food museum blog

Dying Among the Pomegranates

A young U.S. Marine died recently in Afghanistan. You may have read about him, in this AP story. His name was "Bernie" Bernard, and he was from Maine.

You might have missed that he died in a pomegranate grove. The Taliban, so we are told, were deeply hidden there, among trees whose fruit is symbolic of fertility to Hindus, but, more aptly, a prized specialty of the Gardens of Paradise in the Islamic tradition. The prophet Muhammad was said to be a fan.

A native of Asia--some say India, some Iran--the pomegranate is a key ingredient in the Persian dish, fesenjan, a rich sauce also containing walnuts and oranges, that is often served with chicken.

We well recall the destruction of numerous ancient date palm groves in Iraq, during the current and previous war. A recent film, The Lemon Tree, tells the tale of how a citrus grove literally comes between a Palestinian and an Israeli woman.

I have been nurturing a foot high pomegranate plant, started by a friend of mine. It's doing well, in the semi-tropics of Florida, though it is a plant that thrives in arid conditions.

Alas, the 21 year-old  from Maine, with little experience of the wider world, is not thriving as his parents expected he would. He was blown apart among trees whose flowers delight and whose fruits sustain health and bring pleasure.

( Thanks to http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/organic_pomegra.php for photo above.)

"Julie and Julia," The Movie

Why isn't it titled "Julia and Julie," as without Julia Child there likely would have been no blog for Julie Powell, no book, no movie made from the book? Most likely because the blogger in question comes across as a whiny, self-absorbed twit, even with  Amy Adams' customary twinkle in operation.

Yes, this is a food ( and wine) film. And, yes, watching Meryl Streep unwrap and deliver Julia Child is the only reason one might want to rent the future DVD, just to see what she does and when and how she does it. Streep is an actor who uses her entire body in the creation of a persona,  from her feet  all the way up into her coif. ( But, of course, one is not supposed to be avidly scoping out the technical details of an actor's work while watching a film--one wants to be utterly absorbed in a place, a story.)

As a film, this melding of Julie and Julia does not work.  Julie is small and Julia is large. Julie complains and Julia rises above. The director/screen writer Nora Ephron could have made the Julie character more feisty and generous, but presumably the "real" Julie held sway.

And so, as my friend and I watched the film yesterday we were both fighting off sleep during the Julie bits, and rearing awake whenever Julia was on board. And we both recalled that our respective mothers cooked Julia's boeuf bourgignon, which, then as now, closely resembled the less glamorously dubbed  "pot roast," save for the addition of red wine to the former.

The movie will make you run out to buy more butter, and some decent red. And consider how well people back in the day dressed, even with the silly hats.

Mullet, Couscous, the Family, and All That

It was the best of movies, it was the worst of movies, and it certainly was one of the longest movies, ever.  Inexplicably titled  The Secret of the Grain in English, ( Le Graine et le Mullet in French,)  the film is set in southern France, in the pretty port of Sete, one of the many towns we explored in the course of writing our book about the food heritage of France. It revolves around a huge, dynamic Tunisian immigrant family  and their attempts to create a fish and couscous restaurant in an abandoned boat, starting with a huge party on board for the town's movers and shakers. Talk about long story short........while capturing the lively essence of this hard-working group of people, and the delights of couscous and mullet, the director, Abdellatif Kechiche, parks the camera inches from each characters' face.  It was painfully suffocating, as if I were sitting in the front row, and wearing the wrong glasses. He employs maybe 6 long shots, and few midrange shots, in this endless movie.

And where he could have taken 1 minute to establish that an element of the feast was missing, the director lingered 10, maybe 15 minutes, with each character repeatedly saying the same lines.

And yet....the couscous and the mullet, the interrelationships, the performance of one young woman who makes the project happen, are worth renting the DVD for.  You can fast forward! Think of that. Perhaps in his next film, Kechiche will discover the joys of editing.

This line about the movie from NY Times critic A.O. Scott  does zero in on the key element for those of us who relish food in film.

"And the richness of “The Secret of the Grain” — the secret, as it were, of its deep and complex flavor — lies in the close, tireless, enthusiastic attention it pays to the most mundane daily tasks, especially those involving food."

The French Do It Again!

Damned if there isn't a lovely scene of people sitting around a table eating a meal together within minutes of the start of Kristen Scott-Thomas'  flick  Il y a longtemps que je t'aime  ( I've Loved You So Long.)  And, in fact, the characters, young and old alike, are shown eating more than once in the course of the film---maybe even three times a day! ( And preparing food....OMG.)

Now-- the movie is a tour de force for Ms S-T, and I wallowed in the interiors, the eating, etc., but at the end, when you comprehend what the entire film has been based on, you think "Please!"

That said, I was trying to recall the last American film where I noted  anyone fueling up. Maybe the Wild West saga, Appaloosa, directed by Ed Harris. A few of the characters had breakfast in their hotel together, not that I really took in if or what they were eating. I was too distracted by the exorbitant cheeks of Renee Zellweger---she likely ate nothing, so filled were her pouches with nuts--and besides, her lips are always pursed to such an extent that I imagine it is with great effort that she speaks, let alone eats. 

( I know, that was mean. I was truly impressed with the work RZ put into song and dance for her role in Chicago.)

Oh--there was a bag of dog food in Bolt, methinks. ( I never finished watching this--once I learned the dog was being lied to, that was that!)

Soon I will be taking a look at Brooklyn Lobster, a 2006 movie about a threatened family business that must, please, involve some crustacean-nibbling. Maybe even drawn butter.

