mechanical manner force individuals to lose interest or respect for the origins of food. Perhaps the solution to this societal issue lies in the average person watching this film, who like Joe, must learn to understand that they play a vital role in policing global society as a consumer. Idiocracy, therefore, challenge the viewer to wake up and be skeptical towards the parts of society that both scientifically and objectively harm the public health of the world. The burden to advance society does not solely lie on the shoulders of the future Einsteins, but rather it relies on the collective determination of society to challenge and prevent the adoption of maladaptive behaviors. Work Cited Judge, Mike. Idiocracy. Twentieth Century Fox, 2003.

Food as Concealment and Intimacy, not Love by Alyssa Davis Set in Hong Kong in 1962, In the Mood for Love (2000) is very much a period piece, revealing the trends of the day in regard to fashion and music, as well as portraying the crowded way of life many city residents adapted to during that time. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the city, two people – Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan – come together in light of their spouses’ affair with the other. From the moment of their discovery, the film transforms into a bizarre story of role-playing and rehearsing how Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan’s spouses’ affair came to fruition. In the process, however, the two protagonists fall in love themselves. The director, Wong Kar-Wai refers to this film as a composite of three love stories – the least obvious one being a love story about food. His original story about neighbors who frequent a nearby noodle shop, “was supposed to be a quick lunch and then it became a big feast.” (Kar-Wai, indiwire.com) Though the love story between the two protagonists takes precedence, it is food that illuminates the sense of repression the two protagonists embody as they avoid confronting their true feelings for the other. Moreover, the way food is captured cinematographically conveys the way their self-contained manner is mirrored in the atmosphere of Hong Kong in the early 1960s. As Kar-Wai subverts the notion of the romance genre, the food in the film subverts food’s usual role as a means for expression and openness. In Hong Kong during the 1960s, the sharing of a meal among apartment neighbors was common in Hong Kong at that time, and is alluded to in the film. Yet the primary use of food in the film is carefully concealed in shiny containers, or used as a way to build upon the façade of these characters’ affected relationship. In order to avoid further gossip of their budding relationship, they must share their meals in private, away from the eyes of nosy neighbors. In this way, food is at once at the core of their intimacy, as well as the primary form of deceit they participate in. It obfuscates identity, while trying to find truth in a conflicted situation. The way the shots are put together, using repetitive sequences of movement and score, jarring camera movement such as flash pans, and tight framing, creates the atmosphere of oppression Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan must endure in order to maintain good-standing reputations. Each detail, “of decor, props, and costumes are contrasted with veiled psychology, innuendoes, and oblique references to explore subtle changes in the main characters’ relationship.” (Li Cheuk-to) From the high-necked collars of Mrs. Chan’s silk dresses to the leitmotif of mirrors as closing in space, these details enhance this oppressive feeling and color the actions of the characters. Even color is more subdued throughout the film, with the exception of the close-up shots of food from the second dinner scene. Golden yellows, deep blues, and glowing greens combine to hint at both the intimacy and the tension between the two protagonists. In the second dinner scene, the lighting is almost clinical in nature, thus rendering the food unappealing to the viewer; the meat looks plastic and the sauces are grossly luminescent. For these characters however, the food is unappealing because it represents the transgressions committed by their spouses – the sharing of a meal as an aspect of their adultery. To convey the power and multifaceted nature of food, Wai uses food as a vehicle to heal their sadness. The sesame syrup that Mrs. Chan cooks up after learning of Mr. Chow’s ill health epitomizes the more literal sense of “healing.” More importantly, the sequences depictive of the sharing of noodles, or sticky rice, are instances of respite that strengthen their resolve in confronting their spouses’ wrongdoings. The food parallels the gradual progress they make in becoming closer, and opening themselves up to the other. Just as the food is concealed from view for the first half of the film, and then is taken out of its container to be consumed, their true feelings do not reveal themselves to one another until they are overwhelmed by their passion for the other. The tension built throughout the film releases in the cloud of steam that emanates from the noodle container Mrs. Chan carries in multiple scenes. The second dinner scene in particular, encompasses the myriad of roles food assumes within the film. At the heart of the film though, and the core of their dining experience, is the desire to reach satisfaction. The lonely spouses are looking to the other, and their shared meals, as a way to fulfill that lost part of them their respective spouses trampled on. Kar-Wai is masterful in showing his audience the “combustion of yearning and isolation, the need for closeness within the life sentence of solitude,” (Corliss) present within his characters. It is no coincidence then, that the characters’ not only adopt the food preferences of the others’ spouse by assuming their eating mannerisms or their favored condiment, for example, but also relish the meal as a suitable substitute for their own solitary meals of noodles in shiny containers. Thus, it is the paradoxes of food that form the base of their relationship and shape the arc of the film. Whether food is at once revealing a larger truth or covering it up; or, simultaneously acting as a form of self-care and self-isolation, it is food that centers the film and their passion. While these paradoxes augment the tension between the two characters, ultimately it is the mutuality of the shared meal, which mirrors their heartache that brings them closer. Regardless if it’s facade or reality, at least they have each other. Works Cited Kaufman, Anthony. “Decade: Wong Kar-wai on “In the Mood for Love.”” Indiewire.com 6 Dec 2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2012 Cheuk-to, Li. “In the Mood for Love.” Criterion.com Web. 09 Feb. 2012 Corliss, Richard. “Make Mood, Not Love.” Time.com. 16 Oct. 2000. Web. 10 Feb. 2012

Wait for the Cream: Food as a Vehicle for Power and Intimidation by Oliver Eisenbeis Quentin Tarantino has developed a very distinct signature style over his past 30+ films. He’s known for his morally ambiguous plots, his realistic and vulgar dialogue, and most recognizably, his gratuitous use of violence. Tarantino has also perfected the use of food as a tool of power. Every one of Tarantino’s films contains at least one memorable food or beverage: for Pulp Fiction, it’s the hamburger; for Jackie Brown, it’s the screwdriver; and for Inglorious Basterds, it’s the infamous strudel and milk. In each film, the specific food defines the characters. What characters eat and how they eat it tells us about appetite, morals, and principles. The appearance of food suggests crucial moments and allows characters to make rules or impose rules on others. For Quentin Tarantino, food is ultimately another way for characters to assert dominance. Food as a vehicle for authority is a theme that is played out through the entire length of Inglorious Bastards, starting in Chapter 1. It’s 1941 and Colonel Hans Landa (Cristoph Waltz) of the SS is inspecting a farmhouse in Nazi-occupied France. Before questioning the patriarch of the family, Landa asks for a glass of milk and finishes it in one gulp. By having this moment played out over one long take, the unsettling sounds of Landa’s gulps pierce through the silence and demand the attention of the viewer. Immediately, we can tell that Landa is incredibly self-confident, but also somewhat sadistic. He is the only one sitting in the room, yet he now holds all of the power in the scene. The importance of milk is again enforced when Col. Landa asks for another glass. At this point, we know the French farmer is hiding a Jewish family underneath his floorboards. As the farmer pours Landa more milk, Landa fawns over his own nickname, “the Jew Hunter.” However, instead of showing the Nazi colonel finish the glass of milk again, Tarantino shows us the eyes of Shoshanna, one of the Jewish girls hiding under the house. The suspense conveyed through this cut is immense. We know that Landa knows there is a family hiding under the floor, but the question is when, if at all, will he act on it? The answer is revealed shortly thereafter, but the girl, just witnessing the slaughter of her family, escapes. Milk’s symbolic power resurfaces again at a French restaurant. Shoshanna has since moved to Paris and changed her name to Emmanuelle Mimieux. She now runs a cinema, one that Nazi leadership wants to use for the premiere of a new propaganda film. She gets trapped into sitting at a table with Col. Landa, who interviews her as the acting security officer for the film premiere. What follows is one of the most loaded food scenes in Tarantino’s entire body of work. Landa orders two strudels for himself and Emmanuelle, as well as a glass of milk for the mademoiselle. Emmanuelle’s eyebrows immediately rise. We know she recognizes Landa as the man who murdered her family, but does Landa recognize Shoshanna as the girl that got away? By having him ordering for her, Tarantino gives Landa all of the power in the scene. Emmanuelle responds to his questions only when asked, but avoids eye contact and appears as if she’s glued to her chair. Landa further taunts her by making her wait for the cream to arrive before they can eat the strudel. He makes the rules and has the authority to impose them on others. Centered on the strudel, this scene is intensified by the waiting—for the whipped cream, for her answers, and for Landa ultimately to figure out Emmanuelle’s real identity. They are the only characters in the shots and the pacing matches the dialogue: slow, calculated, and rich with tension. As Landa finishes up his dessert, he puts out the cigarette in the cream on top of his strudel, one final display of power before exiting the scene. It is the ultimate intimidation scene full of dramatic irony and suspense, yet produced in such a way that the dominance is a result of the strudel. Ultimately, Tarantino notes that he finds restaurant scenes ritualistic, one of those rituals being the establishing/balancing of power over food (Tarantino). He wants audiences to leave his films hungry, wanting to eat the foods that they just saw—regardless of the opinions the audience has just projected on said food. For example, even though I watched a Nazi colonel do unforgivable things to innocent people throughout the movie and I recognize that the strudel is a piece used by said character for sadistic power, I still really do want strudel. Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to take a mundane, childlike combination of foods such as strudel and milk and twist them to have atrocious associations while still making them appear visually delectable. Works Cited Inglorious Basterds. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz. Universal Pictures, The Weinstein Company, A Band Apart, 2009. DVD. Yellow King Film Boy. “Quentin Tarantino Talks About Food And Their Power In Movies.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, Oct 17, 2017. Mar 8, 2018.

Hunter-Gatherers in Space by Michael Palumbo At the surface, Interstellar (2014) is an epic film that tells the story of a family torn apart by the space-time warping effects of a supermassive black hole. However, Interstellar is unique in that it offers a subtle commentary on the consequences of famine resulting from an overspecialized population. By juxtaposing cliché thematic digressions on the triumph of the human spirit with repeated failures to suitably cultivate the Earth, Interstellar posits that food (and not physics) is the future of humanity. The opening credits of Interstellar evoke imagery of Dust Bowl America. An old woman speaks to the camera: “Oh, I was a farmer, like everyone else back then. Of course, it didn’t start that way.” The camera pans over a field as the same woman continues: “The wheat died. The blight came and we had to burn it. We still had corn, we had acres of corn. But, uh, mostly we had dust.” The woman describes the dust storms as we see the protagonist Cooper (“Coop”) and his family wipe the dust off the kitchen table of their dilapidated farmhouse. The imagery of fields and the soft, rustic lighting give the illusion of 1930s America, until Coop opens a futuristic laptop, shattering the rural atmosphere the cinematography had established. A few minutes later, in a meeting with his son’s high school teacher, Coop is angered to hear that she will not recommend that he attend college to become an engineer. Instead, she recommends he learns to farm. “We didn’t run out of television screens and planes,” the principal adds, “we ran out of food. The world needs farmers.” In the opening five minutes of the film, we are given a picture of an emaciated humanity, racing to produce enough food in spite of the deadly blight that is making crop after crop inviable. As the film progresses, Coop stumbles upon the remains of NASA, which has since learned that the blight is unstoppable. Humanities only hope is to leave Earth. Coop, having served as a pilot before his retirement as a farmer, is chosen to pilot the Endurance, an interstellar ship designed to travel through a fortuitously placed wormhole to another galaxy. Leaving behind his family, Coop pilots the Endurance with a suite of other astronauts, exploring a planetary system with a black hole at its center. Due to the merciless effects of Einstein’s General Relativity, Coop’s children surpass him in age. Eventually falling into the black hole, Coop is able to relay the gravitational data to his now-adult daughter, who decodes the force of gravity, allowing a generational ship to leave the Earth. Rescued from deep space, Coop is brought aboard Cooper Station, the generational ship named for him, to greet his daughter dying from old age. Displaced in time, Cooper travels to his old home, which has been preserved as a museum on the ship. The narrators from the beginning of the film speak again, revealing themselves as interviewees from a documentary on the last days of humanity’s life on Earth. In the final scene, we see Brand, Coop’s fellow astronaut, breathing without her helmet alone on the world Cooper Station has set out for. Yet, despite the Endurance’s supposed victory, this new world is quietly barren and un-Earthlike. The closing scenes of Interstellar together construct a double-edged sword. Humanity has solved the force of gravity completely, allowing it to escape the dying Earth for the stars. Yet, as evidenced by the museum made of Coop’s home, it has left behind agriculture. The cultivation of the Earth, the failing of which initially spelled doom for humanity, was left behind yet again in the technological race to leave the Earth. While humanity has found a potential new home, it is unclear how they will be able to cultivate it. In leaving agriculture on Earth, humanity has not taken the next step in its evolution, as the film would initially suggest, but has rather regressed to be nomadic hunter-gatherers, hopping to a new world as the previous one is left behind, depleted. Interstellar. Dir. Christopher Nolan, Perf. Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. Paramount Pictures, 2014.

