By Aakash Karkare
From steamy spaghetti aglio e olio in "Chef" to the simple joy of street-side pani-puri in "Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein," filmmakers have used food as shorthand for the many complicated ways in which human being fall in love.
In an increasingly digital age, food is very much a reminder that at the end of the day, even though we spend most of our lives interacting with digital technologies, we are still human. It shall remain so, as long as the future promised by science fiction involving ingesting pills that provide all the nutrition humans might require, does not come to pass. It is precisely for this reason that movies use food as a stand-in for a range of emotions, love being the chief one.
Ages ago in film school a documentary professor had remarked that the most emotional, the most dramatic of all filmed content was television recipe shows. These shows turn into what 4d cinema wishes it could be. The mind fills in the blanks from memory. Smells and sounds of cooking in your home kitchens come to you. Nostalgia and warmth is baked into every second of the presentation. A shot of something you enjoyed in childhood, the careful preparation of a street snack, the intricate techniques required for a festive meal, instantly transports the viewer into his or her memories.
From the famous scene in 2014’s Chef where Jon Favreau’s character seduces way-out-of-his league (let’s face it way out of most people’s league) Scarlett Johansson’s Molly by skillfully seasoning, swirling and twirling the most basic of Italian dishes spaghetti aglio e olio for her, to Madhavan’s character falling in love with Dia Mirza’s character in Rehna Hai Tere Dil Main because she decides to get out of the car to savour some street side pani-puri (in a classic manic pixie dream girl moment), food has become indelibly linked with love in the movies. In The Matrix food is the reason that Joe Pantoliano’s Cypher wants to go back into the simulation, all so he can take a bite of the perfect medium rare steak. Julie Ducournau’s French horror film Raw featuring cannibalism is just one of the more outre examples of the use of food in movies. For the purposes of this article, we shall stick to food and love.
Without a doubt, the best example of the various pleasures of edible delights is the Japanese classic of world cinema Tampopo also known as a “ramen western”, one of the central narrative strands of which, is deciding all the elements that go into making the perfect bowl of ramen. Culinary delights intermingle with the pleasures of the flesh and as one of the protagonists, a kooky gangster indulges in all his kinks with his paramour, notably involving an egg yolk. The critical dud 9½ Weeks, mostly famous for the character's passionate expressions of love while standing at the open door of a refrigerator, was eventually parodied in an episode of Seinfeld, inspiring George Costanza to try and convince a date to mix food and night-time activities. The result? His neurological lines get crossed and he finds himself getting aroused by pastrami at a diner. The less said about Last Tango in Paris’ “Go get the butter” scene, the better, but urban legend suggests that it made cinemagoers think twice when using the household fat a few days after the viewing. It would be remiss not to mention When Harry Met Sally when it comes to food and sex but then that scene is more about Meg Ryan’s performance than any edible delight, so it doesn't quite cut it in this article.
What better way to cap off a night well spent than by serving someone breakfast in bed. The late great chef and traveler extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain’s advice to men was that if someone is kind enough to spend the night with you, the least you could do was make them a nice omelet. Notting Hill’s Julia Roberts inverts this message by giving Hugh Grant breakfast in bed. But back in the 90s, with Grant in peak dreamy phase, who wouldn’t? There’s another reason that breakfast is a nice showcase for more amourous pleasures. There are many breakfast items that work as double entendres. “Welsh rarebit with a poached egg,” begins Daniel Day Lewis’ Reynold Woodcook from The Phantom Thread. “Bacon. Scones, butter, cream jam. A pot of Lapsang.” And then pauses before adding with a grin, “and some sausages". Vicky Krieps’s Alma repeats those words returning the grin.
“When a boy comes over, you should always have something in the oven,” Alicia Silverstone’s protagonist from Clueless is told. Baking and sweetmeats of course naturally lend themselves to love and memory. A chocolate shop becomes the central focal point of the delightful 2000 movie Chocolat starring Juliette Binoche as a pastry chef in a small French town in the 1950s and falling in love with Johnny Depp’s self-described river-rat. Aishwarya Rai and Chandrachur Singh too, fall in love, in a bakery in Vasco in West Side Story remake Josh while John Travolta and Uma Thurman elevate the simple drinking of a five-dollar milkshake to pure withering intensity through their gaze into each other’s eyes while, for lack of a better word, sucking on their straws.
