Hollywood audiences must think we never eat

Wednesday, 25th February 2009

Jill Dupleix wonders why there are no films celebrating Australian food

Stanley Tucci’s heartbreaking Big Night is as much a tale of immigration as it is about pasta and risotto; and Bob Giraldi’s more recent Dinner Rush cooks up the Old World/ New World dilemma of a modern New York Italian restaurant — and all modern New York Italians. Meatballs or carpaccio? What you eat is who you are. Renée Zellweger’s blue soup in Bridget Jones’s Diary tells us all we need to know about the Brits’ ambivalence about food.

The food in this country is rich and ripe with untold journeys, imaginings, migrations, hardships and desires. Even the fact that we have roast beef for Sunday lunch and a coconut milk curry for tea tells us who we were, are and will be. So where is our big dining table scene, our famous food fight, our coconut-crusted, passionfruit-studded sense of place?

Don’t tell me that our food culture is not strong enough to inspire Australian filmmakers, novelists and artists. The truth is uncomfortable: we are all too comfortable, too plump and well-fed. It takes lean, mean times of hunger and hardship to learn to value food as a way of telling your story. Until then, I will spend my time watching Australian films in the same way I always have; by sitting in the dark, working out where to go for dinner.

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Butters

February 26th, 2009 6:22pm Report this comment

"Don’t tell me that our food culture is not strong enough to inspire Australian filmmakers, novelists and artists."

It isn't strong enough. There, I just told you.

Or do you think that there are no Euro with Asian fusion foods in the NE or SW USA. Now if you are talking about kangaroo steaks, or some other native game meats, of course we are unique, but so is just about everywhere else.

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