Food as a Representation of Freedom by Hannah Williams In It’s Complicated (2009), Jane Adler is a divorced mother who independently starts her own bakery/food shop. This film explores the joys and troubles of a woman freed from the constraints of marriage. Jane explores affairs, including one with her own remarried ex-husband, and reclaims the narrative of the divorced mother. Jane’s social and professional lives are decorated with decadent pastries and delicious meals. Food is a quiet but also powerful character on the set of It’s Complicated. Mealtimes, afternoon drinks, and late-night pastry runs provide ample opportunity for making and breaking relationships in the life of Jane Adler. Jane, much like food, unifies and sustains her community. Additionally, food is also the thing that gives Jane autonomy and a sense of wholeness outside of her traditional roles. Women and their historical tie to nurturing and therefore feeding are brought into a modern light in It’s Complicated. Jane owning her own food-related business sends a message to the audience that just as food is a binder, so is the caring provider of the family. Jane, still a nurturer to her children, takes her role as “bread maker” and alters it, making herself into a “breadwinner.” This film can be seen as a commentary on the views we have of divorced women and women more generally. Jane is not a supporting character but is rather the main character of this film and her lack of a husband actually enhances her lifestyle, instead of bringing her to shame, shaping the nature of joy and excitement in her life. The financial autonomy Jane is able to have because of her business creates a sense of independence and completeness in her character. Jane’s food business gives her economic independence and in this sense, the film shows how an area that was once considered a “woman’s sphere” can be used to her advantage as a way to gain independence. Jane’s food becomes her art and her avenue to an independent life outside of being a mother and wife. The chocolate croissant scene, appropriately called “Fun is not Overrated,” serves as a representative scene in the film. Jane takes Adam to her shop and tells him he can order whatever he’d like. Jane not only teaches Adam how to make the croissant, but she joyfully jokes throughout the entire process, making the whole experience beautiful and meaningful. In this scene, the patience and love Jane shows through the extensive work she does to make a single croissant for Adam expresses an idea of indulgence. Jane is someone who indulges in joy and doesn’t treat business as a chore but rather treats it as a pleasure. It may seem nonsensical to spend so much time and energy to make a single croissant for one person, but Jane’s joyful approach to a professional occupation undoes the American stereotype of not mixing “business with pleasure.” Jane is seldom a “rule follower” in this movie and this characteristic is shown in a positive light, suggesting that the submissive and doting mother and wife is not necessarily the happiest. In this film, laughter, fights, and discussion pour out over meals and alcohol. Jane’s family and friends are seen eating at several points of unity and also of conflict. Comfort and social togetherness is represented by food and food can be seen as synonymous to communal time. Jane bonds with her children and even ex-husband, Jake, during meal times. Mealtime is when “real” life happens, moments when life slows down and real thoughts are expressed. Having Jane’s profession be centered around food is a representation for her entire life being open and her individuality being liberated. Food creates community and bonding even when situations get awkward and words don’t seem appropriate, such as the uncomfortable conversations between a divorced pair. Jane represents a new age of divorcees, one who is unashamed and happy. Food represents vitality and youth, as well as sustainability in personal progress. Jane is independent, sexually liberated, and happy- three things the film presents as ideal for a woman. Jane’s wisdom points the audience to see that while life and love are complicated, the pleasures of food don’t have to be. Meyers, Nancy, director. It’s Complicated. Universal Pictures, 2009.

Only Ten Seats but Three Michelin Stars: Individual Purpose in Jiro Dreams of Sushi by Martha Isaacs “You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That is the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honorably.” -Jiro Ono Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a film directed by David Gelb about a restaurant in Japan that serves the Michelin-rated best sushi in the world, details the meticulous processes behind the sushi’s exquisite flavor. Reminiscent of the Japanese food film Tampopo, Jiro Dreams of Sushi also describes aspirations for cooking finesse, but highlights the real-life journey of a Japanese man instead of exploring food themes within various fictional scenes. This biopic focuses on the 85-year-old founder and head chef of the restaurant, Jiro, who spends most of his adult life selecting fish at the market, perfecting his cutting techniques, and searching for the best sources of fresh rice. While Jiro’s sushi receives international acclaim, the film contends that Jiro’s inspiration does not stem from a desire for fame. Instead, Jiro finds purpose and contentment within his own lifelong quest for improvement. With obsessive control, Jiro’s Zen-esque pursuit of immaculate presentation and taste in his sushi conflates with his own self-presentation, prioritizing his role as a sushi master as the most important aspect of his identity. Several specific moments throughout the film highlight Jiro’s actions to control his sushi’s aesthetics and flavor. Every aspect of Jiro’s restaurant follows a formulaic rhythm, monitored by his constant observation. Such regulation seems to mirror Zen Buddhist philosophy, marked by utter concentration and awareness. One day before the restaurant’s daily opening, as Jiro straightens out the napkins set for his customers, he explains: “It’s essential to check every detail. What the staff might not notice, I notice because I have been doing it for so long.” This concern for detail emerges in camera shots of Jiro’s agile hands delicately cradling each rice portion and carefully painting his signature sauce on every sushi piece. Even the restaurant’s spotless interior, containing only ten seats lined up next to the preparation area so that Jiro can place each individual sushi piece on each customer’s square plate, shines with the same crispness of Jiro’s smooth chef’s uniform. The film’s close-ups of Jiro’s perfected sushi varieties highlight the extensive effort applied to different sushi recipes, all presented as singular masterpieces for customers to consume one at a time. The small number of seats allows Jiro to devote his attention to preparing only a few meals, preferring conscious quality to careless quantity. Akin to a Zen priest concerned with discipline in all contexts, Jiro practices similar control outside of his restaurant as well, riding the train to work at the same exact place and time every day and insisting that even his children address him with a formal title. Jiro’s unfailing diligence in every element of his restaurant demonstrates how he equates his sushi-making capabilities with his own self-worth. His dedication to his art stems from a deeply rooted desire to push the boundaries of sushi norms, a desire that blends his very selfhood with his goals for excellence. The film illustrates the history of Jiro’s relationship with sushi, narrating that Jiro returned to civilian life after fighting for the Japanese army in World War II and worked to achieve culinary mastery through years of training. After being abandoned by his father as a child, Jiro longed to validate his existence through success in some capacity after he came home from battle. His chosen fixation, sushi preparation, dominated his life, for he did not spend much time at home while his children were young, instead choosing to log long hours in the kitchen. He describes his career as “doi[ing] the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit. There is always a yearning to achieve more.” Jiro’s son explains that even two heart attacks could not halt this yearning, for Jiro refuses to retire and let his son take over as head chef because he “fell in love with [his] work….” Jiro admits that his work indeed produces his sense of fulfillment, maintaining that while at his restaurant, he feels “ecstatic all day…all I want to do is make better sushi.” According to Gelb’s reverent depiction, Jiro’s mission strictly revolves around reaching increasingly higher standards for the simple sake of reaching perfection instead of attempting to please customers or earn profits. In one instance, when a customer comes in to the restaurant and asks about appetizers, Jiro and his son do not cater to the customer’s needs, instead straightforwardly answering that they prepare sushi and sushi alone. This scene emphasizes Jiro’s motivation to prepare carefully crafted meals rather than to become popular. Again displaying Zen Buddhist principles, Jiro strives for pure simplicity instead of approval. This mindset emerges in other chefs that choose to value their personal ethics more than the uninformed perspectives of their customers, such as the head chef Primo in the film Big Night. Although Jiro Dreams of Sushi shows the technical reasons behind the success of the most famous sushi restaurant of all time, such as the special nori (seaweed) heating process and octopus softening procedures, Jiro’s own personal connection to his sushi’s integrity defines his genius. This success story reveals how food can transform from basic nourishment into elaborate artistry, and demonstrates the levels of devotion required to achieve great progress. Gelb’s idolizing biography paints Jiro as a Zen-inspired hero, armed with meticulous practices learned from a lifetime of an insatiable longing for exactness. Jiro’s manic passion embodies the Zen Rinzai tradition of kensho, or the discovery of one’s true calling, for his health, his relationships, and his own thoughts all fall secondary to his sushi. He acts with an almost heavenly need to materialize this sushi before any other secondary purpose. Gelb’s capturing of Jiro’s unwavering single-mindedness exposes the secret behind his success: the ability to master the Zen concept of pairing his body’s actions with his mind’s ambitions. As Jiro combines his physical movements to handcraft each sushi piece with his own sense of self, he allows the entirety of his being to work towards perfection. Works Cited “Peony Zen.” ZenWeb. N.p., n.d. Web. Shou Si Zhi Shen. Jiro Dreams of Sushi. By David Gelb, Erland Xiaoye, Zhenyi Xiaoye, Yelong Xiao, and Yihong Shanben. Zhi Xuan, 2012. “What Is Rinzai Zen.” Ningen Zen Japan-Rinzai Zen. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Mastering the Art of Relationships by Mai Dvorak The joy of cooking: is it merely the experience we undertake in the physical world or the mystical timeless journey of storytelling? Using grandma’s old cookie recipe or a great-aunt’s cookbook can link us to generations past, enrobing us in memories past and present. Recipes and cookbooks allow food and dishes to traverse realms to be remade and enjoyed by future chefs. While each individual feast is fixed in time, it can escape the bounds of time through cooking, a paradox that is explored in Julie & Julia. Nora Ephron, the director, guides the audience through parallel stories of the culinary legend Julia Child and New York blogger Julie Powell, intertwining the stories in a road of self-discovery. Julie Powell, in an attempt to take direction in her life, decides to cook through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days. Throughout this journey, food guides Julie through a relationship with Julia in which she is seen having conversations with a nonexistent Julia. The meals she creates also serves as a paradox: food itself is a slave to time, yet it transcends time through its recreation. The recipes and dishes unite Julie and Julia together in a relationship, despite the fifty-year time gap. As Julie concocts her blog idea, she begins to describe Julia as being “a great, big, good fairy” to a childhood memory, seeding the kinship that appears throughout the film. While cooking beef bourguignon or chicken in a cream mushroom sauce, Julie is seen talking to her “fairy,” mumbling for confidence from Julia. By cooking the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook, Julie strengthens her kinship to Julia, albeit a one-sided kinship. Through the food Julie makes, a connection is formed that goes beyond the realm of time. Food lives within the present; it is confined to the rules of time yet the relationship it creates is timeless. While eating her first egg, Julie remarks that she fantasizes that Julia comes for dinner and talk about lemon zesters, but Julie is also aware of the fact that she is in this journey alone. Through the stories behind Julia’s recipes, her food creates a mystical connection that brings the two chefs together in Julie’s mind. As Julie treks through the cookbook, Julie responds to the recipes as if engaging in a conversation. The audience can’t help but smile as Julie struggles through lobster thermidor, talking to Julia’s cookbook as if they are old pals. Julie remarks how easy Julia makes killing a live lobster sound and time and time again it is seen how each recipe becomes an embodiment of Julia. Each recipe contains the heart, sweat, and soul of Julia, which is appreciated and received by Julie. Julie humanizes the stories behind the recipes that bring the food to life. Platters are messengers, allowing food to speak without binds of time. Julia’s food opens a conversation to those who create it again, as felt by Julie who mentions that “as I cook it, I almost feel as if Julia and I are communicating over space and time on a deep spiritual, mystical level.” By having these conversations with Julia, Julie gains perspective on herself and realizes her own shortcomings. The beautiful paradox that food presents allows generations to merge and time to blur as we enjoy the food and one another. A specific meal can only be enjoyed once, but the stories and experiences embedded in each dish can transcend the past and bridge to the present. Julie & Julia. Dir. Nora Ephron. Perf. Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Chris Messina, Stanley Tucci. Columbia Pictures, 2009. DVD. On IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135503/

