Blog Entry #6

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 film; along with cooking a turkey for the Thanksgiving feast (a holiday tradition), every family adds a food that is traditional with their own cultural backgrounds (e.g. spring rolls in the Vietnamese family, mac-and-cheese in the African-American family). By doing this, the families in the film are not only to eat the traditional Thanksgiving feast, but are also able to add their own cultural tastes and flavors into the meal. 

However, despite the various ethnical backgrounds depicted in this film, one moment of the film that stuck out to me was the ending when Joey, the youngest Vietnamese child, shot the gun off and shattered the window. On the first showing of this scene, I was unclear about what happens as I only could hear the gunshot and see everyone's reactions (I thought the boy shot himself in the head and I couldn't take the suspense). The reason that this part of the film was so important is that, due to the gunshot going off, the three other families (African-American, Jewish, and Latino) featured in the film leave their homes (which are actually right next to each other) to see what happened, leaving their own Thanksgiving feasts to join together in the street, asking about what happened or if anyone needed help. To me, this scene is significant because, even though it happens for a brief moment, the main families featured in the film come together and interact with each other for a time; this could represent how, despite the different ethnical backgrounds and personal situations of each family, they all were able to set aside the drama in their own families and come together when necessary.
Image result for turkey thanksgiving
A traditional Thanksgiving feast with a turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and cranberry sauce; save for the turkey, each family in What's Cooking? add their own cultural flavors and foods to the meal

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Entry #8

Image
The film "Tortilla Soup" and the original "Eat Drink Man Woman" share many similar elements with each other. First of all, the overall plot of each film is about a male cook who have lost their senses of taste yet cook incredible meals for their families. In both of these films, the family members consists of three daughters, all of whom are beginning their own adult lives and have started to break away from their family traditions. In addition, the three different paths each daughter takes are similar in both films. For example, the oldest daughter of each family converts to Christianity and also works as a school teacher, while the middle daughter in each film enjoys cooking and shares the same passions as her father, but never pursues that career choice. Finally, the youngest daughter in each film does not have any set career path in her life, and is slightly more rebellious and defiant than the other two. However, one main difference between these two films,...
Read more

Blog Entry #5

Image
As demonstrated in this film, the role of food is not only to reflect on the culture and ethnical backgrounds of those preparing it (i.e. Tita and her family), but also allows one to showcase their own personal identity into the food that they are making. In the film Like Water for Chocolate , the foods themselves have several cultural and national identities, both in the final food product and the ingredients that go into it. Most of the foods cooked in this film have "imported" ingredients, that is to say ingredients that come from other countries to add extra flavor and perhaps even enhance the quality of the food. For example, one of the foods mentioned in the article and from the original novel, Christmas cakes called "tortas de Navidad", is cooked with American ingredients (i.e. chili), thereby crossing both the traditional Mexican taste and American flavors together. In the film however, some of the food cooked maintains the Mexican identity shared by Tita an...
Read more

Blog Entry #2

Image
In Babette's Feast , the initial role of food in the Protestant congregation was to merely have enough to survive and be able to live off of. For example, before Babette arrived, the people in the village primarily ate ale-and-bread soup, not anything too luxurious or exotic for the townspeople to really sink their teeth into. This demonstrates that, for the small congregation of believers in this film, food is not anything more than a needs for survival, and is not seen as a form of culinary art and exotic taste. Due to this, the congregation have sacrificed their own senses of pleasure and enjoyment and have repressed their emotions for the sake of their religious beliefs, which is of more importance to them. However, despite the congregation's agreement to remain indifferent about the feast that Babette prepares, the colorful, exotic foods eaten by the group (as opposed to the bland, plain soup they're used to eating) eventually succeeds in evoking repressed emotion...
Read more