Sensuous, languorous, soothing and rich: The Taste of Things reviewed

The Taste of Things, which is this year’s French entry for best international film at the Oscars, is a gastro-film but it is not of the ‘Angry Male Chef’ genre. It’s not Boiling Point or The Menu or The Bear. It is not stressful or adrenaline-filled. No one swears or screams ‘Yes, chef!’ Instead, it is sensuous, languorous, soothing and as rich and deep as (I now know) a consommé should be. It will also force you to reappraise vol-au-vents which, in the right, tenderly loving hands, need not be the mean little bullety things that were served here in the seventies. (My mother, I remember, bought them frozen from Bejam. But only for special occasions.)

It is a film by the French-Vietnamese writer-director Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya) and is loosely based on Marcel Rouff’s novel, La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet, published in 1924. It is set in the 1880s in a provincial French country house and, in particular, the kitchen, which is often flooded with a beautiful golden light. It stars Benoît Magimel as Dodin and Juliette Binoche as Eugénie. Dodin is a famous gourmet who appears wealthy enough to not have to work. Eugénie is his cook. The opening forty minutes are solely Dodin and Eugénie, along with their helper, the servant girl Violette (Galatea Bellugi), preparing a meal. From memory the dishes include: a turbot simmered in milk, lemon and thyme; an eel-like fish coiled in a copper pan (just for stock); sautéed sweetbreads; crayfish, boiled, then plunged in ice water; a loin of veal seared on the stove top (with braised lettuce); that rich, deep, clear consommé involving many complex stages; a vol-au-vent the size of your head filled with freshly-dug vegetables, a silky béchamel and topped with asparagus, as never sold by Bejam, if memory serves.