The Diner for Lonely Souls by Tatiana Farmer Kamome Diner is set in Helsinki, Finland and follows the story of a Japanese woman named Sachie who is struggling to attract customers to her diner. The story also focuses on the interesting friends she meets along the way. Sachie appears to be doing everything right with her diner in the beginning scenes. After the establishing shot, Sachie is seen wiping a glass cup while leaning against a counter. She is clothed in a colorful outfit. Her diner is illuminated by the light coming in through the windows; the walls are white with a blue trim, giving it a calming effect. A vase of white flowers stands next to her on the side. This image gives the impression that Sachie’s diner is a welcoming place, but the lack of customers present suggests otherwise. The problem with Sachie’s diner is not that it does not attract people, but that it seems to only attract certain types of people. Sachie’s first customer is a local boy name Tommi. At first he seems to be normal. He orders coffee and speaks in Japanese to Sachie. As the film progresses however, you almost always see him sitting alone at a table. He never brings a friend with him to the diner and when asked about his friends, he does not reply. Midori and Masako are Japanese as well, and there are similarities in their reasons for ending up in Finland. Midori wanted to go somewhere far away, so she took a chance and ended up there. Masako had to care for her ill parents until they died. While she was taking care of them, she saw Finland on the news and thought the people there were carefree, something she longed for at the time. Matti and Liisa both have problems with their families. Liisa’s husband left her one day and Matti has not seen his wife and child in a while. Although these people come from different backgrounds, even different countries, they all share common themes: loneliness, nostalgia, and a need for purpose. Loneliness was the motive driving them all to the diner because it was a comfortable and relaxing place. Nostalgia is shown throughout the film in different ways. One in which Midori takes a bite of the Japanese food that Sachie makes for her. She cries after taking one bite. The scene is dimly lit and we have a medium close up of Midori as she eats a bit of rice. Immediately afterwards she starts to cry. We can assume she experienced homesickness after tasting the food. Another instance of nostalgia is when Matti comes back to the diner to steal his old coffee machine. He longs for a time when things were better in his life and that machine represented it. A need for purpose is shown through both Masako and Midori because they ask to help out in the diner with Sachie. They are both far away from home, but cannot simply be labeled as tourists. They are wanderers looking for something to give their lives meaning. They are empty and wish to have some sort of fulfillment, and they find this with Sachie at the diner. Sachie heals her friends through food and conversation. There are many scenes with Sachie sitting down with people or a person with a cup of coffee and a smile. She welcomes them with open arms and allows them to vent their troubles to her. In a way she is almost like a mother to them. Sachie also provides them with food. Her favorite comfort food is onigiri, which she claims is “Japanese soul food”. She makes this dish for her friends in various scenes in the film. In two particular scenes, the purpose behind the onigiri is emphasized. In one scene, Masako orders onigiri after she returns from the forest. When she picks it up, the camera changes to a medium close up of Masako then changes view so that we can see that all of the people in the diner are staring at her. The chattering stops and it is dead silent. All that is heard next is the sound of a crunch as Masako takes a bite of the rice and seaweed, and as if a spell was broken, the chattering begins and everything goes back to normal. Another scene in which onigiri is used is when Sachie and her friends are sitting around a table eating it together. It was therapeutic in a way. Each person at the table had gone through some type of suffering and are in the process of healing. They are united and comforted by this fact. “A sad person is sad in any country”, Masako tells this to Sachie after they comfort Liisa. This is the harsh reality of Sachie and her friends who are all in some way trying to escape their problems. Sachie herself has a tragic past, but admits she found joy in seeing animals eat. This joy transfers into her adult life by attaining the same joy in seeing her customers eat her food. Sachie unknowingly attracts lonely souls to her diner because she has a healing effect on them. She comforts those who come to her with a warm cup of coffee and her signature meal: onigiri, the Japanese soul food. Work Cited Kamome Diner. Dir. Naoko Ogigami. Nippon Television Network Corporation, 2006. Film

Even A Warrior Eats: Food from Shame to Strength in Kung Fu Panda by Shirley Pu Kung-fu masters are agile, lithe, quick. At first, our hero appears that way. He takes down a whole restaurant of villains just after tranquilly eating a bowl of dumplings. When his dream is disturbed and Po awakes to reality, however, the audience is faced with a much more mundane figure. Instead of the revered warrior he fantasizes of being, he is a clumsy and fat panda who only aspires to meet his kung-fu idols, the Furious Five. The stacks of bowls clattering in his bedroom mise-en-scène speak to Po’s secondary passion, aside from kung-fu: he loves to eat. This love of food is treated as comedic initially, especially in relation to Po’s body, but it becomes a source of strength for Po once he embraces it. Kung Fu Panda questions the aesthetic ideal of the self-denying kung-fu warrior by allowing Po, with his large body and appetite, to realize himself as the true hero of the movie. Po, fittingly for such an avid eater, is the son of the noodle shop owner Mr. Ping. Mr. Ping’s brisk nature is conveyed through his quick chopping of green onions as he asks Po about his dream. Po lies and says he was dreaming of noodles, which leads to a close-up shot of a turnip as Mr. Ping cleaves it, the violent action adding tension to the scene and representing Po’s fear of Mr. Ping’s reaction if he realized the truth—his father would cut down his dream just as he does the turnip. The fake dream, however, excites his father. “My son finally having the noodle dream,” Mr. Ping enthuses, bringing over a noodle hat and apron for Po to wear. The reward for this maturation is the sharing of a secret, the ingredient to Mr. Ping’s secret ingredient soup. After the secret is divulged, Mr. Ping says, Po will “fulfill [his] destiny and take over the restaurant!” The distance this unwanted fate puts between Po and his secret dream is emphasized when a gong from the Jade Palace, where the Furious Five reside, sounds. The camera quickly travels over the village up to the distant mountain where the palace is to zoom in on the master Shifu, showing how far apart Po, a noodle cook’s son, and Shifu, a revered warrior, are, in both social and physical positions. Mr. Ping lets Po go to see the Furious Five and the selection of the Dragon Warrior in the Jade Palace on condition that Po brings a noodle cart with products to sell. This noodle cart is a physical manifestation of the baggage of Po’s supposed destiny. His struggle to drag the heavy cart and move up the stairs to reach the Jade Palace shows the burden he feels of responsibility to his father. When he resolves to leave the noodle cart at the bottom of the stairs, Po is casting aside his responsibility in order to pursue his dream. He does end up becoming the chosen Dragon Warrior, but he is inept and scorned by both the master Shifu and his new comrades, the Furious Five. They make pointed remarks about his weight and his appetite, joking about how “when he walks, the very ground shakes” and that he cannot see his toes. Po eventually internalizes this criticism, as when Crane, one of the Furious Five, tells him he “doesn’t belong here,” Po believes he means in the Jade Palace itself, when Crane actually means that Po is trespassing in his room. The contrast between the ideal of a warrior and Po comes to a head at a dinner Po prepares for his teammates. Although his martial arts skills are lacking, Po’s ability as a cook is displayed through his expert slicing of a turnip and quick ladling of soup into several bowls. The camera cuts to the various members trying his soup and voicing their compliments. As they praise his soup, the camera cuts to a medium shot of Po’s face lighting up. While he was unable to gain the respect of his teammates through his fighting prowess, they admire his cooking skills. This shared meal serves as a bonding scene for Po and his teammates and marks a shifting point in their relationship. Food is an equalizer for Po, allowing him to provide for his idols in a way he cannot with his fighting. However, one teammate refuses to participate in the meal. Tigress, the previous leader of the team, resents Po for becoming the Dragon Warrior, a position she had trained for her entire life, and believes him unworthy, calling him a “disgrace to kung fu.” She, instead of the noodles, eats plain tofu, stating that “the Dragon Warrior can survive for months on the dew from a single ginkgo leaf and the energy of the universe.” The refinement and discipline of her meal in contrast to Po’s is evident from the manner in which she eats—she silently picks up a small cube of the tofu with chopsticks, while Po slurps down his soup. Tigress also does not comment on the taste of the meal or show visible delight in it, treating it as mere sustenance, while Po eats with gusto. Po’s lack of warrior-like discipline is additionally emphasized when he uses a stray noodle on his lip to mimic Master Shifu, who appears and derides him for joking around when a threat is imminent. Po’s casual treatment and toying with food as a subject of pleasure, not just necessity, continues to distance him from the disciplined and self-restraining warrior. A shift in the treatment of Po’s appetite occurs when Shifu realizes Po is capable of great physical feats when motivated by food and begins to train him by using food as a positive incentive. A montage of training follows, with Shifu and Po sparring using various foodstuffs and bonding over meals they share after these sessions. This montage serves not only to show Po’s physical growth but the growth of Shifu’s emotional openness. Shifu, who was before emotionally repressed and a strict disciplinarian, begins to relax and shows his enjoyment in material enjoyments such as food. This creates a blurring of the divide between the warrior and the civilian that Shifu and Po previously represented, as one relaxes and the other becomes more disciplined. The training culminates with a battle over the last dumpling, which Po manages to claim but does not eat, saying he is “not hungry.” While this could be read as him casting off his shameful appetite, it also harkens back to his habit of eating when distressed. His refusal of the dumpling represents his newfound confidence in himself, but this confidence is ultimately based in the ideal of the warrior as self-denying, an ideal which must eventually be destroyed if Po is to embrace the perceived non-ideal parts of his body as well. Po later loses his confidence that he can defeat Tai Lung, the villain of the movie, after the Five return defeated from an encounter with him. Po, returning home to evacuate alongside the other civilians, is nervous. He has abandoned his father’s hope for him in order to pursue his own. His father, though, openly welcomes him home, yet continues to insist upon Po helping in the kitchen. Po has thus returned to the start of his journey, which appears to be a failure at first—after all, his primary goal was to escape the fate of being a noodle cook and chase after his dream of becoming a warrior. This return to his food-centered roots proves, however, to be a necessary part of Po’s journey. After Po apologizes to Mr. Ping for failing at his own selfish dream, his father finally chooses to divulge the secret ingredient of his soup, which turns out to be nothing at all. According to Mr. Ping, “to make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.” This message of self-acceptance finally allows Po to realize that his pursuit of the warrior ideal was counterproductive. Even though his talents are unconventional for a warrior, he can fight best by embracing them. The mystery of the secret ingredient as the key to unlocking Po’s full potential also serves as a final rebuttal of the idolized warrior ideal. Po gains his insight from his father, a civilian noodle cook. Warriors are not distant and unattainable figures, and a noodle cook can teach them as well as a kung-fu master can and merit the same amount of respect. The revelation Po has about his body and identity as a warrior gives him the resolve and belief in himself he needs to defeat Tai Lung. During his battle, he incorporates food and utensils into several of his strategies– he uses a noodle to wrap around Tai Lung’s tail and trip him, uses bamboo stalks as chopsticks to shuffle woks around, and imagines an object as a cookie to motivate himself to climb. In embracing food, Po is also embracing his body as capable and maximizing his strengths. From the wreckage of Tai Lung’s defeat, a heroic silhouette, clad in helmet and cape, emerges from the dust clouds. But it is revealed to be only Po, with a wok on his head and an apron draped over his shoulders. This subversion of expectation is not only comedic but speaks to his origins and values as well. Po is the son of a noodle shop owner and fights using what he loves and knows well, food. He manages to be the hero he dreamt of being at the beginning of the movie and becomes accepted despite his unconventionality.

