Dishes from some of my favorite films

Food finds its way into many films, evoking yearning, desire, or control in how it is prepared to how characters tuck in. Here are some memorable dishes from some of my favorite films.

The big breakfast - “Phantom Thread” Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (2017)

"Welsh rarebit, with a poached egg on top, not too runny, and bacon, scones, butter, cream, jam (not strawberry)… what else… a pot of Lapsang, and some sausages.”

“And some sausages.”

Reynolds Woodcock is picky and wants everything or nothing, in the world of fine design to his breakfast order. The Welsh rarebit tedious to prepare and cloyingly rich, alongside fatty, glistening sausages and dollops of luxurious, opaque cream. It tells us he is particular, set in routine, obsessive with process (Welsh rarebit) and accustomed to his lofty lifestyle, and he is in a way telling this to his soon-to-be lover Alma, who takes his order as his waitress.

Food in the film characterizes what makes the dressmaker tick, like when his beloved Alma clinks her teeth with a spoon like a child or tears into her bread while buttering it.

“It’s too hard to ignore, it’s as if you rode a horse across the room” he says like how a boss would chide their inferior.

She later poisons him by tampering with his fluffy mushroom omelet (with just a pat of butter). Not entirely maliciously but to yank him away from his obsessive work routine to spend time with her. The rustic dishes in a lavish, industrial world also keeps the time period ambiguous, everything moving slowly (the rustic dishes) and with rip roaring speed (shiny industrial cars) at once.

(If you want to make this parade of breakfast dishes, there’s a good Binging with Babish episode).

Ramen with Chashu Pork - “Tampopo” Dir. Jûzô Itami (1985)

A take on the “Spaghetti Westerns” (Westerns made in Europe during the mid-1960s) “Tampopo” is Japan’s response with this “Ramen Western,” a playful tapestry of vignettes surrounding food, love, grief and sex under the umbrella of Japanese culture and heritage.

The comedy follows two truck drivers who pull over on a long commute at a ramen shop to take shelter from a thunderstorm. They sit at the traditional, cramped bar with a classic setup and its anxious owner, Tampopo, who flies around trying to slop together a bowl of noodles under the pressure to impress her only customers for the night.

It’s dingy and dark, and the truck drivers take pity on her after learning she is a mourning widow who took on the ramen shop after her husband died. They decide to help her make the best bowl of ramen. What follows are some vignettes from other characters, such as the Japanese students learning to not slurp soup out of respect when in America (they do anyways after watching another man slurping and relishing his soup as is tradition in Japan), and training montages of Tampopo racing around the shop’s cramped quarters to finish a bowl of ramen within 3 minutes.

We are also treated to a love letter to ramen, with sparingly long lingering shots on a glistening, immaculate bowl of ramen topped with fatty Chashu pork, as if you were leaning over a steaming bowl and eyeing it with an almost reverence.

If you’ve ever made ramen, you’ll know this dish takes a labor of love and patience and discipline to execute the sum of its parts. A bowl of ramen should be harmonious and balanced, each element prepared perfectly on its own and amalgamated together through deeply developed pork or chicken broth that is unctuous and, when executed properly, unforgettable as it melts on the palate and leaves a rich memory.

The camera focuses on the ramen, nothing else is happening or matters outside of it. A “ramen master” lectures their student — a stand-in for the audience — on what makes a perfect bowl of ramen: “jewels of fat glittering on its surface,” the “shinachiku roots shining,” “spring onions floating.” He guides them through the ritual: first to delicately nudge the pork, then slurp the broth three times, then the noodles, then after the proper steps, the Chashu pork. It’s dramatic and pokes at Japanese tradition and obsession with process, but as with most of the film, it comes from a place of humor and familiarity.

Date night steak - “In the Mood For Love” Dir. Wong Kar Wai (2000)

Wong Kar Wai’s films have a near and dear place in my life, being the bridge between popular movies and arthouse cinema. His stories center around love and luck but mostly circumstance. It is neutral and organic, how timing and coincidence can misalign two people or bring them together like in his dreamy and dizzying comedy-drama “Chungking Express.”

“In the Mood for Love” is set in British Hong Kong in the 1960s and follows two people who discover their spouses are cheating on them with each other. They begin seeing each other as they live in the same apartment building, rendezvousing in dark taxis and rainy street corners, brushing past in tight alleyways and cramped hallways on their solitary trips to a local noodle shop.

They begin seeing each other at the same steak house, where bland steaks are served on glowingly green jade plates. Hong Kong during the 60s continued its growth under Western influence as it adopted cultural signifiers like tight dresses and songs sung in English by Cantonese artists. The “Soy Sauce Western cuisine” adapted European cuisine to Chinese tastes, as depicted during their dinner with his pork chop and her steak, potatoes, cabbage and a side of Chinese hot mustard. It feels like what “should happen” during romantic films, and to the characters what a romantic dinner “should be,” especially with the West’s influence through media and pop culture creeping in.

She asks him to order her dinner for her like he would for his wife. He seems comfortable while she at first sits tensely. She chews her food vigorously, as if unsure if she should fill the role of his wife or be herself and relaxed during this intimate setting that’s so different from what we’ve seen so far. He plops a dollop of hot mustard on her plate and she tries it. "Your wife likes spicy things” she says, as she winces but maintains her composure, it shows she wants to take on being a romantic partner and trying things for someone even if it’s difficult. Their conversation is sparse but there’s plenty to ruminate.

Strudel, with cream - “Inglorious Basterds” Dir. Quentin Tarantino (2009)

“Don’t forget the cream”

I asked my mentor friend about his favorite food scene. He said the scene with the flakey strudel in "Inglorious Bastards.”

The one with the whipped cream scooped gracefully and plopped onto strudel, an Austrian dessert, as our villain Austrian SS Officer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) watches Jewish refuge Shoshana scarf down the rich strudel like a cat watching its prey.

He orders himself an espresso and for her, a glass of milk, to which she winces. Landa had murdered her Jewish family after finding them hiding in a dairy farm in France, which she escaped from. He glibly sticks his lit cigarette into the streudel, still half-eaten and tarnished, a delicacy in wartime but disposable to a man with power like Landa.