OH so delicious! This afternoon Ken and I went to see The Taste of Things, a French film in which people cook and eat and drink and cook and cook and eat, and that’s about it. No, it’s not, the film is about a great love, about friendship and loyalty and grief, but most of all, it’s about respecting food: how it’s grown, prepared, presented, eaten, analyzed, discussed. What a sublime culture that is.
The film is set in 1889, and every shot is exquisite, a Vermeer. OMG I wanted to smell those dishes, let alone taste them. The audience was moaning, as were the actors as they ate (and I read that the food was not fake, as is usual in films, but real). But at its heart, there’s the love story: gorgeous Juliette Binoche works as cook for expert gourmand and chef, Benoit Magimel, the owner of the chateau where they live and a man deeply in love with her, although she is in charge. The fact that the two actors were once lovers and have a child adds to the depth of emotion on the screen.
Cooking for someone is love. Cooking the way these people cook, with endless little details, is the greatest love of all. It’s a long slow film, and as all the reviews say, you’ll be starving at the end. In fact, I think my relationship to food may be permanently altered. Slow down. Smell. Taste. Taste again. Savour.
Last night, the opposite – the season finale of All Creatures Great and Small, which we do not watch for the cuisine. Of course we knew that James was going to make it home, but still, the detail, the sets, the actors, not to mention the endlessly green countryside – the British side of me loves it all.
Again, my book is haunting me. I was at Indigo today before the film and looked it up on the store’s computer; it’s there but without even an “out of stock” sticker. Just nothing. It’s been out months and is still only available from Ben McNally Books and Mosaic Press. Hope you can find it there. Have received more lovely notes:
