Big Eden

Food themed films are readily available to those who seek them. It's a great pity that Who is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe is currently unavailable on DVD, for I would snap it up. Sadly a used VHS is 40 bucks or so. Its title is a perfect explanation of the plot and stars that great gourmand Robert Morley and an array of international superstars of the time. It's a fab, late seventies, romp and I remember enjoying it in my youth when the BBC aired it periodically. Another favorite is The Freshman,  full of wit and with a theme of mistaken identity, food-wise and character-wise, it stars Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick.  It's inexpensively available on DVD.

Probably my favorite food film is an independent effort entitled Big Eden. I watch it two or three times a year and it always melts my heart. To me it shows off the best ideals of our country. Big Eden is a tender love story set in Montana, and, as its title suggests, is about the way life might be in a more perfect world, where tolerance and affection for those in proximity to us outweigh all other other concerns. Briefly, a successful artist returns home from New York to visit an ailing family member who raised him, and subsequently attempts to rekindle the ideal love of his youth. In a film full of twists and turns, a shy, earnest and unexpected admirer, unselfishly perceiving an opportunity to rekindle his own unrequited affection for the artist, learns to cook for the object of his affection from the pages of Bon Appetit, a lifeline in the majestic wilderness to fancy cooking. The whole community, married, divorced, gay or straight, educated, or just plain dumb, joins in. I don't want to reveal the whole plot but it has a very good ending as befits such a fantasy, and, food plays a leading role. After all, don't they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?