Cultural Differences and Food as a Symbol and Identity Representation Portrays on The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) Movie

            The Hundred-Foot Journey is a movie about an Indian family that travels a lot to find the right place to open up their restaurant. The film begins with the family migrating to Europe and starting their road trip. On their way, the car’s brake gets loose and they halt in a village in France, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, and begin their opening a restaurant-quest. The Hundred-Food Journey is a movie directed by Lasse Hallström, based on a novel by Richard C. Morais with the same title. The Hundred-Foot Journey discusses cultural differences, specifically in this movie: Indian and French cultures. The film captures the cultural differences through food immaculately neat. The Hundred-Foot Journey also talks over about food being able to be a symbol and represent many aspects of human life. The congenial relationship between food and human can be both intense and beautiful. Food is sometimes considered trivial while food can be something truly meaningful. For this reason, the talk of the relationship between food and human in The Hundred-Foot Journey movie is a fascinating and valuable issue to discuss. This literary criticism essay will use gastro criticism theory. Gastro criticism theory. Gastro criticism is an approach in literary studies that highlights or discusses the significance and/or implications of the presence of food or drink in a text (Nugraha, 2021, p. 24). In this discussion, gastro criticism will be applied to The Hundred-Foot Journey movie in view of the fact that The Hundred-Foot Journey movie highlights cultural differences by taking food as a theme.

            The Hundred-Foot Journey movie introduces the main character, Hassan, and his family: Papa, Mansur, Mahira, Muhtar, and Aisha. The Kadam family has a passion for food and cooking though Hassan never calls himself a chef and rather says he is a cook. While settling in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, Hassan and the family meet their competitor: Madame Mallory who owns a well-known restaurant in the village named La Saule Pleureur (“The Weeping Willow”. Maison Mumbai, the Kadam’s newly build restaurant, is competing with the Michelin restaurant, La Saule Pleureur. Madame Mallory disdain Maison Mumbai with its Indian food, she thinks the restaurant will not last long compared with the class food in her restaurant, La Saule Pleureur. In this regard, food can be a tool that shows cultural differences. Indian food uses a variety of spices and French food tends to use fewer spices and sticks to the classic recipes passed down from generation to generation. Madame Mallory draws a line of differences in the hierarchy of class to Papa using food. Madame Mallory boldly shows that the French have the upper-class culture and the Indians with the lower class. Moreover, Madame Mallory’s characters bring up the topic of the racial stereotype that the only one who can succeed is the Europeans (whites). Madame Mallory is constantly showing her disapproval of the Kadam family coming into Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. Food as a medium of friendship is shown in The Hundred-Foot Journey movie as well. Hassan meets a friend, Marguerite, Marguerite is the one who helps the Kadam family when their car’s brake broke down in the beginning of the movie. Marguerite is a French woman working for Madame Mallory in La Saule Pleureur. Although Marguerite and Hassan come from different backgrounds, friendship still blossoms between them. In point of fact, their differences are what makes them closer. With Hassan being a newcomer to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, Marguerite gives him insights into French cuisine. Marguerite tells Hassan about the five sauces of the French cuisine: tomaté, velouté, hollandaise, espagnole, bechamel. Hassan makes the sauces and asks Marguerite to try them. This snip of the scene conveys a message that from differences, people can learn and exchange cultures and it is not harmful. Differences can unite people.

            On Bastille’s Day (a national holiday in France) where La Saule Pleureur is the only restaurant hosting the celebration, Maison Mumbai as La Saule Pleureur competitor stands its ground to also run the restaurants like their usual routine. This little “disturbance” is making Madame Mallory and the La Saule Pleureur staff furious, especially Jean-Pierre, the head chef of La Saule Pleureur. When Bastille Day is nearing, Madame Mallory sees a group of men dressed in black gathering in front of Maison Mumbai though she pays no mind to the men. As night time comes, Maison Mumbai is set on fire, and on the fence stone wall was written “LA FRANCE AUX FRANCAIS” meaning France for the French.