Who Am I? Self-Discovery through Food in Kung Fu Panda 3 by Carson Jolly Food is at the core of every Kung Fu Panda movie, ranging from comedic relief to motivation for Po. The third installment stays on trend as Po, who is now the Dragon Warrior, is hungrier than ever. Shifu, his mentor, recognizes this and tells Po that he still has much more to learn, as the Dragon Warrior needs to be a leader prepared for every scenario. Shifu senses danger looming, and sends Po on a quest to answer the question “Who am I?” Po finds comfort in food, which leads him to his adopted father’s restaurant to look for answers to Shifu’s question. On his way, he learns that another Panda has beaten his dumpling eating record, which distracts him. Having never seen another Panda before, he investigates and learns that this Panda is his biological father. It's poetic to see that his dad loves food as much as Po does, and it is also what reunites them. After a quick fight reveals a new enemy closing in, Po heads to the newly discovered Panda village with both of his fathers, destined to learn the power of chi to fight off the impending doom. Shifu knows that to learn the power, Po must first discover who he is. On the journey, we can see that Po’s dads are at odds. They do not trust each other, which hinders Po’s growth. After Po’s adopted dad cooks a few meals for the trio, we can see the two dads become closer. Food serves as a bridge between the two men, which is important for Po’s development and self-discovery. When Po arrives at the Panda Village, he is greeted with a grand feast. Here, he can meet all his extended family members. Food continues to serve as a bridge for Po’s friends and family. Po and his adopted dad learn to eat like Pandas, messy and chaotic. This symbolizes a unison of cultures through food. Po informs everyone of the looming danger and they offer to help. Po has trouble training the villagers as they are always focused on food, a call back to when Po went through training in the first film. He realizes that he needs to train them like he was trained – by using food as a motivator. With this method, it doesn’t take much time for the village to become battle-ready. Continuing with the food theme, Po lays out a plan and uses code names like “Dumpling Squadron” to make sure the Pandas pay attention, which can be seen in the above image where many of the Pandas are zoned in on the dumplings. This is an important part of Po’s plan to defeat the enemy. Furthermore, he trains to Panda to use different foods as weapons in the same way that he does. Dumplings are now ammo, noodles are used as whips, and chopsticks and pots are used as swords. Due to the impending danger, this also serves as needed comedic relief. As a result of the training, Po and the villagers win the fight. Po is finally able to answer the question, “Who am I?” which allows him to master the power of chi. The movie ends with a grand feast for Po, which once again highlights the variety of purposes that food has in the movie. Per usual, Kung Fu Panda does a fantastic job of taking food out of its normal definition and giving it new meaning. In this case, Po was able to achieve a sense of needed self-discovery, was able to connect with both of his dads and was able to teach a village of peaceful Pandas how to defend their home just by using food. Kung Fu Panda 3. Melissa Cobb. Dir. Jennifer Nelson. Dir. Alessandro Carloni. Perf. Jack Black, Bryan Cranston. J.K Simmons. James Hong. Netflix, 2016. Streaming.

The Decadence of La Grande Bouffe by Becca Rohrer The 1973 French-Italian film, La Grande Bouffe, directed by Marco Ferreri depicts the decadence of sophistication, sex, and eating. The movie focuses on four French protagonists: Marcello, Michel, Philippe, and Ugo. They all go to Philippe’s unused villa with the goal of eating themselves to death. While at the villa they engage in various acts of debauchery including hiring prostitutes and overeating frivolous meals ranging from venison, wine, and even three different versions of pâté in the shape of Dome of St. Peter. Throughout the film, sexual relations and gluttonous eating are illustrative of decadence and the social, emotional, and mental downfall of these four protagonists. Food plays a significant role in this film. Even the title of the film translates into the large food or grub. Practically every scene involves some image of food ranging from the delivery of fine meats to the final scene where Andrea makes the diabetic Philippe a gelatinous dessert shaped like a pair of breasts that causes him to die. The character of Andrea adds an interesting dimension to La Grande Bouffe. Andrea herself seems to represent indulgence in both food and sex. The film has scenes where she yells about being hungry, and she can continually eat more. Throughout the film she has sexual relations with all four protagonists, twice seemingly forcing sex on them. A particularly vivid clip shows the misogynist Marcello engaging in sexual acts with Andrea as she is eating a turkey leg. She continues to eat the turkey even after he demands her to stop. Andrea plays a crucial role in the film in regard to the main male characters. She decides to stay until all four protagonists die actually helping them in their efforts. This plotline intensifies the scene where she kills Philippe with the breast shaped dessert, a direct representation of the deadly nature of unbounded sex and eating. The foods that are prepared are never simple but often elaborate meals eaten solely to indulge at all times. The emphasis on refined foods only adds to the decay that occurs throughout the evening. On the four protagonists’ journey from life to death, sex acts as the existential intermediate level. The food present for the weekend symbolizes this overly self-indulgence display of decadence. La Grande Bouffe is filled with contrasting images of feasting, wealth, and decadence. The still chosen shows one of the dinners that occurred at the villa while in the forefront Marcello, a womanizing pilot, is kissing one of the hired prostitutes. Ferreri consistently uses forefront images and background scenes that juxtapose the true purpose of the weekend. All four protagonists come from wealthy occupations and backgrounds but are unsatisfied with the current state of their lives. They have all gained a taste for luxurious foods as well as the knowledge of social conduct around a table. Leon Kass in his book, The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of our Nature, describes both learned civility and the nature of human’s sexual desires. The scene shown illustrates the group around the table; an ideal that Kass says represents the meal. Kass discusses how the sharing of food around the table leads to similar behaviors saying, “Thus we silently acknowledge our mutual commitment to share not only some food but also commensurate forms of commensal behavior” (Kass Ch. 4: 4). Kass’s theory directly applies to this film but as seen in the still the agreed upon behavior does not correspond with Kass’ definition of civility. This image remains particularly striking because of the civil table manners in the background. The characters at the table correspond with what Kass discusses about civility and meals. Similarly, right before Marcello and the prostitute leave the room to move behind the curtain a large, elaborate plate of turkey had just been brought out by Marcello himself. This physically connects the art of eating with Marcello’s instinctual sexual desires. The two actually take the meat with them when they leave to sleep together only to return later for second helpings of the turkey. The image also utilizes color to highlight the underlying theme of sex and passion. The red lamp over the table shows that even though the characters seem to be enjoying a decorous meal their minds are occupied by sexual appetites and thoughts. The framing of the lamp provides an important image. The red lamp cuts the portrait of the woman in half only allowing the bottom half to be shown. I find this framed shot significant because it alludes their weekend being solely about feeding their need for sex and not about love or personal connections. By including the forefront image not only are sex and food once again coupled but also their social positions outside the villa and their acts of depravity within the villa are contrasted. Food and sex are constantly displayed in La Grande Bouffe in rather vulgar and sickening images. The film embodies societal and individual decadence through demonstrating food as a symbol of depravity.

Catholicism, Cream Cheese, and Cultural Commentary by Emily Byrd The feast is such a central indicator of a society’s values that Italian director Pier Pasolini uses it as the crux for condemning a culture he deems hypocritical and morally bankrupt; and he goes beyond metaphor to do so. In La Ricotta (1962), Pasolini uses food not merely as a symbol of inequity, but as the most tangible element of hypocrisy and exclusion. The Italian auteur portrays separation and starvation as ironic elements of the feast that exist in the Roman Catholic society he critiques. La Ricotta—or “cream cheese” when translated—is a film about the making of a film of the Christian Passion narrative. This meta format allows Pasolini creatively to reveal the underlying structure of the overly produced farce that he thinks represents Italy’s rigid Catholicism at that time. The main character is Stracci (which directly translates to “rags”), an extra who plays the “good thief” who is crucified next to Jesus, and who is ultimately the only character in the biblical narrative to receive Jesus’ blessing and assurance of salvation during the event. In every way, Stracci embodies the character of the thief, who is condemned by his age but righteous through an outside perspective. He is only distanced from the trope of the Christ figure by functioning as a stand-in for the proverbial “everyman” and because he lacks the ability to bring about change or salvation within the narrative. Stracci’s crime in La Ricotta is poverty. The film opens with a shot of a table overflowing with food while shirtless cast members dance about the set irreverently. Pasolini immediately cuts to Stracci, who is lying in the anguish of starvation off to the side of the set. Each actor in the film is given a daily lunch ration, but Stracci gives his to his young family, keeping nothing to nourish himself. The other cast members are aware of this and taunt Stracci with their own food and physically assault him to ridicule his weakness. Every day’s rations are used as a new way to marginalize Stracci and punish him for his difference. Interestingly, Stracci isn’t necessarily demonized by the other cast members; his punishment is administered to satisfy their desire for irreverent entertainment, not to make him atone for his poverty. This is because atonement suggests the possibility of the erasure of sins and restoration of one’s status and relationship to other members of the society—a state that Stracci cannot have hope of achieving. Pasolini paints a picture of Italian Catholicism that embodies the gluttonous, exclusionary, and sensual aspects of the feast. While Stracci is hanging on his cross, waiting for his scene to be filmed, his co-workers dangle food in front of him and force him to watch a strip tease performed by one of the female actors, mirroring the taunting of Jesus’ thirst on the cross with the soldier’s offering of vinegar. One woman even offers her extra food to her dog as opposed to coming to the aid of her starving peer, further calling attention to the complete lack of human compassion, and revealing the inverted structures of worth in the hypocritical theocracy, which claims to prioritize charity, purity, and brotherly love, but instead is hyper-focused on status, wealth, and immoral entertainment. Finally—though with the sole aim of cruelty—it suits the group of actors’ whims to provide food to Stracci. In a scene that is almost surrealist in construction, Stracci returns to a cave where he has managed to stash a loaf of bread. An angel appears on the other side of the cave, laughing deeply at Stracci’s ravenous consumption, which is shown at twice its natural speed to increase its appearance of desperation. Somehow, the number of laughing actors in the cave begins to multiply, and they begin throwing food at him from a distance, including a massive wheel of ricotta cheese. The foods keep coming in enormous amounts as Stracci frantically feeds himself with his hands. Finally, the entire feast table is carried in before him and lobbed at his corner of the cave. Stracci is then resurrected from this cave-tomb, only to be placed back on his cross and hung again for the scene to be re-filmed. Reporters show up to honor the prestigious director and capture photos of the famous actors while Stracci waits. Action is called, thunder roars, and suddenly the director realizes that Stracci is not saying his lines. In front of the media, during the filming of this meta-Bible film, on his cross, Stracci’s heart gives out from starvation followed by the shocking consumption of mass amounts of food. Pasolini makes the choice not to show anyone’s reactions, with the assumption that while no remorse would be felt by the cast, remorse and righteous anger should be evoked from the viewer. The final shot is of a table, still piled with food for a feast. The Catholicism of Pasolini’s time has been consumed and transformed into simply another means for entertainment, profit-seeking, and exclusion. Stracci lives in a world whose construction is religious on its face, but immoral in its being, and Pasolini reveals this through the language of starvation and appetite. This Marxist critique was so powerfully damning that it even landed the director in jail for a few months for blasphemy. It is assumed he was given his daily rations.

