with Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel

There are similarities to the movie Menu Plaisirs Les Troigros, directed by Frederick Wiseman. The subject is French cooking, the fine details of which are documented from the plucking of vegetables in carefully farmed plots to the chopping, slicing, sautéing, saucing, and plating of the finished meal for the diner of whom we are jealous. It all looks so delicious, so worth the trouble. Wiseman’s movie documents an actual contemporary restaurant, while Tran Anh Hung has adapted a historical novel written by Marcel Rouf set in the late 1800s in rural France.

The Taste of Things is not just about the pleasures of cooking, but the pleasures of sharing that passion with your partner. In this case, Dodin (Magimel) seems to be the owner of a restaurant, or is he simply a rich lad with very fortunate friends who eat the meals he has made with the help of Eugenie (Binoche)? Dodin and Eugenie have shared kitchen duty and bed for over twenty years. Eugenie performs the tasks that Dodin reads to her, based on recipes and menus he has culled. 

Since the action of the picture takes place in the 19th century, the labor includes drawing water from a well in buckets, pouring it into containers, washing vegetables, making ice cream. Each portion of work shows a level of care that borders on fussiness, but when the vol au vent is served, it is a work of art. The baked alaska (omelet Norvegienne in French) is almost de trop, after the six or eight or ten courses that preceded it. 

A Eurasian prince gets wind of this great chef, Dodin, and invites him and his cohort to dine with him. It becomes like a bake off. Eight hours later, the men depart, slightly ill from the muchness served to them.

This brings a return invitation, and just as Dodin is figuring out what his menu will be…something major occurs. In the meantime, we are introduced to a young girl, the niece of one of the servants, named Pauline, whose taste buds are very well trained, and is deemed worthy of study under the master.

The culinary episode contains a love story, so instead of serving the prince at first, Dodin serves an exquisite meal to his Eugenie. Watching the movie made me want to cook with great care, not just throw things together the way they do on cooking shows. I wanted to prepare something tenderly, with precision, and serve it to my one true love. Cooking is a form of love, and this movie demonstrates why.