            The movie reveals that Jean-Pierre is the culprit that set Maison Mumbai ablaze with a motive of anger and disdain for the Kadam family and Maison Mumbai’s persistence to open on Bastille Day. This scene in The Hundred-Foot Journey movie mentions racism with the statement written on the Maison Mumbai’s stone wall fence: France for The French. Jean-Pierre performs an act of arson and vandalism. Jean-Pierre acted out his hatred toward the Kadam family. The following morning, upon seeing the condition of Maison Mumbai, Madame Mallory immediately gathers her staff and impeaches Jean-Pierre for the arson. Jean-Pierre gets a major consequence for his action. Madame Mallory fires him as the head chef of La Saule Pleureur and it sends Jean-Pierre straight out of town with fury. Madame Mallory comes to Maison Mumbai on a rainy day to clean the “LA FRANCE AUX FRANCAIS” gravity off the stone wall fence. Papa looks at Madame Mallory with confusion but eventually lets her clean off the gravity and provides an umbrella for Madame Mallory. The shifts in Madame Mallory’s behavior begin when Hassan brings his cooking to La Saule Pleureur on Bastille Day because La Saule Pleureur runs out of the ingredients for their Bastille Day signature dish. Marguerite reveals to Hassan that Madame Mallory can define whether chefs have talent or not at her first bite of the chef’s dish. Hassan wants to see what reaction comes out of Madame Mallory when she tries his dish. Alas, with Madame Mallory’s cruel behavior, she throws away Hassan’s dish although, in reality, Hassan’s dish touches her heart. Looking at this particular scene, food represents feelings. Hassan’s pure intentions and his passion for food create an extraordinary dish that can have crucial effects on people.

            Since the Maison Mumbai incident, the relationship between Madame Mallory improves. Madame Mallory grows closer to the Kadam family with food as a symbol of hospitality between the two. Madame Mallory sees the potential of Hassan and asks Hassan to work and study properly the world of cooking in La Saule Pleureur. La Saule Pleurer is a restaurant with one Michelin star and with Hassan working there, the restaurant earns its second star. With this achievement, Hassan is asked to work in a top Michelin molecular cuisine restaurant in Paris. Food represents identity is well-described in the scene where Hassan starts to work in his new restaurant in Paris. Figure 6 shows Hassan in the new restaurant entering a new fancy world and he starts to lose his simplicity. Hassan starts to adopt a new identity though he performs acculturation, mixing Indian spices into his new dishes, Hassan still forgets the beauty and the authenticity of his Indian identity and turns into an arrogant person. Hassan realizes that he is starting to lose himself when his Indian co-worker brings a home-packed meal, an Indian dish. Hassan cries at the taste of the food. This indicates that food brings back Hassan to his true self and identity. Hassan misses picking the right, ripe ingredients for his cooking and his hereditary spices from Papa. A dish can represent the identity and personality of the person as well as his true culture. The Hundred-Foot Journey movie ends with Hassan going back to his family in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and taking over La Saule Pleureur with a new business partner and an old friend, Marguerite.

            The Hundred-Foot Journey movie is a movie where you can understand that food is not only for our daily needs but food can be crucial. It can represent different cultures, as a medium to build and develop relationships with others as well as food can determine one’s identity and personality and the taste of a dish can be a reminder of our true self. The Hundred-Foot Journey uses food as a theme to show the audiences how food can be a symbol to show cultural differences and how food can be a way of conversing and socializing with others.

References

Hallström, L. (2014). The hundred-foot journey [Film]. Touchstone Pictures.

Nugraha, D. (2021). HOT COFFEE FOR THE GUEST: GASTRO CRITICISM ON BUDI DARMA’S “TAMU.” Leksema: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Sastra, 6(1), 23–31. https://doi.org/10.22515/ljbs.v6i1.2736