Trailers for feature films and documentaries, as well as suggestions for literary and non-fiction books revolving around (what else?) food and well-being.
Death by Food Pyramid. Warning: Shock and outrage will grip you as you dive into this one-of-a-kind expose. Shoddy science, sketchy politics and shady special interests have shaped American Dietary recommendations and destroyed our nation s health over recent decades. The phrase Death by Food Pyramid isn’t shock-value sensationalism, but the tragic consequence of simply doing what we have been told to do by our own government and giant food profiteers in pursuit of health.
Fast Food Nation. In 2001, Fast Food Nation was published to critical acclaim and became an international bestseller. Eric Schlosser’s expose revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. The book changed the way millions of people think about what they eat and helped to launch today’s food movement.
Food : A Culinary History. When did we first serve meals at regular hours? Why did we begin using individual plates and utensils to eat? When did “cuisine” become a concept and how did we come to judge food by its method of preparation, manner of consumption, and gastronomic merit?
Food : The History of Taste. This richly illustrated book is the first to apply the discoveries of the new generation of food historians to the pleasures of dining and the culinary accomplishments of diverse civilizations, past and present.
Editor Paul Freedman has gathered essays by French, German, Belgian, American, and British historians to present a comprehensive, chronological history of taste from prehistory to the present day.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals.
In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating.
In Defence of Food : An Eater’s Manifesto. Food. There’s plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?
Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating.
Food Politics. We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health.
Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind.
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights.
The Secret Life of Bees. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily’s fierce-hearted black “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina – a town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna.
The Girl with No Shadow (Chocolat #2). The wind has always dictated Vianne Rocher’s every move, buffeting her from the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie on a small Montmartre street, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Anouk and baby Rosette, safe. But the weather vane soon turns, and Zozie de l’Alba blows into their lives.
When in Doubt, Add Butter. From the New York Times bestselling author of “Shoe Addicts Anonymous” and “Always Something There to Remind Me” comes a delicious new novel about the search for true love and all the ingredients that go into it.
As far as Gemma is concerned, her days of dating are over. In fact, it’s her job to cater other peoples’ dates, and that’s just fine by her. At thirty-seven, she has her own business, working as a private chef, and her life feels full and secure. She’s got six steady clients that keep her hands full.
Pomegranate Soup. Beneath the holy mountain Croagh Patrick, in damp and lovely County Mayo, sits the small, sheltered village of Ballinacroagh. To the exotic Aminpour sisters, Ireland looks like a much-needed safe haven. It has been seven years since Marjan Aminpour fled Iran with her younger sisters, Bahar and Layla, and she hopes that in Ballinacroagh, a land of “crazed sheep and dizzying roads,” they might finally find a home.
The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake. The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The Last Chinese Chef. This alluring novel of friendship, love, and cuisine brings the best-selling author of Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light to one of the great Chinese subjects: food. As in her previous novels, Mones’s captivating story also brings into focus a changing China — this time the hidden world of high culinary culture.
The Hundred Foot Journey. “That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist.”
And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life’s journey in Richard Morais’s charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste.
The Passionate Epicure. In the classic French novel The Passionate Epicure, Marcel Rouff introduces Dodin-Bouffant, a character based loosely on Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, an infamous bachelor and epicure dedicated to the high arts: the art of food and the art of love.
The Love Goddess’ Cooking School. Holly Maguire’s grandmother Camilla was the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island, Maine—a Milanese fortune-teller who could predict the right man for you, and whose Italian cooking was rumored to save marriages. Holly has been waiting years for her unlikely fortune: her true love will like sa cordula, an unappetizing old-world delicacy. But Holly can’t make a decent marinara sauce, let alone sa cordula. Maybe that’s why the man she hopes to marry breaks her heart. So when Holly inherits Camilla’s Cucinotta, she’s determined to forget about fortunes and love and become an Italian cooking teacher worthy of her grandmother’s legacy.
Five Quarters of the Orange. The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris’s most complex and sophisticated work yet – a novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story.
Chocolat. A timeless novel of a straitlaced village’s awakening to joy and sensuality – every page offers a description of chocolate to melt in the mouths of chocoholics, francophiles, armchair gourmets, cookbook readers, and lovers of passion everywhere.
The School of Essential Ingredients follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students’ lives.
Like Water for Chocolate – Como Agua Para Chocolate. Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.
My Life In France. The bestselling story of Julia’s years in France–and the basis for Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams–in her own words.
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a most secret and dangerous mission. He had to persuade the head-hunting islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe.
Fasting is more powerful than any drug on Earth. Fasting may serve as the solution to solve our epidemic of chronic illnesses today. However, most think of only one method of fasting when they hear the term ‘fasting.’ This documentary explores 7 different methods of fasting including Time-Restricted Feeding, Intermittent & Prolonged Fasting, Long-Term Water Fasting, Religious Fasting, Eating Disorders, Improvising or Fasting Unsafely, Fasting Mimicking Diet, and Juice Fasting. The film interviews 54 people including the world’s leading scientists and medical professionals on fasting, as well as individuals who used fasting to treat obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular problems, skin problems, high blood pressure, chronic headaches, joint pain, and many others. This one hour, forty minute feature motion picture is the most comprehensive and objective look at fasting on film.
Heal. A documentary film that takes us on a scientific and spiritual journey where we discover that by changing one’s perceptions, the human body can heal itself. The latest science reveals that we are not victims of unchangeable genes, nor should we buy into a scary prognosis. The fact is we have more control over our health and life than we have been taught to believe. This film will empower you with a new understanding of the miraculous nature of the human body and the extraordinary healer within us all. HEAL not only taps into the brilliant mind’s of leading scientists and spiritual teachers, but follows three people on actual high stakes healing journeys. Healing can be extremely complex and deeply personal, but it can also happen spontaneously in a moment. Through these inspiring and emotional stories we find out what works, what doesn’t, and why.
