Knackered Chef
I suppose one of my main reasons for loving cooking is because of the importance I attach to food. Now obviously eating is as essential as drugs to our survival on this planet but to the side of, and perhaps slightly above, biology, food is of great symbolic importance both philosophically and culturally. In this sense thinking about food in a creative way, is just like cooking, without the washing up or effort. This week I want to fry up a few ideas about the nature of food in society and stir them around a bit with some random gastronomic seasoning.
It seems to me that everywhere I look food is in my face. It has become such a part of our culture that it has taken on a special symbolic significance used creatively as a trope for all aspects of human existence. Consider, perhaps over a joint or two, the famous "Royale with cheese" sequence in Pulp Fiction. Now here we have an example of how global food culture in the form of American fast food has entered into an interesting phase of geographical dialogue. The grottiness of a Big Mac is turned into a glamorous snack by its association with European cuisine. (This has been proved by the recent decision of Burger King to add a Royale with cheese to their UK menu and is a tactic frequently employed by college chefs. ) Fast food reappears in Pulp Fiction during the celebrated Ezekiel execution sequence. The predatorial and bestial gobbling down of Brett's Big Cahuna burger is a brilliant symbol of the killer's delight and determination in his quest which is essentially reduced to a matter of survival. This association of hamburgers and killing with chunky guns is also in the early Tarantino written film, True Romance where Clarence declares after killing his wife's pimp, that the burger he is munching on is "just about the best goddam burger I ever tasted". And there we have it. Burgers and guns meet in these films in a greasy marriage of America's two most unhealthy contributions to the world.
But can England really escape from the jingoistic temptation of waving it's own gastronomic flags? It wasn't so long ago that the sweet melody of Fat Les' vindaloo song (na na na na) came pumping out into pubs and bars in a multicultural symbol of English foodball. But it is not just burgers and curry that have reached such enormous symbolic heights. Take for example, the carrot. In Withanil & I Monty declares the carrot to be "infinitely more beautiful than the rose" in a bizarre scene charged with obvious homoerotic imagery. The cooking scene in Withnail is also packed with innuendo and is worth comparing with the prison cooking scene in Goodfellas, mainly because they are both films which involve a cooking scene. The cast of Neighbours also spend most of their time on screen eating or cooking. What does this tell us?
Well, probably not a lot except that I like food and watching films. But it also shows how a foodist theory of life can be applied to anything. If the point of life is life, which seems as good a point as any, and the point of food is to sustain life, then we might as well conclude that the point of life is food.
1st Jun 2001