It's time to get personal.
I spent a little over a decade falling in and out of love with cooking professionally. It’s what I decided I wanted to do from a very young age, something I went to school for, and something I pursued to the point of physical and emotional deterioration, until eventually, I couldn’t continue. Now it’s been hard to say in the past whether or not I’ve lost the spark for cooking or just lost the blind ambition it takes to push yourself to a high degree in a restaurant setting, but I think I’m starting to unpack it all.
Since leaving Chef-dom behind to dive into some other interests, albeit with a bit less reckless abandon, I’ve had a hard time sorting my feelings about the last 10 or so years of my professional life. The Taste of Things however, did offer quite a bit of clarity. Cooking is hard, unforgiving work. It’s temporary in it’s output but eternal in the toll it can take on your body and your spirit. Cooking is something that you can love so deeply, but when it’s your job, that love can be stretched so thin under the weight of all the stress and pressure it begins to crack. I’ve known more talented cooks who have been broken down under the weight of their own goals than I’d like to count, but if you have ever had any pure, intrinsic love for food at all, Tran Anh Hung’s culinary masterpiece will reach that love and pull it to the surface, no matter how dormant, tattered or forgotten it may be.
It was clear to me in the first 5 minutes that I was going to have a passionate reaction to this movie. The culinary school I attended as a teen was predominantly French Classical and the opening set piece is as honest and true a representation of what makes that style of cooking so significant as you can achieve. Layers, upon layers, upon layers of flavors are being thoughtfully composed, stocks are being simmered to be strained and then clarified in order to be turned into consommés, to then be infused into sauces, to reinforce dishes composed of the same ingredients. Seasonal, garden-fresh vegetables are served in large identifiable chunks, confidently plated as little individual seals of quality. Specialty copper-clad pans line an incredible French top in a way that act as a preview of what’s to come if you’ve really studied the craft. (When the Turbot Poissonnière came out I think I may have audibly gasped) I have such a nostalgic and un-jaded warmth towards this style of French countryside home cooking that long predates the hyper managed fine dining that would plague kitchens across the world when I was getting my own start. This was such an educated and accurate glimpse into the era of cooking that I studied that made me fall most deeply in love with food, cooking and the lore of the industry. (Not surprisingly, the culinary advisor on the film has had 3 Michelin stars for as long as I can remember.)
Even more precious than the way the food is prepared is how our two central chefs talk about what it is they are preparing. When we meet them they are collaborating on a dinner for close friends, all the while offering little tips and morsels for a young girl who eagerly peels vegetables and shells crawfish. Though Pauline’s doe-eyed, yet ambitious persona may seem a bit convenient for the movie, she’s the character that I most related to. I remember a handful of experiences very early in my own apprenticeships where I stood next to celebrated Chefs, who after hours of watching me shuck peas or clean sunchokes would reward me with little spoons of whatever was simmering away on the stovetop, and even better yet, they’d ask me what I thought about it. Binoche’s Eugénie and Magimel’s Dodin are both eager teachers with an honest and spiritual relationship to the food they are cooking. By setting this movie in their home, and not in some brigadier kitchen, you remove the business side of things that tends to poison most chefs love for cooking, and instead you are able to show why they cook. And the movie is very clear about them loving to cook for their friends and for the refinement of their craft, but it is even clearer on their need to cook for each other.
What elevates The Taste of Things even further past the food movies that came before, is it’s central romance and how Dodin and Eugénie express their love for one and other. Any two people can kiss, or fuck or say I love you. But as someone who loves to be fed, there is no more intimate, or true way to truly show that you care then cooking for someone else. Dodin’s plea for marriage, as expressed through what are the most beautiful cooking sequences ever put to film, is a larger display of love in my opinion than anything else someone with his talents can offer.
You can never really, truly cook for yourself. You always have to be cooking for someone else if you really want to reach that sort of mythic greatness this movie alluded to. When he sets off to make his final proposal, the Sun is just peeking into the walls of his kitchen through the blinds and as he sends the ring out to Eugénie with dessert, the whole room is lit with pale, gray moonlight, his breathing heavy from a day of mentally and physically taxing work. That’s love, of the highest, most unrelenting order.
That’s only about half of the movie, so if you’ve made it this far, just go check it out, coward. Cooking is beautiful, food is powerful, The Taste of Things is perfect.
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