Food as Memory and Migration by Sierra Smith In 1988, Universal Pictures released the animated classic and acclaimed children’s movie The Land Before Time. The film tells the story of the orphaned brontosaurus Littlefoot and the other young dinosaurs he befriends as they join together after a devastating earthquake to journey to the Great Valley to reunite with their families. It’s become a children’s classic since its release, spurring the release of thirteen sequels over the course of twenty-eight years. One of the most prominent themes and motifs in The Land Before Time is the role that food plays, for the dinosaurs as a collective group and for Littlefoot especially, as an association with memory. For the dinosaurs as a whole, food and food habits are both a means of identifying themselves, and a necessity that forces them into migration. The film begins by dividing the dinosaurs into two main categories—the leaf-eaters who graze on plants, and the meat-eaters who feed on other dinosaurs (consequently called “sharp teeth”). The diction alone, referring to meat eaters by their teeth, a weapon of sorts which they use to bite and to eat, insinuates a danger about the animals that comes from their diet. This sense of danger isn’t unmerited; the idea that the dinosaurs were either the prey or the predator was certainly realistic, and contributes to the idea that animals in the wild must either “eat or be eaten.” The second importance of food to the dinosaur population, as previously touched on, is its more obvious role as a necessity for survival. Following a drought, the food source that the dinosaurs depend on begins to dwindle before finally disappearing entirely, causing the dinosaurs to migrate to the legendary Great Valley, making the need for a new source of food the overarching conflict in the film. In the beginning of the film, a narrator states, “Then it happened that the leaf began to die. Mighty beasts who appeared to rule the earth were ruled, in truth, by the leaf, their food” (4 min). Not only does food become a factor in decision-making, but it becomes a larger-than-life force which holds power over the minds and bodies of the characters. The implication becomes that our lives are ruled by food and our access to food. From a survival standpoint, this makes sense. But more interesting to note is that from a storytelling standpoint, the film takes advantage of our basic need for nourishment as a living species, utilizing that need to build conflict and a motivation for migration and a journey—in a children’s movie, nonetheless, where realism in the genre is often overlooked. These first two applications of food are more survival-based, but the film also delves into the emotional capacity of food through the character of Littlefoot. For Littlefoot, food becomes a symbol of his late mother and a means by which to remember her and her guidance. Towards the beginning of the film, after the dinosaurs have begun their migration to the Great Valley, Littlefoot’s mother finds a “tree star,” a star-shaped leaf which has become rare in their dry and barren land. She picks it from the tree and gives it to Littlefoot as a promise of what he will find in the Great Valley. The tree star becomes a symbol of hope, faith and perseverance for Littlefoot, and a representation of his mother’s memory after she dies. The film intentionally connects the tree star to the memory of Littlefoot’s mother by having it float down to him after his mother’s death, symbolizing his mother’s presence with him even after she is gone. The return of the tree star is accompanied by his mother’s voice calling his name, and her instructions to him on how to reach the Great Valley (24 min). The technique of this voiceover crystallizes the connection between Littlefoot’s mother and the tree star for the younger audience, making it clear that the tree star acts symbolically as a physical substitute for Littlefoot’s mother. The association between food and memory is an idea Proust considers in his essay “Remembrance of Things Past” in which he discusses the effect that the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea has on him. He says, “And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine… immediately the old grey house upon the street, where [my aunt’s] room was, rose up like a stage” (Proust 51). The cookie for Proust stirs up memories of his childhood down to the specific image of the house in which he ate the madeleines, in the same way that the tree star for Littlefoot arouses his mother’s memory. Whereas Proust’s memories are aroused by taste, Littlefoot’s are aroused by mere sight of the food. The leaf is no longer only a food source to Littlefoot. It has become instead the closest tangible thing he has to his mother and a physical connection to a memory, a stand-in object for a person he cherished. Works Cited Proust, Marcel. “The Cookie.” Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 1: Swann’s Way & Within a Budding Grove. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, New York: Vintage, 1982, pp. 48-51. The Land Before Time. Directed by Don Bluth, produced by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Universal Pictures, 1988.

Food as Metaphor for Life by Junessa Sladen-Dew Acting on one’s desires is a difficult thing and at times may feel like an impossibility. However, following the journey of Georgia Byrd, played by Queen Latifah, we see her giving up her fears and trying to live her most fulfilled life through food and cooking. Set in New Orleans, a mecca of cuisine, Georgia dreams of becoming a chef, although by day, spends her time as a cookware salesperson. Despite the monotony of her day job, Georgia finds time to “cook for the moochers” and take pride in sharing part of herself when pleasing different people. Just like her job, she finds her personal life to be extremely drab and keeps a Book of Possibilities in order to record her hopes and dreams. However, her journey takes a dramatic turn when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness and only has weeks to live. At this point in her life, she throws caution to the win, cashes in her 401-K and begins a life-changing adventure to the Czech Republic, where her hero, Chef Didier, rules the kitchen. In the picturesque jewel of a spa town, Georgia decides to go out in style and embrace her hidden love for food and cooking. Thus, the exploration of how food can be a metaphor for life begins and Georgia Byrd exemplifies the transition from the fascination with material belongings to activities of pure passion and happiness. In a life with nothing to lose and an ability to throw caution to the wind, bland food and dieting transforms into magnificent feasts and roasted duck and dumplings. Before her diagnosis, Georgia led a life that was about giving to others, holding back on personal desire and living with minimal enjoyment and satisfaction in her life. Through meals such as Lean Cuisine and insipid dishes that Georgia is utterly repulsed by, we see food as a portal into the internal thoughts of Georgia and her dissatisfaction with her current life. In contrast, we see her life in Czech Republic when she believes that she is dying, to be filled with extreme grandeur especially in the context of food. A scene that articulates her new viewpoint on life and unbounded dedication to following her desires is the unforgettable feast that Georgia partakes in where she orders ever meal off of the famous menu. With no inhibitions, Georgia’s newly acquired personality undergoes a metamorphosis and along with the personality metamorphosis, a food metamorphosis occurs. Using food as a symbol for internalized thoughts and ways of life, The Last Holiday features the force of personal and social pressure on one’s choices especially on food and how being on death's doorstep can change everything. Food, not only as an object, but as an experience can be seen throughout her journey. The new food she encounters not only shapes her own experience, but those around her as well. As she throws away her past inhibitions, her new journey through the exploration of various cuisines dives into new meanings of living life. Food that is deemed as a luxury and something to only indulge in occasionally is consumed wholeheartedly by Georgia post-diagnosis showing that when you have nothing to lose then you might as eat well, right? Through this film and the beautiful portrayal of female rationing by Queen Latifah, we see how society can easily control your outlook on life and how that translates into the physical act such as eating. As one of the most basic, daily necessities, eating has become something that people control themselves and others through it. Thousands of people are starving themselves right now in order to fit into a social category or because they believe that by not eating, they can finally control an aspect of their lives. However, The Last Holiday through its comedic quips and quick wit highlights that when you are on death’s doorstep and society doesn’t matter anymore, we may metaphorically and literally use food as our portal of indulgence.

Over-Indulgence as a Sign of a Life Lived to the Fullest by Hannah Williams Food is often seen as an aspect of life that must be restricted and controlled in popular Western culture. In wealthier cultures, the enjoyment of food is often put on the back-burner, while minimal calorie count is prioritized in order to keep “fit.” Calorie counting and dieting are seen as the norm and carefree indulgence in food is seen as rebellious. In Last Holiday (2006), food’s role in the life of Georgia Byrd goes from being a highly restricted and even a fantasy, to becoming a concrete and vivid expression of her freedom in life and Georgia’s devotion to finding herself. In the start of the film, Georgia makes beautiful dinners and feeds them to her young neighbor, taking pictures of every meal and forgoing actually eating the meals. Instead, Georgia decides to eat a low calorie, Lean Cuisine meal. Food becomes Georgia’s outlet, but she also doesn’t let herself fully indulge in it. It is clear that food is not something Georgia feels she can experience in fullness, and restriction and moderation become key to her lifestyle. Her indulgence in food is merely visual and olfactory. Until Georgia receives the diagnosis of a terminal illness she treats food as something she must restrict and cannot fully indulge in. In a very pivotal scene after her diagnosis, Georgia finally gets the chance to order a meal from Chef Didier, a culinary artist she has long looked up to. Georgia’s request not only to have every meal on the menu, but also to have every meal prepared exactly as the chef intended, with no exceptions, equally shocks and pleases Chef Didier.This scene centers around the expectations that the affluent people at Didier’s restaurant normally order their food to fit their own, highly selective pallets (almost as a sign of their power), and when Georgia allows the chef to present his actual creation, he bonds with Georgia. Georgia indulges in the beautiful creations of Chef Didier, allowing his dreams and creativity to become a part of herself. Individuals at the table across the room from Georgia are captivated by the large amounts of gourmet food she is having delivered to her table. There is something captivating about having Georgia, a supposedly wealthy independent woman, order such large amounts of food. The Senator notes, “I wish I could command attention like that,” referring to Georgia’s table full of food. He assumes that Georgia’s main focus in ordering food is the attention of others. Similar to how women often restrict their food intake for (supposed) attention to their physical form, the same can be said for over-indulging. If women aren’t getting attention from eating too little, they’re expected to be trying to get attention for eating too much. There is an expectation placed on women to somehow be asking for attention, rather than fulfilling an internal need. Through Georgia and Didier’s bond through food, Didier jokingly reveals a secret to Georgia. Chef Didier shares with Georgia that the “secret to life is butter,” which reveals to the audience that the secret to life is releasing restriction. Butter, a commonly restricted food, is a representation of allowing pleasure in life while one still has the ability to do so. Georgia Byrd’s relationship with food in Last Holiday, is an outward expression of her relationship with herself. Food changes roles from being regulated and restricted and becomes a sign of indulgence and joy. As Georgia’s relationship with food changes, so does her relationship and acceptance of herself, making food an outward expression of her internal dialogue. Work Cited Wang, Wayne, director. Last Holiday. Paramount Pictures, 2006.

The True Fool: Just Desserts and Power Inversions in The Dinner Game by Jocelyn Streid Le Diner de Cons (1998) is a difficult movie to watch, and not because we don’t all speak French. It begins with a cringe-worthy premise: a group of wealthy Parisian book publishers – if these aren’t the patricians, then I don’t know who is – invite “idiots” for dinner every Wednesday, egg them on in conversation, and then ridicule them afterward. Their cruelty is hard enough to stomach, but as the plot develops and disaster after disaster unfolds, the viewer feels a little like a witness to a slow-motion train wreck. Although the film does not actually present us any traditional dinner scenes, Le Diner de Cons still uses both the absence of food and the presence of unexpected food to demonstrate a shift in power from the host to the guest. Pierre, the antihero of the film, is a book publisher whose wealth is outdone only by his smugness. He invites a bumbling civil servant named Pignon to his dinner for schmucks. Pignon’s claim to fame? He constructs elaborate models of landmarks out of matchsticks and quizzes hapless strangers on how many hours it took to make them. Yet the plot takes a turn when Pierre throws out his back, the dinner never happens, and Pignon spends the evening tending to him. Pierre then receives a phone call from his wife telling him that she’s left him, and he suddenly finds himself reliant upon the wholly incompetent Pignon in his desperate attempts to win back his wife. By film’s end, Pignon learns about the true nature of the dinner invitation and shows Pierre incredible compassion in spite of his cruelty. He calls Pierre’s wife and implores that she return to her husband because “no one, not even he, deserves that kind of sadness.” For a movie called The Dinner Game, the film contains strikingly little food. The dinner that we’re promised in the very beginning of the film never happens. In fact, we actually witness the inverse. The characters do not sit down to a decadent meal served by a well-trained wait staff; instead, Pignon hastily cooks up an omelet to be eaten on a card table. Similarly, Pierre’s injured back denies him of the opportunity to ridicule Pignon with his friends; instead, Pignon’s various mishaps actually make a fool out of Pierre – in the space of an hour or so, Pignon unwittingly manages to tell Pierre’s wife that her husband has been keeping a mistress, reveal to the mistress that Pierre thinks her crazy, and invite a tax collector into Pierre’s opulent home, who soon finds Pierre guilty of tax fraud. The movie, then, provides us with a different sort of game: a movie called The Dinner Game is actually about the absence of a dinner. Unmoored from the traditional host-guest relationship that a feast would necessitate, the guest unintentionally assumes power as Pignon’s mistakes humiliate Pierre time and time again. The attached still captures the inversion of the host-guest relationship and the absence of a traditional meal. The scene presents us with two figures, one on either side of the screen. Yet instead of meeting at the table as mutual companions, the still defines them by their difference. One character is speaking, eyes wide-open, hand poised above the table in a purposeful gesture. He holds a telephone, wielding his influence over the outside world without ever leaving the table. Everything about his demeanor suggests that he is the one with the power – he even wears a suit. In contrast, the other man has closed himself off from the outside world, covering his eyes with one hand and hiding the other under the table. He is the powerless one in this scene, even wearing a loose-fitting pajama top unlike his well-dressed counterpart. The still itself gives him less space; the curtain in the background divides the shot into two, with the host given very little room. Shoved off to the side, he sits at the corner of the table. Unlike Pignon, he sits away from the table, unengaged in the shared table space. Le Diner de Cons, however, constructs a moral system in which Pierre deserves all that unfolds. As audience members, we condemn him from the beginning for his devotion to the dinner for idiots. Our knee-jerk disgust at the game’s premise reveals the value we place upon hospitality and food. When Pierre and his cohort transform the dinner table into a place of cruelty rather than communion and betrayal rather than intimacy, he violates the sacred space of the shared meal. No wonder his wife walks out on him in a huff; like us, she cannot believe her husband could so extensively exploit others for entertainment. Yet Pierre is a book publisher; his line of work consists of exhibiting others for public consumption. The Dinner Game, then, plays with the notion of display. Unlike the traditional French dinner, it is the guest rather than the food on display at these meals. Consequently, Le Diner de Cons never dwells on food; there is not one close-up of a meal in the entire film. In the still, the table occupies little of the shot. The wine, bread, and omelet sit at the bottom of the frame, almost blending in with the whites, yellows, and blacks of the background. The camera focuses instead on the characters around the table; the earnest Pignon takes over one section of the screen, the exasperated Pierre the other. Yet although food might not dominate any shot, the little food that exists in the film plays an important symbolic role. Though Pierre and Pignon skip their scheduled dinner, they must prepare a meal for the tax auditor en route to the apartment in response to Pignon’s accidental invitation. Pignon volunteers to cook, abandoning his place as a guest. His initiative already prefigures the transfer of power that emerges in the film’s resolution; control over the meal signifies control over the situation, and when Pignon enters the kitchen, he usurps Pierre in the role of host. Though Pignon might have expected to dine on fois grois or coq au vin at Pierre’s dinner, he prepares a humble omelet for their unexpected guest. It only takes one bite for the tax collector’s eyes to roll with pleasure. He sits back, smiles, and sighs, “Pignon, you’ve done it again.” The secret, Pignon explains, is a handful of herbs and just a touch of beer. The film thus plays a trick on us; though Pierre may be the one with the ornate apartment and rare artwork, it is Pignon who shoes true culinary sophistication. He transforms beer and eggs – plebian ingredients, especially in France – into a gustatory delight. By asserting his savvy in the preparation of a meal, Pignon hints at the larger lesson of the film: the plebeians deserve respect, too. It’s not surprising, then, that in the screenshot we see that the tax collector, who has left the table, has laid the silverware off the right side of the plate, a convention used at formal dinners to signify the completion of a course. The subtle gesture indicates that like the meals served at the fanciest of French restaurants, these eggs call for all the formalities of deferential dining. The wine plays an important role as well – this is a French film, after all. In preparation for the tax collector, Pierre brings out the only wine he has, an exquisite bottle only the wealthy can afford. When they realize that wine may rightly cause the tax collector to suspect that Pierre has great wealth he has hid from the French government, Pierre desperately attempts to pollute the wine with vinegar he snatches from the kitchen. “A wino’s delight,” he declares, passing a glass around to test it. Yet Pignon and Pierre discover that the vinegar has actually improved the taste of the wine, lending it a more robust body and flavor. It has become, in short, a fuller, more complete, and altogether more satisfying drink. Pierre had dismissed the possibility; how could common table vinegar hold a candle to the most exclusive of French wines? Similarly, he had also failed to show any respect to Pignon, failing to believe a common civil servant had anything to offer him but entertainment. He soon learns, though, that Pignon demonstrates integrity, empathy, and loyalty beyond his own capacity; the wine’s fall from grace actually enhances it, and Pignon’s witless innocence actually renders him a better person than Pierre could ever hope to be. In the screenshot, the improved wine sits squarely between the two individuals at the center of the frame, a reminder of their difference and a symbol of Pierre’s impending transformation. Le Diner de Cons ends in moral victory; Pignon’s display of valiant selflessness humbles the humiliated Pierre. Forced to contend with his own cold-heartedness in contrast to Pignon’s complete, albeit bumbling, goodness, Pierre admits his own wrongdoing. In an unexpected dinner for idiots, he has learned who at the table is the true fool.