Away from double entendres and direct overtures, we have Wong Kar Wai’s simmering In The Mood For Love. Who can forget Yuemeji’s theme playing in the background as the two lonely protagonists go back and forth with their lunchboxes to the ramen shop near their home. The alleys of Hong Kong, the smoke rising in the air from the street food stall and the beauty of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in these sequences is so perfect a mixture of love, and desire, and food that there is no reason to feel heartbroken, spoiler alert, that their characters do not end up together. Food's connection to love is made all the more poignant in Chungking Express where the policeman buys a can of pineapples, his ex’s favourite food, every day with an expiration date of May 1 because it is his birthday, and if she doesn't come back by then their love will have expired as well. Lunchboxes and cross connections are the central plot point of The Lunchbox. The bored office drone played by Irrfan Khan falls in love with Nimrat Kaur’s housewife through a dabbawalla wrongfully delivering a tiffin and a note not meant for him, suggesting that true love does not lie with those you are married to but those who cook delightful meals for you.
Hindi films have a peculiar connection to pani-puri. There’s the scene involving Aamir Khan’s Ghajini’s and Asin in the titular film. A hallmark of her simplicity and his cluelessness when he tries to pay by credit card. Then the aforementioned scene in RHTDM, also repeated in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, echoed in Queen when Kangana Ranaut’s character makes a spicy golgappa for her Italian hunk of a chef and leads to them sharing a kiss. Momos become comfort in Dev D for Abhay Deol’s alcoholic and Kalki Koechlin’s Chanda, while the young startup founders played by Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh in Band Baja Baraat offer each other “bread-pakode ki kasam”. “Bhel-Puri kha rahe the'' sings Govinda to Karishma Kapoor. Because what is more visceral, what sets the mouth watering faster, what takes you back to your first dates, to your own childhood than a plate of chaat? Street food, too, has a nice air of simplicity to it. What better way to showcase love than young men and women locking eyes, brushing hands, when they share pleasures that are available to all regardless of their job status?
Konkana Sen Sharma falls for Ranbir Singh’s slacker in Wake Up Sid when he finally learns how to tidy up and cook some pasta for her, the most basic of dishes. Not enough, in our humble opinion. But men have it easy as the saying goes. In Nayak, which played 36 times in one week on Sony’s Set Max (trivia from an Orkut group that kept count), Anil Kapoor escapes his political life to go to his childhood sweetheart’s home and all she can offer him is stale chapati, onions and chili. “Made by you, anything will do” he says as he bites into the food she feeds him with her hands. Anil Kapoor tries to cement his love with Aishwarya Rai by forcing her to share a bottle of coke with him in Taal. Doesn't quite work when faced up against Akshaye Khanna’s smoldering looks and scarves in the rain. In Chhoti Si Baat, Amol Palekar impresses Vidya Sinha by learning how to eat with chopsticks and knowing exactly what to order in Cafe Samovar at Jehangir Art Gallery so that he chooses him over Asrani. Sigh, if only it were that easy, to have Vidya Sinha fall in love with you.
But food is not restricted to romantic love. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan in Andaaz Apna Apna famously share chai because that strengthens the bond. Jason Segel’s Peter is able to become closer to being Paul Rudd’s friend in I Love You Man by feeding him the best fish tacos in the world. A reason as good as any to become friends with anyone. Both The Godfather and Goodfellas have the perfect scene of male bonding, telling one another how to make the perfect bowl of spaghetti. Unfortunately the method of slicing the garlic with the blades doesn't really add that much to the dish.
The opening sequence of Eat Drink Man Woman is mouthwatering to the extreme, food porn before it was a thing, where the father, a retired chef lovingly prepares a very elaborate meal for his four daughters. In a scene that took a week to film, he scales fish, slaughters a hen, cleans up a duck leaving the viewer craving the meal more than wondering what happens in the rest of the film. Cooking for your family is inverted by The Great Indian Kitchen. Here food becomes the reason for holding people down, by forcing the new bride in a kitchen to constantly take care of her family. Even though the food scenes are shot with the typical flare one can’t help but feel the menace pervading through them. Here, food doesn't become a showcase of love. For once, food is not nostalgia. Those scenes go back into your memories and cast them in a new light. Food here signifies the horror of oppression.
So whether its There Will Be Blood’s menacing tycoon Daniel Plainview telling you that he will “drink your milkshake” to the iconic scene in Lady and the Tramp where shared spaghetti leads to a kiss, food in movies is a many-splendored thing.
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