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The
Rant
May 1, 2005
Sir Francis Bacon, father of scientific deduction, met his maker after stuffing a chicken with snow. Sir was experimenting to see whether he could preserve meats with the white stuff. Apparently he caught pneumonia from his poultry experiment and, sadly, slipped off the old mortal coil rather sharpish. Some chicken.
If I had caught MY pneumonia stuffing a bird I would have been stuffing it with breadcrumbs, savoury and onions thank you very much. However, mine was the less unique by-product of a tenacious influenza that had me housebound recently for a couple of weeks. Those dark days put the kibosh on any planned restaurant visits so; I was forced to dine out vicariously by watching some of my very favourite food movies.
Big Night, starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub is a sweet homage to real Italian food. Two brothers, Primo (Shaloub) and Secondo (Tucci) travel to America to open a restaurant that will serve Americans genuine Italian food such as risotto instead of American concoctions like, spaghetti and meatballs. It’s a tough sell. In a humourous early scene a woman who is unhappy with her risotto, before she’s even tasted it, requests a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Secondo explains that their spaghetti does not come with meatballs. The woman is flabbergasted. Next, Tucci, as Secondo beautifully delivers one of the movie’s most hilarious lines, made even funnier by Secondo’s attempt to ignore the fact that his customer is about to have a stroke. In quiet, calm, measured tones he says, “No…sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.”
With the bank about to foreclose Secondo seeks help from his friend Pascal (Ian Holm) who, coincidentally, owns a wildly successful “spaghetti and meatballs” joint across the street. Primo’s relationship with Pascal is a tad less warm. (“That man should be in prison for the food he serves.” and “Do you know what goes on in that restaurant every night? RAPE!!”) Nevertheless Pascal comes to their rescue with a plan. He will arrange to have his pal, the famous musician Louis Prima come to their restaurant for a special meal and the resulting publicity will make their restaurant famous. This “big” night will be their last, big chance.
The rest of the movie is all about their preparations for Louis Prima’s big dinner, a huge feast attended by twenty or so of their friends. I loved all the kitchen scenes where the meal is being prepared but the piece de resistance is the dinner itself. It starts with a long, lingering pan of the beautifully arranged table. It has shiny cutlery, fresh flowers, crisp folded napkins, sparkling glasses and bottles of wine. Then, a parade of some of the most beautiful food you’ll ever see on film. It’s a succession of soup (la zuppa) three kinds of risotto and timpano (i primi) roasted chickens, grilled whole fish, roasted whole pig and vegetable dishes (i secondi) and fresh fruit and nuts (i dolci).
 The star of the banquet is the timpano. When Phyllis (Secondo’s girlfriend) asks what it is, Primo explains, “Timpano is a pasta with a special crust. It’s shaped like a drum and inside…the most important things in the world.” (Actually it’s stuffed with various cooked meats, seasonings, hard-cooked eggs and cooked tubular pasta.) You’ll see it being made in the movie and will no doubt enjoy seeing the reverence with which the brothers treat their precious timpano. For example, when it comes out of the oven, in a scene reminiscent of a silent melodrama, we see both brothers gingerly unmoulding it, followed by close-ups of the pair tapping it and putting their ears to it like physicians checking a patient, instead of cooks checking for doneness. Finally, a long knife cuts into it and an absolutely mouth-watering invention is revealed…somewhat like the movie itself.
Mostly Martha is a slightly more serious film starring German actress Martina Gedeck as Martha Klein, the brilliant but temperamental chef of The Lido. Early in the movie a tragedy occurs; Martha’s sister is killed in a car crash and Martha Klein is left to look after her sister’s eight-year-old daughter, Lina. Their difficult relationship becomes the focus of the film, along with a secondary relationship with her new sous chef Mario (Sergio Castellito).
To get away from her problems Martha continually retreats to her home and restaurant kitchens where she throws herself into the cooking process, or she deliberately preoccupies herself with thoughts about food and cooking. Even sessions with her analyst are filled with food chatter. (“Truffles are perfect for any pigeon dish because of the delicate pigeon flavour.”…”Logistics is half the battle in cooking.”…”Napoleon’s (chef) Casaro could not get mascarpone right.”)
I loved the restaurant scenes in this movie, especially the ones where an indignant Martha storms into the dining room to accost someone who has been foolish enough to complain about her food. In one scene a man complains that her foie gras is undercooked. She responds by lecturing him on the proper way to cook foie gras, complete with poaching times and temperatures. Unfazed, the man still insists that his foie gras is undercooked. Turning to the server, Martha says, “It’s like casting pearls before swine!”
