Reel Food & World Cinema

In Mayan culture, chocolate (specifically cocoa) was a major source of consumption. Originally, the Mayans picked beans (also called "seeds") from cocoa trees to eat them, but over time, cocoa beans and chocolate became an element of art and, as time went on, the Mayans began to include chocolate in their artifacts; this included depicting people eating, picking, or preparing chocolate in paintings, drawings, and sketches. In addition, cocoa beans and seeds were used in religious rituals to honor the Mayan Gods and were often called "Food of the Gods"; the chocolate used in these rituals was meant to represent the blood of the gods, similar to how, in Christianity, the bread and wine served at Communion represents the body and blood of Jesus Christ respectively. Due to this, it is clear that chocolate and cocoa beans are a very important element of Mayan culture and have played a large role in the religious practices of the Mayan people. The Mayans also develo...

In the film  What's Cooking?, multiple cultures and ethnic backgrounds are not just represented, but play a more central role in the film's plot. What's Cooking is not just focusing on one specific family or group of people, but rather jumps back and forth between four  different families, all of which are of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds: African-American, Vietnamese, Jewish, and Latino-American. Despite the fact that all four of these families are celebrating Thanksgiving in the traditional way (i.e. cooking a turkey & big meal, eating and getting together with family), each family adds their own cultural taste to the food prepared. For example, the Vietnamese family covers one half of the turkey with spices and leaves the other half normal, thereby adding their own cultural flavors and traditional tastes into the food (despite burning it shortly afterwards and having to order KFC instead). Also, each family combines holiday and personal traditions in this...