Two Beers, And A Game

American soldiers in Iraq will watch today's Super Bowl game ( whenever they get it--2 am Baghdad time tomorrow?) accompanied by two beers each. No more.
As the war is officially an alcohol-free zone, this morale-boosting bonanza is apparently being warmly received by military personnel, along with the chance to pretend they are home, with friends and family, enjoying a game.

From an  ESPN report:  "Amazing how something so simple can energize so many people. The menu already has been e-mailed around the base. Sports-bar food: chicken wings, pizza, jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks, beer-battered onion rings. And, of course, the two cold ones. They've heard one of their higher-ups will make everyone sign for the beers, make them drink them inside the dining building and turn in the cans afterward. No funny business. Doesn't matter."

Can they make it last? I suppose even the non-sports people will show up for their brews, knowing the base will most likely not be showing a Coen Brothers retrospective as an alternative.

Food Entrepreneur Newman Slips Off Planet

Paul Newman, the actor who died this weekend, was also the founder of the Newman's Own brand of food products, begun as a lark, that has donated $200 million to charity. It started with salad dressing, brewed up with  writer pal A.E. Hotchner for Christmas gift-giving to family and friends, and now, in its organic configuration, Newman's Own Organics, even produces decent quality pet foods. 

Dare we call Newman a "foodie?" Perhaps, more accurately, a guy who liked decent eats.
According to a piece in the Hartford Courant by Linda Giuca, "He really loved good food, so he was really involved in the business," said Kirsten McKamy, who worked for Newman's Own for eight years. "He wasn't just a figurehead; he came up with ideas."

In 2006 Newman cconceived of another foodish notion--he partnered with chef Michel Nischan to create The Dressing Room restaurant next to the Westport Playhouse in, Westport, Connecticut. The restaurant celebrates regional American food and serves up local produce and meats.

Even Newman's last cinematic endeavor had a food theme-- he provided the narration for a documentary film called The Price of Sugar-- the movie explores the story of Haitian workers brought across the border into the Dominican Republic to labor in the sugar cane fields. Not surprisingly, they are housed in poor conditions, they toil 7 days a week, 14 hours a day, and are expected to be grateful. The Spanish priest who attempts to improve their lives has some success, then is reassigned to a post in Ethiopia.  ( Alas,  apparently there is no oil on the island of Hispaniola.)

At the end of the NYTimes obituary by Aljean Harmetz,  Newman is quoted: “We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

( Newman eats multiple hard-boiled eggs in the 1967 flick, Cool Hand Luke.)

Wall.E ---A Film Promoting Love, Plants, and Giving Up Junk

As many people now know, Wall.E is a trash-collecting robot who finds love in an extremely unattractive environment, our own Planet Earth in the year 2700. The Pixar flick is touching, clever, and a tad too long. The film opens with little Wall.E pursuing his workaday life in the rubble of a trash-filled, people-free Earth. The lone "live" creature there is a resilient cockroach who reminds older (nay, ancient) viewers of the fabled Jiminy Cricket, though the cucaracha has no lines.

Long story short, Wall.E's life begins to change when a probe robot released from a spaceship arrives on Earth and finds a wispy green plant that Wall.E has stashed away with his belongings. The arrival of the plant signals the return of life to Earth and galvanizes the fat, immobilized, junk-food swilling cartoon humans on the Mother Ship into action. Chases and antics ensue, mostly among the robots, because the humans can't even toddle.

Love conquers all, of course, and agriculture is reborn. Fade to credits.

Don't miss the credits! They are riveting, as they present the history of art, animated version. In my view, the film should have ended, and then a screen saying Do Not Leave Yet should have popped up. Because the art finale is superlative.

Wall.E is a not so subtle indictment of Fat America, people.(  BNL, the corporate entity that had taken over Earth in the film, stands for Big N Large.) We were sitting in the so-called Handicapped seats and watched the credits through the mostly weight-challenged people streaming out, many of them dragging or carrying kids, popcorn containers, and drinks.

The food spilled on the carpets in America's Metroplex's could probably feed the people of Bhutan for a day.

ps The cockroach lives inside the one food item on Earth that has not decomposed---a Twinkie-type offering.

CORRECTION, JULY 5---The corporate monolith is Buy 'N Large not Big 'N Large.

People Both Cook and Eat in Foreign Films!

Deliberately paced, filmed without a musical score, the 2007 Belgian movie Private Property starring Isabelle Huppert delighted us recently. The story of a divorced woman living amidst tension with her two lazy adult sons features people both eating--numerous times--and cooking, amazingly enough! Think back through most American films you've seen, however, and doesn't it become apparent the characters live on air and have no kitchens? Many non -US flicks include daily nurturance as a matter of course, on the other hand.  (Off topic, but---For years every French film we watched seemed to include a scene shot through flapping windshield wipers inadequate to handle northern European rainfall.)

Beyond food scenes, look for two remarkable long shots that move the story along from a distance.

Another bonus to us: shot in Belgium in an area where we lived for several years, the movie contains not only views of utter familiarity, but the script references the very real condescension of some  French-speaking Belgians towards their Flemish (Dutch)-speaking neighbors.
( Still from "Private Property", orginally "Nue Propriete," thanks to http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews32/private_property.htm)

Steak vs Hamburger

With all the hooha these past few days about the appetite of a certain New York governor for youthful yet costly flesh apparently not available locally, I couldn't help but recall the jaunty response of Paul Newman years back when asked if he had ever been unfaithful to wife Joanne Woodward.

"Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"  Such a romantic, that Paul!

Now-- we gals do not overtly welcome comparison to cuts of beef, but still, for a food blog, useful.

Pixar's Take On Animated Food--"Ratatouille"