We've all experienced it: you're sitting in a dark movie theater and the seats, walls and sounds of other peoples' muffled farts melt away because you're so enraptured with the story. And, inevitably, as you're knee deep in this fictional film world, you'll experience some savory scenes of sumptuous food spreads that make your tongue swell, your nostrils flare and your belly yearn.
Oh, Daddy...
So it's only natural that this food blog would offer up a little countdown of the top five food spreads in cinema history.
Now, we're not talking about food moments (the slicing of garlic with a razor blade in Goodfellas, the kinky food fight in Fried Green Tomatoes, or ample food-making scenes in Julie & Julia, for example).
We're talking about the slow-pan of the camera across an incredible bounty of beautiful foods that ignite your deepest, darkest appetites.
For the sake of consistency, I'll give a synopsis of Jurassic Park. But, for the record, if you aren't already familiar with this film, I have no respect for you. It's a pop-culture must-have.
So the movie goes like this: a rich, old man hires a team of catalog fashion models to become scientists and bring dinosaurs back to life. A theme park is created, the old man invites dinosaur experts for a maiden tour, the park's security goes haywire and CGI dinosaurs start eating lawyers off toilet seats.
Remember the part when, after a couple dozen hours of running from fake dinosaurs through the fake jungle, those two annoying kids finally reach safety at the compound? Well, the filthy children stumble upon a catered banquet of every food imaginable. The audience sees a spread that offers all the deliciousness a movie food spread should. (Although I assert that if a poll was taken, the audience would have voted for that blonde girl to just go hungry as punishment for being so unbearable ["He left us! He left us!"] but that's beside the point.) The Jurassic Park food spread covers all the bases and that's why it's our #5.
Now, this is definitely a foodie's film. And a love-maker's film. And it's foreign so things get pretty nuts. Here's the premise: cute boy marries girl he doesn't love, he falls for his wife's little sister and they share their love through baby sister's amazing creations in the kitchen. And for one memorable meal, she uses rose petals to flavor quail meat.
As the household sits down to eat, the audience sees a food spread that is all about quality, not quantity. The camera slowly pans across a gorgeous table filled with the slightly charred quails surrounded by crimson rose petals. Everyone eats it, feels the passion and practically does a series of group kegels together (even the dry-crotched matriarch of the household starts to sweat). One of the female diners actually busts open the top of her dress and starts getting her manual rubbin's on...right at the table. Then a very sexy Hell breaks loose and the masturbating lady runs to the outhouse to take a sensual shower. A nearby soldier smells her vag from miles away and scoops her naked body up onto his horse for a very painful looking bone-down.
Talk about a spread.
Yeah, I know, what the eff am I thinking with this one? I'm thinking that my editor didn't tell me this had to be a blog about human food. The Land Before Time is all about some adorable baby dinosaurs that lost track of their parents in a mass dino-move to a utopian valley. So they try to catch up and they have all sorts of scary misadventures on their journey. And they hardly have any food.
After their exhausting expedition, they reach the Garden of Eden-like Valley. The waterfalls are sparkling like diamonds, the ponds are crystal blue and the fields of grass look as scrumptious as a steak dinner. I swear to you, I've never wanted to mow down on a bed of grass so bad in my life. Watching that scene makes me feel like a cat with a stomach ache. And I figure, being that this "food" spread looked so good that it made me want to deviate from my human diet, it deserves a rank. And, to top it off, the scene doubles as an emotional bounty - twenty seconds in on the damn YouTube clip and I was a snotty-crybaby bitch.
2. Hook, 1991
Okay, back to human food. Hook is a wonderfully delightful tale about Peter Pan. Only this Peter ditched Never Neverland and became a very hairy and slightly overweight man named Robin Williams. But Captain Hook is pissed that Peter abandoned him. So he steals Peter's real-life children. Peter goes to Never Neverland and fails miserably when he tries to save his kids. Then he's repeatedly humiliated by a very intimidating gang of thuggish Lost Boys - all 11 years old or younger.
So the scene that will forever go down in infamy is when Peter sits to eat with this unruly crew. He's starving from a full day of cardio and can't wait to dig into the glorious spread. When the lids are ripped off, he's disappointed to only find steam. You see, he has to use his imagination in order to see the bounty. And once he gets the hang of it, holy shit, you will see the goddamn most glorious spread of turkey legs, pies, weird Jell-O desserts and all kinds of crazy, crazy goodness.
Unfortunately, what follows is a very uncomfortable scene in which the very young Lost Boys are chanting to the very adult Robin Williams, "You're doing it, Peter, you're playing with us!" over and over again. But the food looks amazing. Just make sure your kids know that "doing it" or "playing" with a grown up peter is a bad, bad thing.
This really is a no-brainer. Do I even have to explain this one?
The unforgettable characters in this film experience the tour of a lifetime when they are guided through the top secret factory of England's most famous candy man, Willy Wonka. The tour starts with a couple wacky rooms (and one scene where there's a group lick of the wallpaper) and then the cast walks through some magical doors that lead to our #1 food spread.
It's a place of "pure imagination" as the accompanying song tells us. And it's the place where all cavities, diabetic shock and yeast infections come from. The room is filled with a magical forest of trees, a pond, overgrown mushrooms and gigantic flowers. But everything, everything is made of candy. Once Willy Wonka stops trying to whip his guests with his cane, he lets them loose and they all stuff their faces with gummy, gooey, yum, yum I'm-gonna-barf-but-I-don't-care-give-me-more treats. It's glorious and it's our #1.
So there you have it. Now you have your excuse to go and binge eat...I mean, that's what you food blog readers do anyway, right?
