Food as Movie Star

It's not getting great reviews, but there's no way I'm going to miss seeing Julie & Julia when it opens next week. Here's an interesting article on how the food gets portrayed...

Although movies have long relied on half-cooked turkeys colored with motor oil, fruit made of plastic, and ice cream carved from Crisco, food in film is increasingly edible and even delicious.

“Everybody thinks it’s all shellacked,” said Colin Flynn, a New York-based chef and stylist who worked with Ms. Spungen on the film. “In the ’70s and ’80s it was more like that. Food looked more like Plasticine. Nowadays it’s almost always real food.”

For food stylists, most of whom began as cooks, it’s a welcome change. It’s also good for audiences, who have become more sophisticated about food and expect more realistic images. And directors believe that well-prepared food can improve the actors’ performances and the look of the final scene.

“The challenge always is making it seem delicious and hyper-real,” said John Lyons, president of production for Focus Features. “If it doesn’t look hyper-real, it doesn’t work in the movie.”

That means a dish needs to be fresh-looking and well-prepared to begin with, and then enhanced with a bit of oil here and a little fake steam there.