Food as a Barrier by Sierra Smith The 2010 film Letters to Juliet is interesting in how it relates to food in that it presents food as a barrier between a couple engaged to be married, rather than a point of connection. Throughout the film, the protagonist Sophie is distanced both emotionally and physically from her fiancé Victor because of his obsession with food and the impending opening of his Italian restaurant. The strain that food places on their relationship gives food a divisive quality in contrast to its usual ability to unite people together, going against the grain of how food is typically presented in film. From the first interaction between Sophie and Victor in the film, the audience is informed of the obstacle of food in their relationship through a powerful visual image of spaghetti hanging between them (5:00). Sophie enters Victor’s restaurant to find him in the kitchen, testing spaghetti recipes and hanging the various strands around the kitchen to cool. As she tries to tell him about her day, he interrupts her, imploring her to taste the different pasta strands. The moment is a visual representation of Victor’s love for food and cooking overpowering his love for Sophie. The spaghetti is everywhere, physically obstructing the vision of the characters and the viewer, getting in the way between Sophie and Victor. The food visually surrounds them and acts like a curtain between them, dividing them. This separation between them because of Victor’s passion for food continues on their honeymoon, a trip they take to Italy before their wedding so that they can focus on the grand opening of Victor’s restaurant after the wedding. While in Italy, the couple spend time touring vineyards and meeting Victor’s restaurant suppliers, rather than sight-seeing as Sophie would prefer to do. Victor insists the tours of vineyards are “romantic”—and while they would have been conventionally, the romance is drained when the visits are driven by work. The food separates the couple in distance when Victor becomes intent upon traveling to see a truffle. It’s at this moment that Sophie separates herself from him, returning to Verona to go sight-seeing while he travels in the opposite direction to see the truffle (10). This moment is pivotal as it sets the tone for the rest of their honeymoon and what will become Sophie’s journey—they are comfortable spending time apart on their honeymoon, and this separateness is instigated by food. Their fate becomes ultimately sealed when Victor departs from Sophie to go to a wine auction, an event he downplays in its seriousness though it means they will be hours away from each other during their honeymoon. It is during Victor’s absence that Sophie enlists herself in helping Claire Smith find her love of fifty years ago, in the process finding her own true love in Claire’s grandson, Charlie. Whereas Sophie and Charlie have moments over the course of the film in which they bond over food, such as when they smear ice cream on each other’s faces, they are not consumed by food, which is the difference between their relationship and Sophie and Victor’s (55). Food begins and ends Sophie and Victor’s relationship as we see them in the film. We first see Sophie and Victor together in his restaurant kitchen, and we last see them together in his kitchen, though Sophie’s story continues beyond this (1:27). Importantly, Victor starts and ends in the kitchen, indicating that he remains static as a character in his obsession with food, while Sophie evolves over the course of the film. She leaves the kitchen, signifying that she is not ruled by food, but Victor does not, and that is the difference between them. Work Cited Letters to Juliet. Directed by Gary Winick, Summit Entertainment, 2010.

Food as Means of Constraint and Liberation by Suejette Black Like Water for Chocolate uses magical realism to demonstrate the many important roles that food plays in life. In the film, food has the ability to create extremely powerful physical and emotional responses in all those who eat it; nobody is immune to the strength of the food. The food in Like Water for Chocolate serves to express emotions and allow for self-discovery, while also perpetuating gender roles. In 1910, during the Mexican Revolution, the film shows that a woman’s place in society was in the kitchen. Tita and each one of her sisters are shown frequently cooking, along with her mother, Nacha, and Chencha, while men are not seen in the kitchen. The expectation of women to prepare nourishing meals for their husband and family is shown as Rosaura desperately attempts to cook a meal to impress her new husband Pedro. Sociologist Deborah Lupton explains a women’s role in the family, “is a source of emotional satisfaction abut also constrains and limits their lives.” This internal struggle is seen through Tita, when she becomes the main cook in her household after the passing of Nacha. Though she is clearly passionate about cooking, she seems to be a servant for the family and enslaved to her mother who will not let her marry because she must stay at home to be her caretaker. It ruins her chances of marrying her true love Pedro and often prevents her from frully enjoying herself and her life. Despite her responsibilities in her home and kitchen seeming to anchor Tita down to her toxic household, there are several scenarios where food and cooking provides joy for her. The ability of food to act as a means of communication and self-realization is depicted when Tita makes quail with rose petals she received from Pedro. Even if there had been no narration, it would have been clear by the reactions of those eating it that the food was having an extremely potent effect on them. The scene begins with only diegetic sound of plates being placed and the camera tracking over the food on the table. As they begin to eat, enchanting orchestra music plays, creating the sense that they are drifting off into a trance. With alternating close ups of each character, it is evident something is happening within each of them as the food seems to melt in their mouths and take them into a state of ecstasy. Pedro describes the food as “the nectar of the gods” while he consumes the food of his true love, Tita. As they eat they seem to be having a sensual interaction and express passion without speaking or touching. As the music intensifies and the sister, Gertrudis, touches her neck, rips open her blouse, and ultimately runs away, it is clear that the food caused something erotic and animalistic to happen inside each of them. The food creates a sexual connection and opens them up to feelings they have never felt before, seeming to free them, at least momentarily, from any constraints. The complex role of food in Like Water for Chocolate simultaneously subjects women to a constraining expectation and opens them up to sensuality and self- realization. Food’s ability to take over their bodies and minds in ways they could not control, seemed to show that food did not only have to serve as a restraint but could introduce them to a world of unexplored possibilities and freedom.

The Call of Jalebis by Olivia Holder Lion (2016) tells a both heart-wrenching and heart-warming story of Saroo and his journey to find home. The opening of the film shows Saroo and his older brother, Guddu, stealing coal from a moving coal train in rural India. After evading the police and jumping from the moving vehicle, the two boys use the valuable coal to buy even more precious milk. As the boys buy their milk, the camera pans out revealing a large pan of sizzling jalebis next to the milk stall. The camera leaves the boys at the milk stall to show an extreme close-up of the tantalizing snack. The colors used in this film form a washed out palette of tired blues, overcast greys, and dusty browns. Against this backdrop the sizzling, vibrant red jalebis visually arrest both the viewer and Saroo. Tugging on the older boy’s shirt, Saroo asks his brother to buy him some jalebis. With longing in his eyes, Guddu says, “One day I will buy you jalebis.” When the boys return home with the milk, their mother squeezes each drop of the two bags of milk into bowls for her three children, refusing any for herself. It is clear that in their poverty, food was scarce, milk precious, and luxuries like jalebis the stuff of dreams. Yet in this film scarcity, the precious, and dreams spell out a story of love. As milk was won for the family through danger and risk, so too, the movie equated the provision of food will either love and safety or the lack thereof. Similar to the instance with the jalebis, throughout movie the director chose to highlight food through the use of color. In a heart-warming scene little Saroo walks up to his mother who spends her days as a laborer hauling grey rocks through a dusty quarry. Surrounded by a sea of depressing, endless grey, from behind his back Saroo pulls out a bright, sunny, yellow mango. With relish and endless smiles they share this small slice of happiness. This story is thrust into motion when Saroo gets separated from Guddu at a train station and accidentally boards a train that takes him far from his family and all he knows. As he sits locked in the train for days, it becomes clear that this little boy is in a desperate situation as he will not be able to navigate his way back to his small rural village. The gravity of his situation is made clear when after a few days we see him gnawing at a dry, old apple core that he found underneath train bunk. In this scene the lack of adequate and safe food reveals his vulnerability. Little Saroo is adopted by a family in Australia. When in college he makes many friends who are, like him, of Indian heritage. Early in the year, he attends a party at one these friends’ house, and, there, the smell of Indian food is in the air and Bollywood songs fill the room as friends gesture at some of the classic moves. Interestingly, Saroo is a foreigner to the culture who needs to be acculturated. After his friends fail to teach him how to eat with his hands and properly “use the naan like a spoon,” he is handed a fork. He is out of place until he leaves the table and walks into the kitchen. As he turns from rummaging inside the fridge for a beer, the camera focuses on his face, allowing the viewer to watch his reaction change as he turns around. A look of shock and disbelief floods his face. The camera then switches to his line of vision. There on the table is a plate of bright red jalebis. Then we see Saroo’s face. Then his back as he is drawn toward the dish. The diegetic sounds of the music, laughter, and chatter of the party remain as the camera switches to a flashback of Guddu and little Saroo asking for jalebis. This continuation of sound shows that the camera has entered Saroo’s head and that stumbling upon this dish has triggered flashbacks. Next, the camera follows a jalebi in Saroo’s hand as it makes the journey to his mouth. We see him smell the snack deeply and then tentatively take a bite. This encounter would be the impetus for further flashbacks that occur throughout the film. They remind Saroo of the enduring love of his mother and older brother. It is the dish that causes him to hear their voices calling to him as they search for their lost little boy. It is their love, as revealed through the jalebis, which would cause Saroo to search for home. The power of food to produce memories of home and love is the fulcrum of the tale. This one plate sends Saroo on a long and tedious journey as he searches for the village where he first saw that sizzling pan of vibrant jalebis.

