The image of food in world art has not often been the subject of popular study in Russian journalism. Of the relatively high-profile ones, we can only recall a study of the culinary repertoire in classical Russian literature by the classic gastronomic literary scholar William Pokhlebkin, chapters devoted to lingonberry water in his commentary on Eugene Onegin written by Lotman, plus Weill and Genis in joint and separate books in which the theme of demyana ukha and pork chops is one of the leitmotifs. A couple of years ago there was also a volume on food in cinema, and here is another book on the same theme, published in Rostov-on-Don. It’s a modest edition of a hundred or so pages. “Mysterious Asia”, “Romantic France”, “New World”, “Sophisticated Britain” – the parts of the book structurally reflect the cinematic geography. Italy, the USSR and Spain are missing, but that is the author’s will. After all, the list of the 650 best films published in Afisha is also a kind of reflection of rather subjective taste, let alone a book dedicated not to cinema as such, but to cinema in relation to food
The curious thing is that there are no frames from the films in the book about the films – only illustrations based on them
There are films with a purely culinary theme, such as Julie and Julia, Wing or Foot, Soul Kitchen or Chef, and films where food is not even a background, but a mise-en-scene detail – Titanic, The Matrix, Razorblade Runner. Narratively, each chapter is a three-part structure, where the first briefly describes the cinematic collision and the film’s place in the history of cinema. The second briefly describes the culinary component. And in the third there are two or three recipes, some of which the audience couldn’t help but notice, like the Cosmopolitan cocktail in Sex and the City, and some of which are flashed in a single frame, like the caviar sandwiches with heart-shaped caviar from Titanic or the tuna canapés from Casablanca.
Recipes are not detailed, they are not a goal, but a means. A way of organising a cinematic experience, a repetition of that experience through food. The method is quite common in the home party world, and last year it even became a serious trend in Britain, where a movement called Secret Cinema came into vogue. On a special website on the Internet, people would register, pay money and then be told the theme of the party, say, “Gangster Chicago”. Invitees had to dress according to the dress code of the era and, when they arrived at the appointed place, they found themselves in a recreated speakeasy bar with an appropriate menu and a parallel viewing of Once Upon a Time in America.
It would seem to be no different from a school costume ball, but the careful fitting of individual elements, the combined work of the eyes, ears and taste buds can really transform space, immerse for a while in a world of cinematic reverie, create the illusion of fullness, the warmth of an imaginary life. Vodka, of course, has about the same effect on a person. But vodka, alas, is not tea; you can’t drink too much of it.
