Babette’s Feast

Date:   4/13/2015 6:41:44 AM ( 9 y ago)

I'm preparing a "feast" for the soul that is intended to deeply nourish and support a future community that I call Cheeta.[1]

I wish to point to Babette’s Feast to give an idea of some of the social impulses that I'm working with for Cheeta. I'm also intending to have all of my chef productions demonstrate the principals of Cheeta as best as possible - many of which are presented in Babette’s Feast.

“… Slow food highlights gastronomy as defined by local cultural methods (resources), communal activity (networks), and craft and ingredients (experiences), while participating in one of the most repeated rituals we practice.

The 1987 film, Babette’s Feast, written and directed by Gabriel Axel, deeply explores the many levels to which humanity connects with gastronomy. The film is set in a small Scandinavian coastal village, where the plot builds to feature a climatic lavish meal prepared as a selfless gift from the French immigrant house manager, Babette. She calls upon her past skills as a French chef, to reveal the power of gastronomy in satiating the human spirit. Her repressed and skeptical Scandinavian neighbors, who are the recipients of her generosity, engage in the rich experience of eating fine cuisine. The following sections highlight gastronomical themes extracted from the film to situate gastronomy in terms of principle resources, networks, and experience of place that the rich experience of eating fine cuisine evokes.

Following the first principle of Place Resources, we may reveal ritual as the gift. In this film Babette is a taste maker of French cuisine, who creates for an audience without standards of taste. The story builds a scenario in which Babette, who secretly was once among the most celebrated chefs of Paris, desires to treat the reclusive village to traditional French cuisine. This act of giving presents the theme of place resources as an opportunity to educate an uneducated yet receptive audience, and to elevate art as that which is given through such elaboration and generosity.

… Chefs master traditional regional methods so that their culinary works may embody deeply rooted cultural significance. Having this traditional culinary foundation is paramount, no matter how experimental a chef becomes. Allen S. Weiss in his essay, ‘Culinary Manifestations of the Genius Loci,’ reveals through an intelligent layering of ingredients, this spirit of place can be brought out as unique to regional culinary traditions.

The ritualistic intentions of food traditions and local food products, like the aspects of architecture, can be combined and recombined through innovative cuisine, to revive the local identity of culture and community, helping them to maintain their traditions over time. The gastronomical act of meal preparation, requiring both creativity and effort, makes the meal a true gift that interprets and reveals the particularities of place, far beyond what the audience was able to anticipate before they received it.

… The social tone of this village prior to the meal involves an aging population bitter within a waning community. However, once they allow themselves to enjoy the subtenant pleasure of a spirited meal, disagreements are healed. At last, the gift of the feast satiates the soul, the body, and restores the community.

The film portrays social renewal and maintenance, illustrating the principle of place networks as engaging communal sustenance and pleasure. Of importance to the slow food movement, this convivial experience of sustenance and pleasure deepens the cultural meaning underlying the gastronomical gift. … Community interaction becomes the key.

… food and architecture are processes located in the core of the individual as well as at the center of communal culture.”[2]

The above is one of only seven results in my Google search for: "traditional culinary foundation".

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October 16th -

The above could be cultivated in our universities!

"In universities and academies, students are certainly given a great deal of knowledge, but they are not nourished."[3]

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Notes:
[1]
http://www.curezone.org/blogs/f.asp?f=3569

[2] https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ucin1243310191&disposition=inline

[3] http://www.prosveta-usa.com/earth-to-be-ploughed-and-cultivated-the-mind_2015-10-17

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Keywords:
Babette’s Feast, traditional culinary foundation, spirit of place, regional culinary traditions, food traditions, local food products, culture and community, spirited meal, satiate the soul, social renewal, social maintenance, place networks, cultural meaning, communal culture, nourish

 

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