Edited by Chiara Almonte
In films, the food is hardly just food. It is a way to highlight everyday life, tradition, power, desire, morality, to tell the personality of the characters through the way they eat or how they order at the restaurant, even to signal the director's passion for food, as in the Quentin Tarantino's film.
Sometimes they are stereotypes like Homer Simpson's doughnut o pizza for Joey Tribbiani in Friends.
Katz's Delicatessen became iconic in New York thanks to the scene in the film 'When Harry Met Sally'where Harry bit into his thick pastrami and everyone knows what Sally did! And the lady at the next table 'What the young lady took'.
On other occasions it becomes recognisable for the film itself such as, and here we are talking about a drink, the legendary White Russian from The Great Lebowsky.
The food is the one topic we all talk about all the time. Probably because we all eat, some more and some less we all like to eat, we cook, we shop. Somehow, we always end up talking about something related to food. But in these films, food has become iconic and it is hard not to be fascinated by it.
THE SAUCE FROM 'THE GODFATHER
"Come here uagliò, it may happen that you have to cook for about twenty children! You see, you start with a little oil, you fry a clove of garlic in it, then you add tomato and a little conserve. Fry it and be careful that it doesn't stick; when it all boils you throw in the sausages and pulpetta, then you put in a splash of wine and nù pucurille 'e zucchero'.
The sauce recipe with sausage and meatballs from 'The Godfather' is an Italian-American tradition. Tradition, attachment to family, values typical of the Italian-American mafia at that time. How to signal a metaphor by turning it into a sauce recipe. Spaghetti with meatballs is the stereotype of the Italian abroad, an emigrant cuisine that has adapted to the tastes of the new country.
THE APPLE STRUDEL FROM 'INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS'.
In Tarantino's masterpiece 'Inglourious Basterds', the strudel scene is an intriguing play on the director's part.
Behind the offering of the cake lies the ruthlessness of Colonel Hans Landa and the interrogation of Shoshanna, the way Landa eats his slice voraciously and puts out his freshly lit cigarette on it is a metaphor for his cruel character.
Certainly Tarantino sustains the illusion with masterly grace.
THE BIG KAHUNA BURGER FROM PULP FICTION
If you have wondered whether the Big Kahuna Burger is the best burger in Los Angeles, you are not alone.
'Hamburgers. The staple of every vitamin breakfast,' urges Samuel L. Jackson in the infamous scene in which Jules and Vincent pounce early in the morning on the three unfortunates who had wronged Marcellus Wallace, before eating their hamburger taken from the Hawaiians at Big Kahuna Burger. Three minutes talking about hamburgers.
But few people know that the Big Kahuna Burger is a fictitious chain invented by Tarantino that also reappears in his other films.
THE COURTESAN AU CHOCOLAT OF 'THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Mendl's Courtesan au chocolat, Wes Anderson's picturesque, renowned and refined pink and green pastel-white cream puffs made by the beautiful Agatha, which go around the town of Zubrowka in little pink boxes.
If you have a list of cake recipes to try, you will find an extra short film after the film and a recipe you won't be able to resist. They are delicious!
'RATATOUILLE'
'Anyone can cook, but only the intrepid can become great'.
Rémy, the little mouse who 'cooks' from under Linguini's chef's hat. You will remember the critic's pen that falls from the table when he puts a mouthful of ratatouille in his mouth that brings him back as a child. Passion, perseverance, sacrifice, this film has a great moral.
THE 'FORREST GUMP' CHOCOLATES
"Mum always said: life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get". What could be truer than this quote from Tom Hanks, while waiting for a bus sitting at a bus stop in Savannah?
This phrase was listed by the American Film Institute as the 40th best film quote of all time, and it comes to everyone's mind when we open a box of chocolates, indeed, we often say it.
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