Food thoughts for today
The movie started me on my food journey was a movie called Tampopo. The film by Juzo Itami stars an ensemble cast including a delightful Nobuko Miyamoto and a young Ken Watanbe (from The Last Samurai). The movie is told in vignettes about a woman named Tampopo trying to save her dead husband's ramen shop. Two truckers roll into her shop like cowboys and they happen to be ramen connoisseurs. Tampopo implores them to teach her to be a ramen chef; their search for the ultimate ramen soup begins.
That's the main story, but surrounding it- in separate threads- are stories about: a foodie gangster and his girlfriend having a sensual and delicious relationship (you'll never look at an egg yolk the same way again); beggers with epicurean tastes; a dying mother's last meal; people learning how to eat spaghetti; a lackey business assistant who is a star at a French restaurant; and a couple more. It's a brilliant movie- perfectly structured.
I first rented it through Netflix and I watched it numerous times until I could track down a copy of my own.
