Films about food are a great place to talk about cinema. The art of gastronomy and the seventh art, cinema, often form eye-popping partnerships.
To satisfy its readers' hunger for good cultural tips, the iFood News prepared a feast of 7 film options for you to watch with your mouth watering.
“It’s Raining Burgers”
How about starting with lots of excitement? Or for an animation, in this case. In “It’s raining hamburgers”, a Sony production from 2009, a crazy scientist who lives on an isolated island in the Atlantic invents a machine that makes it rain food (and not just hamburgers, as the title suggests).
By the way, a plot with that name could well refer to iFood deliveries. After all, the hamburger it has even been the champion among the most ordered foods on the platform.
"Ratatouille"
But cartoons don't live on fast-food storms alone. Proof of this is "Ratatouille", released by Disney/Pixar in 2007.
The film is set in a city considered the world capital of haute cuisine: Paris. A little mouse and a cook come together to cook dishes in a restaurant in the French capital.
We can say that “Ratatouille” has one of the most touching scenes in the history of cinema regarding the concept of emotional food. But we won’t give “spoilers”; go check it out!
“Tampopo – Brutes Also Eat Spaghetti”
Our journey through gastronomic cinema, or filmic gastronomy, now leaves France and takes the direction of Japan on the food film route.
It is in this eastern country that the “Tampopo – Brutes also eat spaghetti”, from 1985.
Directed by Jûzô Itami, this film tells the story of a widow who asks for the help of a truck driver to set up the perfect ramen restaurant.
Realize that the spaghetti of the title is not the dish that traditionally took on Italian colors. Instead, it is a type of noodle served in a pork or fish, vegetable, and meat-based broth.
The narrative is conducted with great humor and is marked by unusual and even bizarre situations. One of them associates a raw egg yolk with a long kiss, creating a combination between cooking and eroticism.
“Love in the flesh”
Still remaining on the Asian continent and in the area of gastronomic sensuality, we cannot forget the pleasure for the senses that is the film “Love at the surface” (2000), by the Chinese author Wong-Kar Wai.
Here, again oriental noodles appear in a story that the director himself said be initially about food. But it goes much further than that.
In Hong Kong in the 1960s, a man and a woman who are neighbors pass each other in the aisles of the place where they buy noodles.
The exchange of glances and the closeness between the two in these encounters expand into a love story with hints of mystery, betrayal and melancholy, with large portions of aesthetic dazzle.
The dishes served in a scene that takes place in a restaurant are truly to behold.
“Fried Green Tomatoes”
How about, now, enhancing our menu with a little more drama?
It's time, then, to include the American film in this session “Fried green tomatoes”, from 1991.
Based on a book and directed by Jon Avnet, the work is not just another film about food. The film uses gastronomy to explore the flavors of friendship and companionship between two women.
The fried green tomatoes that give the plot its name are a recipe that the two included on the menu of a cafe they opened together.
“The Eater”
A Italy I couldn't be left out of our selection. After all, you eat very well there. Sometimes even too much. An example of this is the film “The Eater”, from 1973.
As the name already suggests, abundance sets the tone of the script. Four middle-aged, successful men meet at a mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
One of these gentlemen with an insatiable appetite is played by Marcello Mastroianni, an actor who made history in world cinema.
"The menu"
We know that many other filmic dishes could fit into this cinematic supper that we offer to the readers of iFood News. But we decided to keep the focus on seven.
Then it's time to close the kitchen with a little suspense.
The recipes presented in the film "The menu" (USA, 2022), directed by Mark Mylod, are very sophisticated.
However, during dinner, the guests lose their poise when they encounter the chef's true intentions.
The film makes an acid critique of haute cuisine and how it contrasts with dilemmas faced by contemporary society.
Do you want to order dessert and coffee? There will be no shortage of opportunities, remembering that eating or drinking something after leaving the cinema – or even during the film – is already a classic.
