Much as I enjoyed being provoked by Borat earlier this year, it’s good to see that you don’t have to be an equal opportunities offender to draw a good crowd at the Box Office. Based on the life of the American cookery writer Julia Childs, the film Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep as the woman most often credited for teaching America to cook, has been enjoying good reviews and decent bums on seats figures this week.
Billed as a cross between Delia and Fanny Craddock, perhaps with a touch of Elizabeth David thrown in for seasoning, Julia Childs did much to popularise French food in the States. This was back in the time when relations between the two countries weren’t quite so difficult.
Freedom fries had yet to be invented and there was no question of the French being described as ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ by a character in one of America’s most popular TV shows.
The success of Julie and Julia did get me thinking what other prominent food-related characters would be ideal subjects for a film. Gordon Ramsay’s career has had enough drama to fill 90 minutes but, certainly at the moment, it’s hard to imagine audiences empathising with him as a hero. Jamie Oliver is certainly prominent and has launched plenty of notable campaigns but, unless he is made to disappear by a supermarket death squad eager to end his crusading ways, then his life story lacks the necessary action. Marco Pierre White and his rags to riches biography would do the trick but perhaps a more historical figure would give the film greater sweep.
Marie Antoine Careme would do the job. Born into the French Revolution and cooking for people like Napoleon, George IV and Tsar Alexander I at a time when Europe was in almost constant turmoil, he would have a few tales to tell if his life was transferred to celluloid.