The Circle of Life and Bugs by Michael Palumbo The circle of life, the idea that all life exists in a delicately-balanced cycle of consumption, is central to The Lion King (1994) and introduced from the very beginning of the film. The principle is not unlike the idea of a food chain, but it is further imbued with spiritual and cosmic importance. Simba, the rash young lion cub destined for the throne of his pride, initially lacks the wisdom to understand the circle. He later gains his triumphant kingship and revenge for his father’s death only after grasping its true meaning. Yet his learning is paradoxical: he gains understanding of the circle’s importance and transforms himself from cub to king only by breaking its natural symmetry and lowering himself from peak carnivore to lowly insectivore in his self-imposed exile. Simba is initially rash and unwise, obsessed with the idea of bravery and power, as opposed to the enlightened and responsible rule his father, Mufasa, advocates. Referring to the circle of life, Mufasa teaches Simba: “As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all living creatures from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.” A bewildered Simba does not yet understand how one who eats antelope can possibly respect it. Simba’s initially sees the circle as a line, with himself at the top as both king of his pride and king of the food chain. Following the death of his father, a guilt-ridden Simba exiles himself from the pride and meets the jovial Timon of Pumbaa. Simba quickly adopts the duo’s motto of hakuna matata (“no worries”), which stands in direct contrast to his late father’s mantra of responsible rule and the circle of life. Adapting himself to Timon and Pumba’s happy-go-lucky lifestyle, Simba’s transfiguration is symbolically complete when he partakes in their meal of choice: colorful and slimy insects. Unknowingly, the ritual, extended participation in an insectivorous lifestyle instructs Simba in the circle of life. By humbling himself and eating insects, he abandons his contrived post at the top of the food chain, and instead begins to see the circle in its true form. Simba, enlightened after years of maturation and unwitting study of the circle of life, returns to his pride at the behest of his childhood friend, Nala, and a heavenly apparition of his late father. Hyenas, characterized as “slobbering, mangy, stupid poachers,” have taken over the pride, driving out the herds which lion and hyena alike rely on for food. Hyenas, natural scavengers who have relocated from the feared elephant graveyard, exist as abusers of the circle of life, rather than stewards of it. As consumers of rotted, tainted meat they constitute a direct foil to Mufasa and the enlightened Simba. As the hyenas consume without regard for the circle of life, their rule has left the pride’s homeland desiccated and lifeless. Simba, having triumphantly returned from his instructive exile, overcomes the hyenas and takes his rightful place as ruler of the pride. In the final scene, Simba and Nala present their son to the newly restored circle of life. The Lion King. Dirs. Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, Perf. Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick. Walt Disney Pictures, 1994.

Maternal Instincts of Mother Nature by Kristy Sakano The symbolism of winter as despair, strife, and tribulations is unanimous across literatures spanning the world. Conversely, spring represents rebirth, renewal, and reflection with the emergence of wildlife and flora. As a solitary farmer in the rural Japanese mountains, Ichiko has time to reflect upon the symbolism entrenched within each season. Junichi Mori’s Little Forest: Winter/Spring (2014) attempts to reflect upon the effects of self-compulsed solitary confinement and Mother Nature as a substitute for a true mother, fluctuating with the season’s weather and food availability. The arrival of winter has centered the film’s focus on self-preservation and interactions with her neighbor visitors to prevent the emotional and physical cold from seeping into Ichiko’s cottage. In the two previous seasons, reflections of Ichiko’s previous life was seen in short, sporadic bursts, often tinged with affectionate nostalgia. However, the biting cold brings darker memories and deeper fears of abandonment. Ichiko’s mother is a frequent visitor of her reflections, often seen busying about in the kitchen or speaking to Ichiko in a scolding, detached, and cold manner. While the audience is privy to Ichiko’s winter recipes in a documentary-style programme, Ichiko is forbidden from learning and recreating her mother’s recipes. Instead, she’s forced to improvise: her mother’s green-red Christmas cake is substituted with an orange-purple cake formed from Ichiko’s own preferences. Her survival off the land is similarly improvised as Ichiko calls upon her childhood memories of mountain-gathering and farming to sustain her through the cold winter. The wintertime on the mountain also reminds Ichiko of her brief stint in the city as a young adult. Several years prior, Ichiko moved away from her childhood home in pursuit of a larger life, but found herself compromising her lavish taste buds for cheap ramen noodles with little nutrition. The harsh land of modernity sought to punish rather than provide, and Ichiko was forced to improvise a mini-radish garden to supplement nourishment in her diet. During one tenuous scene, Ichiko questions herself, “Mother… did she really consider me as family?” Was the physical distancing of her mother during the current pacing of the film and the emotional distancing during her childhood meant for Ichiko to bond with the land more so than familial or social relationship? When experiencing a strife, Ichiko turns to the land for a solution in the form of a recipe or a meal – perhaps the comforts of food and self-sustainment has substituted for emotional connections. The return of Ichiko to her hometown is directly correlated to the experience of the first leaves budding on trees. A rebirth of the land into a maternalistic, compassionate creature, one that provides heartwarming conversations with neighbors over meals and a bounty the land never ceases to provide. The mountains to Ichiko means more than survival: where she was lacking of the emotional care from her biological mother, she has found peace and tranquility in her rural lifestyle, coming to rest with the ebbs and flows of life in the mountains of Japan. Little Forest: Winter/Spring. Dir. Junichi Mori. Perf. Ai Hashimoto. Shochiku, 2014. [Not Available] 31 March 2018.

Little Women and Moral Dessert by Maggie Dunn Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of L.M. Alcott’s classic children’s novel Little Women relies on the comfort of traditional and home-cooked dishes to create a nostalgic atmosphere. Much like its source material, a coming-of-age story of four sisters during the American Civil War, food in this adaptation is used both to comfort the characters and to form conversations on morality and religion. Perhaps the most prominent feature of food and feasting in Little Women comes within the first thirty minutes of the film. It is Christmas morning, and the March family is lower-middle class and often struggles with money. The sisters are presented with a surprise: a modest yet elegant meal of pears, peaches, eggs, and sweet bread. When their mother tells them that a neighbor of theirs is in need, the girls decide to give away their longed-for Christmas breakfast in order to help a hungry family. When the March sisters return home, they are met with a new feast in their dining room: hams, cakes, sweets, and towers of pink ice cream. After seeing their good deeds, their neighbor Mr. Lawrence has rewarded the girls with a feast. Beneath this cozy Christmas breakfast scene lies a moral: in giving, one will receive tenfold. In this way, food acts as a moral reward reminiscent of the Christian heaven. This Christmas breakfast, taking place in their childhood, teaches the March sisters the Christian value of selflessness, later leading to Beth’s ultimate sacrifice of her life in order to assist these same less fortunate neighbors. Little Women. Dir. Greta Gerwig. Columbia Pictures, 2019.

The Food-Based Identity of Samwise Gamgee by Graham Palmer In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Samwise Gamgee is the epitome of the reluctant adventurer. Gandalf, a strange wizard, shows up in his quiet home of the Shire claiming that Sam’s friend Frodo must dispose of the Ring of Power, a dangerously seductive object that pulls anyone who wears it towards servitude to the evil Sauron. In order to do this, Frodo must take the Ring on a perilous journey to the Sauron’s evil realm of Mordor, the only place where the Ring can be destroyed. Sam never seeks to join, but is swept up in the adventure through his loyalty to his friend Frodo. Although he does his part to bring down Sauron and thus save Middle Earth, he constantly suggests that he would rather be enjoying his quiet home in the Shire. This longing is often expressed through Sam’s desire for food from his home, a desire that he vocalizes repeatedly. Food becomes a vehicle through which Sam can recall his beloved home and delineate himself from the strange cultures that he encounters on his journey. Sam’s dedication to his memories of food are juxtaposed with the increasingly barbaric world that he finds confronting him and pulling his friend Frodo toward darkness and away from the civilization of the Shire. The scene where Sam and Gollum fight over the best way to cook two rabbits provides a clear illustration of the role that food plays in Sam’s identity. After Gollum comes back with two rabbits, intending to eat them raw, Sam immediately grabs them. He promptly cooks up a rabbit stew, insisting, “there’s only one way to eat a brace of coneys.” The concept of cooking rabbits is alien to Gollum, who insists that Sam is ruining the meal. It is telling that Sam, a generally mild character, becomes so forceful when confronted with a differing opinion on how to cook rabbits. Eating rabbits raw is so antithetical to his identity that he cannot allow Gollum’s plan to stand for even one second, and instead seizes the opportunity to recall the taste of home, even if it is for a brief second. This small taste of home also sends Sam into further reminiscences on food from home, as he launches into a lovingly detailed description of fish and chips. The conflict over rabbit cooking may seem like a relatively minor point in the story, but in reality it is a revealing example of Sam’s ability to hold on to his identity through food. The still above visually captures this juxtaposition between the antithetical eating habits of Sam and Gollum. On the right side, we see Sam, hand outstretched over the pot, aggressively protecting the food being prepared, and in that act defending his critical memories of home. In contrast, on the left side we see Gollum, who is repulsed by the very idea of cooking food. The two are in almost the same poses, but Gollum’s face is contorted in a grotesque manner and his body is emaciated, while Sam’s face has a stern look of protection and his body is still full and even plump. This visual setup reminds the viewers that the two used to be very similar – Gollum belonged to a people almost identical to hobbits before the corrupting influence of the Ring reduced him to the creature that we see in the shot. Between them is the object of contention, on the surface two rabbits, but on a deeper level the choice between civilization and barbarity. In a brilliant stroke, the pot is not the only thing between the two. Directly behind the pot is the squatting figure of Frodo, whose struggle between the pull of home and the pull of the Ring is the crux of the story. At this point, Frodo is beginning to feel the allure of the Ring, and there is a possibility that he could end up like Gollum. On the other hand, he still recognizes his duty to destroy the ring, thus saving his friends, his home, and the very idea of civilization that cooking represents. Thus, this shot masterfully encapsulates the struggle that Frodo faces by placing him physically in the same space as the pot, trapped in a struggle between Sam’s love of home and Gollum’s addiction to the Ring. Sam’s yearning for Shire food also comes into play in the most critical moment of the entire saga, when Sam and Frodo are struggling up the slopes of Mt. Doom as they endeavor to complete their quest to destroy the Ring. As Frodo lies slumped on the ground, having given up all hope, Sam invokes food in a final attempt to motivate Frodo. Sam asks Frodo if he remembers the Shire, and specifically “eating the first of the strawberries with cream”. In Sam’s vivid description of the food at home, he desperately tries to remind Frodo of the purpose of their quest at the moment when Frodo has completely lost sight of the goal and is consumed by despair and the Ring’s seductive power. Frodo’s utter disconnect with the sensual world is confirmed in his response, when he says “I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water”. The filmmakers use the fact that Frodo can no longer remember the most basic essentials of human sustenance to emphasize the torture he has been through by carrying the Ring. Although Sam’s exhortations do not move Frodo, they do give Sam hope, and spur him on to heroism as he lifts Frodo up and begins physically carrying him up the mountain. The fact that memories of food play such a crucial role in the climax of the entire story shows how powerful food is as a tool for Sam to recall his home and to summon motivation to push on so that he can eventually get back to the Shire and its delicious food. The makers of The Lord of the Rings used these food-based scenes to allow viewers to emphasize with Sam and Frodo’s plight. All viewers know how it feels to long for home when one has been separated from it for so long. Rather than only expressing this through words, however, the filmmakers use food to make this connection between Sam and the viewers more tangible. They also used food to illustrate one pole of the struggle between civilization and barbarity engulfing Frodo, as Sam repeatedly tries to bring Frodo back from the Ring’s influence by referencing and cooking food. We usually do not feel our longing for home as an abstract concept. Instead, we long for specific people, things, and very often foods when we think of home. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Sam channels his longing for home through his vivid memories of food, and this allows viewers to understand his feelings and connect with him on a deeper level.