My favourite tempestuous scene is where Martha confronts a diner who has repeatedly sent back a steak, claiming it isn’t rare enough. Finally, not being able to take this effrontery any more Martha appears at his table with a bloody raw steak dangling from the point of her sharp knife. She stabs it into the middle of his table and when the server rushes to remove the steak and replace the cloth, Martha grabs the tablecloth and pulls it off the table, dishes and all. It is a truly riveting scene.
Those looking for loving close-ups of beautiful food won’t feel shortchanged by this movie. Mostly Martha’s opening sequence shows the blue flame of the gas burners followed by celery being chopped, pasta and ravioli being made (as well as gnocchi) oysters being opened, oils being infused, lemons zested and elaborate desserts being finished-off. Later kitchen scenes have some fabulous overhead shots of food being prepared during the busy dinner service.
My favourite food scene in this movie shows Martha, Lina and Mario having a picnic of simple Italian food on Martha’s living room floor. Mario insists they not use plates or forks so you see all three happily munching on pasta, prosciutto, asparagus, eggplant and peppers while grabbing handfuls of each from one common plate. Actually, that’s something that I wouldn’t mind having a go at sometime.
Eat Drink Man Woman is a film by Ang Lee and stars Sihung Lung as Mr. Chu, a true master in the art of Chinese cookery and one of Taiwan’s greatest chefs. It’s another “relationships” movie, this time about an old man’s relationship with each of his three daughters, as well as their relationships with their suitors.
Much of the dramatic tension in this movie happens during the ritual family Sunday dinner. It’s these dinner scenes and scenes immediately previous where you’ll see the best food and cooking footage. For example, you’ll see a live carp being dispatched, split, gutted, filleted and the fillets floured and cooked in hot oil. This is followed by shots of squid being delicately scored by a meat cleaver, bacon sliced, onions chopped, greens washed, vegetables steamed and dumplings stuffed. Then watch for plated dishes like spare ribs, crab with vegetables, shrimp with green peas, bean sprouts with sliced chicken, bitter melon soup, tsu-an-tofu (tofu with chicken) carp with garlic sauce, duck oil sautéed pea sprouts and tofu dumplings. Believe me, this movie will have you rushing to the nearest Chinese take-out not long after you’ve rushed to the nearest video store.
Babette’s Feast is arguably the best and certainly the most famous food movie ever made. It stars Stephane Audran as Babette Hersant. Isak Dinesen wrote the short story on which the film is based. Two pious sisters, Phillipa and Martina live a life devoted to God by performing good works in a tiny, isolated village on the bleak west coast of Denmark. One day a woman named Babette shows up at their door with a letter of introduction from an old family friend in Paris. Babette has fled France and Paris because of violent revolution. The sisters agree to shelter her and she becomes their live-in housekeeper and cook. What they don’t know is that Babette is the former head chef of the great Parisian restaurant, Café Anglais. She is a true culinary genius.
Fifteen years later Babette is still with the sisters when she wins a French lottery, netting her 10,000 francs. She asks the sisters for the favour of cooking for them and their friends a real French meal to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of their father’s birth. They reluctantly agree, having been swayed by the fact that it is the first time Babette has asked anything from them, more than by Babette’s insistence on paying for the meal herself.
Babette asks for a week off to travel and obtain the various ingredients for the special meal. When she returns the sisters are convinced that she must be some kind of witch in league with Lucifer, because she has brought with her cages containing live birds, a live giant turtle and, heaven forbid, alcohol. Unfortunately for Phillipa and Martina it’s too late to put the brakes on Babette’s dinner, so, in a move to mitigate any divine retribution brought on by their participation, they and their equally pious friends fervently pray for advance forgiveness from the Lord.
The feast scenes in Babette’s Feast are exquisite. There are many wonderful shots of the food being prepared. I recall quail being stuffed with some sort of pate and black truffles, then placed in a puff pastry shell and roasted (later to be served with a deep, rich sauce). This, by the way, was Babette’s signature dish from the Café Anglais, called cailles en sarcophage (literally, quail in a coffin).
The feast consisted of the following items, all seen in glorious close-up detail: turtle soup, served with an authentic amontillado, blinis (small pancakes) topped with sour cream and caviar, served with champagne (Veuve Clicquot, 1860) cailles en sarcophage, served with Clos de Vougeot, 1845, a leafy salad, cheeses, cake with candied fruit and brandy syrup, more fresh fruit (including grapes, pineapple, figs and papaya) and coffee with the digestif, la fine champagne.
Babette’s French meal profoundly affects the sisters and invited guests. Towards the end of the movie Martina embraces Babette and in reference to the afterlife says, “How you will delight all the angels.” And how Babette’s Feast delighted me, as well as all the other favourite food movies I watched during my recent brief exile.
These movies are not easy to find but most can be rented from either Capitol Video on Military Road or Blockbuster Video.
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