Ordinary dishes in film are more than just a meal. Although audiences often remember these scenes for the food itself, filmmakers rarely include them to stimulate appetite. Rather than simply as a visual pleasure, food in film functions as a cinematic language that communicates emotions, social status, memory, and more.
The Taste of Things (2023) by Tran Anh Hung conveys the delicate language of love and devotion through the dishes a character cooks. The movie follows Eugenie and Dodin, a cook and a gourmet who spent years cooking exquisite dishes together. For years, their love towards each other grew slowly and warmly. As Eugenie suffers from an unknown sickness, a careful devotion of love from Dodin is conveyed through the quiet rituals of cooking. The film itself devotes most of its scenes to showing the careful and quiet process of cooking each dish, rather than focusing on the dialogue. As the audience observes the silent yet warm cooking process, without even realizing it, they can feel Dodin's love.
(Hung, 2023)
The film starts off with a long sequence of almost 30 minutes showing a delicate and intricate process of cooking made from the collaboration of Eugenie and Dodin. Every movement—the chopping of vegetables, the careful preparation of ingredients, the patience required to complete each dish—becomes an act of affection. Their cooking together shows partnership and their naturally flowing relationship. However, when Dodin cooks for sick Eugenie, it is even more delicate and slow. It is a reversal of usual roles and becomes a clear act of love and caring.
Through careful presentation of cooking, the audience is able to almost feel the warmth and the emotion inside the film. Film Scholar Laura U. Marks defines this concept of haptic visuality, which is how "the eyes themselves function like organs of touch" in films. The camera focuses on each dish and on the characters' hands moving rather than their faces, and only the quiet sounds of boiling and cutting are heard. This draws attention to the cooking itself rather than the narrative or the characters, creating an immersive experience for the audience. Instead of simply creating or observing the steps of cooking, the audience is able to feel and experience the warmth and texture of them, creating a strong connection to Dodin's affection without explicitly telling. The audience understands the emotional bond between the characters not because they say "I love you," but because they dedicate time, effort, and attention to preparing food for one another.
The Korean title of this movie, French Soup (2023), adds even more meaning to the affection that the dishes convey. This decision compares their devotion to French soup, which, in the film, is depicted as a dish that takes the longest time and effort to prepare. Their love was like a French soup, boiling slowly and deeply as time goes by.
(Bong, 2019)
The irony of the dish itself often reflects the situation of the characters in a film. The famous scene of Ram-Don with sirloin steak from Parasite (2019) plays a much more significant role than simply arousing appetite; it reflects social inequality. Parasite (2019) by Bong Joon-ho follows the Kim family who suffer from poverty and try to blend into the wealthy Park family's life by disguising themselves as professionals. The tensions of inequality and hierarchy are revealed as the two families entangle over time. This inequality and the characters themself are represented by this iconic dish.
Ram-Don is a mixture of two different Korean ramen, and it is a popular and cheap dish that people enjoy. In the film, however, Mrs. Park from a wealthy family orders her maid, Chung-sook, to add expensive beef to it. Since it is a common and cheap dish culturally, adding something so expensive almost creates a sense of unusual discomfort for the audience who are familiar with the original Ram-Don.
When Ms. Park orders Chung-sook to cook her a Ram-Don, the difference in the shots and shot speed reflects the difference in their social status. While Chung-sook's cooking scene is rushed with shaky camera movement and rapid cuts, Ms. Park eats the dish slowly and elegantly, with a camera moving gently around her. The power of Mrs. Park to make Chung-sook participate in urgent labor and Mrs. Park's contrasting relaxed consumption creates the sense of ineuqality between them.
While Ram-Don is a cheap convenience food, Ms. Park orders Ms. Kim to put a sirloin steak in it. This creates a certain sense of irony, where two different levels of wealth coexist in one dish. Not only depicting the authority of the Park family to turn every little thing into luxury, but it also depicts the Kim family of sneaking into a wealthy family and trying to blend in, just like a cheap ramen blended in with a steak. The cheap ramen occupies the same bowl as the expensive steak, indicating the two families occupying and trying to take control over the same house.
Not the cooking process or the dish itself, but the act of tasting the food can also give a whole different meaning.
Food possesses a unique ability to trigger memories, making it one of cinema's most effective storytelling devices, as shown in Attila Marcel (2013) by Sylvain Chomet. Attila Marcel (2013) follows Paul, a pianist with childhood trauma of losing his parents. Without even remembering his traumatic childhood experience, he remained silent throughout his life until he met his neighbor, Madame Proust. Through Madame Proust's herbal tea and madeleines, he confronts his repressed memories, discovering himself as well as healing from his past experiences.
(Chomet, 2013)
Madeleines and herbal tea play an apparent role in this film: triggering memories and healing one's mind. In the film, it seems even magical how a bite of madeleine and a sip of tea bring Paul into his memories. However, it was not magic; in fact, it served as a bridge between mind and senses, bringing back his lost memories.
The film is likely influenced by In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, which explains the choice of including madeleines and herbal tea. In the novel, Marcel Proust described a similar sensation that he felt when he tasted a little madeleine and tea, saying, "An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached … And suddenly the memory revealed itself." (p.48) Similarly, a piece of madeleine played a role in unconsciously recalling his lost memories. Proust and Involuntary Retrieval (2024) suggests that his novel became sensational due to the exploration of a specific recall of involuntary memory, which "does not involve consciousness and whose starting point is an emotion provoked by a specific cue." (Pascale, David, 2024) Connecting the mind and senses, the meaning that a tea and madeliene holds had made them more than just a sweet deserts.
Food is a universal language, like certain dishes from a mother bringing back childhood memories. The audience can clearly see what each dish meant to the characters: the slow and quiet devotion he put into the dishes for Eugenie; the inequality and desire for wealth a bowl of ramen holds; a madeleine and herbal tea bringing back lost memories. With each movie depicting love, class, and memory through cooking and consuming the food, they suggest that food can express something more sophisticated. The whole process of cooking and tasting the food in each film was not to make the audience hungry, but to make them understand the depth.
Citation
Gisquet-Verrier, Pascale & Riccio, David. (2024). Proust and involuntary retrieval. Frontiers in Psychology. 15. 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1235098.
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