A Celebration of Home by Olivia Holder This movie tells the story of a young hobbit named Frodo Baggins who embarks on a long journey to destroy a dangerous magic ring. The life of every creature in his world, Middle Earth, depends on his success. All are threatened by the imminent ascension to world dominance of “the dark Lord Sauron,” and only a journey over great mountains, through gloomy mines, and towards “a barren wasteland riddled with fire and ash and dust [where] the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume” can save them. Thus, the greatness and valor of the journey is emphasized, yet, at the same time, the purpose of this undertaking is to protect and maintain homes and lives from the dark shadow of Sauron’s rule. This film ultimately celebrates the simple pleasures of home, chief among them being food. The heroes of this tale are hobbits who, ironically, are known to be homebodies who spend their days eating seemingly endless rounds of food. It is curious, then, that the events of the story are set into motion by the adventure of Frodo’s uncle, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. On this adventure, Bilbo found the ring of power and brought it home with him to the land of the hobbits, The Shire. When we are first introduced to Bilbo, the visit of his old friend, Gandalf the wizard, takes us into his home. As Gandalf makes his way into Bilbo’s home, he interacts with few items, but he does take time to pick up a map and linger on it, giving the camera the opportunity to look over Gandalf’s shoulder and giving the viewer a close up of a painstakingly drawn and careworn map of Bilbo’s first adventures. This shot, however, is interrupted by Bilbo offering to make Gandalf eggs and Gandalf’s reply that just tea would be fine. Moments later Bilbo walks over to the little round window of his hobbit hole and while looking out exclaims, “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf. Mountains! And then find a quiet place where I can finish my book.” His dreamy look is quickly replaced with a startled realization, and his very next line is “Oh, tea!” He then scurries over to the fire to retrieve the kettle of boiling water and pours it into a cup on the table. This scene is shown with a medium shot featuring the entirety of Bilbo’s delightful kitchen. The room is a warm yellow filled with natural sunlight and stocked with fresh loaves of bread; jars of honey; plates filled with tomatoes, generous wedges of cheese, muffins, and slices of toast; baskets overflowing with fresh produce; and a full supply of cooking implements such as pots and jars. These two scenes are examples of the movie’s consistent juxtaposition of adventure and food (and its connection to the home) and food’s triumph over wanderlust. The fear that fuels this adventure is that Sauron will “cover all the lands in a second darkness.” Midway through the movie, Frodo is reminded of his threat when he is given a chance to see into the future that will exist if he fails his task. He sees his home, the Shire, destroyed by the hand of Sauron. The green hills of are turned into a smoking wasteland, the market which once held displays of vegetables and meats is a pile of glowing embers, and the jolly hobbits are miserable, enchained slaves. With hobbits, the veneration of both food and the land are intimately linked. The start of the film features a voice over that is emphasized by an accompanying black screen. It claims, “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.” This idea that the land conveys information, positive or negative, and evokes emotions exists in a world that maps the quality and enjoyableness of food onto its proximity to the land. The Shire is an insulated and self-sustaining place. In the same shot that meat is displayed at the market, the animals that are destined to fill the same stalls are shown roaming and feeding off the land. The produce from these self same markets fills Bilbo’s baskets in his kitchen. After welcoming him in the door, Bilbo proudly offers Gandalf “a bottle of the old vineyard,” a product of his land, that was “laid down by [his] father.” When the hobbits leave the Shire to embark on their journey, they fear the loss of their culture. Pippin worries that their traveling companion, the man Aragorn, does not observe all the meals that hobbits enjoy. With concern, in reference to breakfast he says, “We’ve had one, yes. What about second breakfast? What about elevenses? Luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper? He knows about those doesn’t he?” Away from the Shire and on the road, cultural identity based on food is in danger. The threat also looms that they themselves will become food. Bilbo describes his encounter with the trolls saying, “They were all arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to cook us. Whether it be turned on a spit or whether they should sit on us one by one and squash us to jelly.” This threat met the fellowship outside of the mines of Moria when tentacles shot out of the waters to grab the hobbits and an enormous lake monster reared its ugly head and opened its gaping mouth to eat them. In contrast to these fears and loos of culture that generally characterize life on the road, one of the greatest moments of fraternity and harmony of the tenuously connected fellowship occurred on passage south. There, as a hobbit, Sam, cooked a very typical hobbit fare of sausages, tomatoes, chicken, and bread, around him, the fellowship, in a rare display of unity, jokes, teaches, and cheer each other on. Although a path of discord, fighting, and danger awaits them, in this section of their road, a homelike atmosphere pervades as the aromas of sizzling food sweetened the crag of their camp. Towering over martial prowess or the evil forces that encroach, this scene of great accord, celebrates the very lifestyle that the journey seeks to protect.. Around the pot, adventure is tamed and simplicity and harmony rule.

An Exploration of Food and Civility by Sierra Smith The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a film franchise adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel series of the same title, made its mark on the film industry with the release of its first adaptation in 2001. One of the most memorable food scenes from the franchise occurs in The Two Towers, the second of the three films released in 2002, in which Gollum and Samwise Gamgee argue over how to eat rabbits, bringing to a boiling point the tension between the pair. The clash between Sam and Gollum is a clash of two vastly different personalities (the unfailingly moral and loyal Sam versus the immoral and self-serving Gollum), but it’s also a clash between two extremely different approaches to food. Visually, the film provides a juxtaposition between these two approaches to food by cutting from the image of the raw to the image of the cooked. In his attempt to bond with Frodo over food, Gollum catches two rabbits and presents them to Frodo as an offering. Gollum tries to earn Frodo’s trust by digging into one of the rabbits himself, eating it raw without skinning it or undergoing any preparation whatsoever. A horrified and offended Sam seizes the rabbits, claiming that “there’s only one way to eat a brace of conies” (1:41). Immediately, the film cuts to a stew boiling in a pot over a fire, depicting Sam’s method of cooking as an opposition to the rawness of Gollum’s meal. As unyielding as Sam is with his morals and loyalty to Frodo, he is the same with his food, firm in his belief that food should be something enjoyed for artistry and taste as much as it is nourishment. Sam emphasizes flavor in his food, fantasizing about the ingredients he would add to his stew if they were available, saying, “What we need’s a few good taters” (1:42). Sam thinks in terms of taste, imagining traditional ingredients that would have improved the quality of his meal if they were at his disposal. His relationship to food, though he’s not a chef so to speak, closely resembles the relationship that Krautkramer describes between restaurant chefs and their food. He says that restaurant chefs have a duty to cook to the food, meaning “they should intend to create food that is artfully made using expert techniques, drawing out optimal flavor, texture, and color, and in which the ingredients often produce complex, original, and stimulating cuisine,” while “honoring the abilities of the ingredients to create something greater than when they stand alone” (251). Sam’s responsibility to the food, demonstrated by his desire to make it better than it is by his own standards, resembles a restaurant chef’s duty to food, and also mirrors Sam’s unrelenting dedication to the people and foundations of beliefs in his life that he values as much as food. Food for Sam, like life, should be done properly, thus ensuring that it is rich and equally satisfying. For Gollum, however, food is most enjoyable when left raw. When Sam cooks the rabbits that Gollum caught in a stew, Gollum screams at him, “You ruins it!… Give it to us raw” (1:42). The emphasis on the raw is what distinguishes Gollum as being more uncivilized than the hobbits. Whereas Sam’s stew retains as much refinement as possible in a setting outside of civilization, Gollum’s preference for meat in its raw form elicits animalistic connotations, casting a danger and vulgarity about him that the hobbits lack. The film gauges the civility and humanity of its characters based on their food habits. Sam’s more refined taste correlates with his morality, and Gollum’s proclivity for the raw indicates his more violent and brutish nature. Works Cited Krautkramer, Christian J. “Duty to Cook: Exploring the Intents and Ethics of Home and Restaurant Cuisine.” Food and Philosophy: Eat, Think, and Be Merry. Edited by Fritz Allhoft and Dave Munroe, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Directed by Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, 2002.

Could a Warm, Home-Cooked Meal Thaw a Frozen Heart? by Christian Villacres “You are young. You can dream. And for some time you let me into your dreams. And I want to thank you for that.” (Saajan Fernandes) The 2013 film, The Lunchbox, recounts the story of Saajan Fernandes, an emotionally dejected man, who has distanced himself from the rest of society following the death of his wife. At the commencement of the story, Saajan is about to retire from his position as an accountant, a position that he has held for twenty-five years. Before he leaves the company, he is tasked with training a young man, named Shaikh, to replace him. Coinciding with these events, Ila is a young wife trying desperately to regain the affection of her neglectful husband by impressing him with her delicious packed lunches. Through an unlikely mix-up, however, Ila’s love-imbued, home-cooked meals are mistakenly delivered to Saajan instead. The sharing of food between Saajan and Ila doubles as a sharing of sentiment, and eventually the pair form a supportive bond. In fact, it is this very food that breathes a rejuvenating air into the lives of both Saajan and Ila. Observable through the facets of everyday life, this bond allows the pair to regain control over their lives. Shaikh’s cheery and friendly nature perfectly juxtaposes Saajan’s despondent outlook on life. For this reason, it is no surprise that from the moment the two men met, Saajan found Shaikh to be quite nettlesome. In fact, early on in the film, Saajan would go great lengths in order to avoid having to interact with Shaikh in any manner. This system of avoidance and indifference was one that Saajan applied to several other aspects of his life. For instance, Saajan is depicted as being rather cold towards children, and in one scene even refused to return a cricket ball that had landed on his balcony to a group of young children playing in the street. However, it was Shaikh who made Saajan realize that this game of office ‘hide and seek’ could not continue, as, after all, Shaikh was supposed to be his replacement, and had received no prior training. This scene shows that Saajan fits the crotchety, old neighbor archetype perfectly. It seems as if Saajan will live the rest of his days this way. That is until he begins receiving the packed lunches from Ila, and this is where the true transformation begins. From the first day Saajan mistakenly receives one of Ila’s packed lunches, an immediate change can be noticed in him. Having grown accustomed to the monotonous, lackluster food he had been receiving from a paid service, Saajan was staggered upon taking the first bite of Ila’s home-cooked meal. His joy is apparent, as he hurriedly devours the entire meal, and he is so impressed, in fact, that he makes a trip to the kitchen he usually receives his food from and personally requests that they continue to cook food of that quality. From this point on, Saajan begins to undergo an emotional metamorphosis. With every day, a new packed lunch from Ila is delivered to Saajan, and he gradually abandons his dreary manner. The cinematography utilized at this point in the film visibly reflects this turning point in Saajan’s life, as from that point on the film gains a brighter, more lively filter. This outwards transformation is most apparent through the development of his relationship with Shaikh. One day, Shaikh decides to start having lunch with Saajan. Seeing that Shaikh had a paltry lunch every day, Saajan began to share his home-cooked meal, and it is almost as if he is sharing a personal treasure with Shaikh. This change in character can be encapsulated in this medium shot still of Shaikh and Saajan sharing a meal. In this shot the lighting is bright, and Saajan is smiling. These two details make Saajan seem absolutely radiant, and this change is apparent, as Shaikh whimsically comments that he is glowing, as if he had just discovered a flowering love. A similar shot was taken earlier in the movie of Shaikh and Saajan sharing a meal. The tone of the earlier shot, however, is far more glum, which can be attributed to the more bleak cinematography utilized in this shot. The change in cinematography between the two shots signalizes the transition Saajan makes from an unhappy life to a more fulfilling one. The second, deeper change Saajan experienced was caused by the bond he formed with Ila over the course of the movie. This bond began simply. At first, Saajan was just happy finally to have a good meal, and Ila was happy that someone was appreciative of her cooking. This relationship soon blossomed, however, into something far more complex and meaningful. Through the passing of notes within the lunchbox, Ila and Saajan offer each other a glimpse into their lives. The two become reliant on one another and help each other realize why their lives have been wrought with unhappiness. Near the end of the movie, this bond was on the verge of becoming something completely different. Was it romance? Was Saajan in love, or was he just longing for what he once had? Was Ila in love, or was she just longing for something she had never had? The audience is left having to make assumptions to answer these questions, but one thing we know for sure is that: yes, a warm, home-cooked meal can thaw a frozen heart. Work Cited Batra, Ritesh, Guneet Monga, Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and Lillete Dubey. Sony Pictures Classics. The Lunchbox. 2014.