Take Your Pills. The pressure to achieve more, do more, and be more is part of being human – and in the age of Adderall and Ritalin, achieving that can be as close as the local pharmacy. No longer just “a cure for excitable kids,” prescription stimulants are in college classrooms, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley…any place “the need to succeed” slams into “not enough hours in the day.” But there are costs. In the insightful Netflix documentary TAKE YOUR PILLS, award-winning documentarian Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) focuses on the history, the facts, and the pervasiveness of cognitive-enhancement drugs in our amped-up era of late-stage-capitalism.
Beatriz at Dinner. Beatriz, holistic medicine practitioner is stranded at a client’s house after her car breaks down. She becomes a somewhat unwilling guest at a snooty dinner party that evening. A difference of thoughts and opinions causes her to be a thorn in the side of the hosts and their invited guests.
Trattoria. A story can be a lot like cooking. Sometimes it doesn’t turn out as expected. A drama/comedy set in the exciting San Francisco restaurant scene, about a chef and his son that reconnect and heal their past through cooking.
Ramen Shop. Masato, a young Ramen chef, leaves his hometown in Japan to embark on a culinary journey to Singapore to find the truth about his past. He uncovers a lot more than family secrets and delicious recipes.
Bourek. In this humanistic comedy, set against the backdrop of economic crises and bad news, an extravagant international cast of characters meet, fight, and fall in love, while hiding from the end of the world and other calamities on the tiny Greek island of Khronos. Each one of them discovers something or someone that gives new meaning to their lives, helped in no small part by the food they share, especially the Mediterranean pastry Bourek.
Sweet Bean is a delicious red bean paste, the sweet heart of the dorayaki pancakes that Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) sells from his little bakery to a small but loyal clientele. Absorbed in sad memories and distant thoughts, Sentaro cooks with skill but without enthusiasm. When seventy-six-year-old Tokue (Kirin Kiki) responds to his ad for an assistant and cheerfully offers to work for a ridiculously low wage, Sentaro is skeptical about the eccentric old lady’s ability to endure the long hours. But when she shows up early one morning and reveals to him the secret to the perfect sweet bean paste, Sentaro agrees to take her on. With Tokue’s new home cooked sweet bean paste recipe, Sentaro’s business begins to flourish, but Tokue is afflicted with an illness that, once revealed, drives her into isolation once again.
The Ramen Girl. An American slacker (Brittany Murphy, 8 Mile; Girl, Interrupted) abandoned by her boyfriend in Tokyo finds her calling in an unlikely place: a local ramen house run by a tyrannical chef who doesn’t speak of a word of English. Undaunted by the chef’s raging crankiness, Abby convinces him to teach her the art of ramen preparation…and despite hilarious clashes of culture and personality, she learns how to put passion and spirit into her life as well as her cooking.
Little Italy. Romantic comedy. A young couple must navigate a blossoming romance amidst a war between their families’ competing pizza restaurants.
What’s for dinner, mom?. A young woman Tae finds a memory box of cooking recipes written by their mother who died long ago. By tracing back her mother’s past, Tae discovers her mother’s struggling life she didn’t know along the way.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Lily James plays free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.
Off the Menu is a romantic comedy starring Dania Ramirez and Santino Fontana about an unlikely heir to a fast food fortune, who goes cuisine hunting for the next culinary big thing and finds himself in a small dusty town where foodies come from all over to salivate over the authentic dishes of a feisty female chef.
CONSUMED is a dramatic thriller that explores the controversial world of Genetically Modified Food. The story is anchored by a working-class, single Mother (Zoe Lister-Jones) on a hunt to uncover the cause of her son’s mysterious illness. Interwoven are the stories of an Organic farmer (Danny Glover), the CEO of a biotechnology corporation (Victor Garber), two Scientists on the verge of a major discovery (Kunal Nayyar & Anthony Edwards), and an ex-Cop caught in the middle of it all (Taylor Kinney).
The Recipe. CHOI Yu-jin, a television producer always in search of a scoop, is given the tape of bloodthirsty killer’s last wish: to eat his favorite Korean stew, “doenjang jjigae.” Yu-jin instantly smells a story and desperately tries to decipher the mystery behind the killer’s cravings. He soon after hears about JANG Hye-jin, a woman who holds the key to unraveling this gourmet riddle… but it’s impossible to find her.
Le Grand Chef. At a press conference, a cooking knife of a special spirit is being presented to the public. The knife belongs to the last Korean royal chef of the Chosun Dynasty who cut his arms with this knife to show his loyalty to the king and the country. The Japanese bureaucrat at the time was deeply moved by his conviction and returned to Japan with this knife. Now, his son has come to Korea to return the precious knife back to someone who really deserves to own it and announces a cooking contest to find the best cook for this knife. Thus the destined match between the grandsons of the two apprentices of the royal chef has begun…
Le Grand Chef 2 : Kimchi Battle. Korean government holds a nationwide ‘Kimchi Contest’ to reaffirm its position as the originator of Kimchi in Asia. Jang-eun, who is a famed chef in Japan, comes back to Korea to participate in the contest. She also wants to close down the once best Korean traditional restaurant that her mother has been running for years. She’s never understood her mother for cherishing the restaurant more than herself and her own daughter. Sung-chan became separated from his deaf-and-mute mother and spent his childhood together with Jang-eun. He wants to keep the restaurant and proposes competing in the Kimchi Contest and Jang-eun agrees that the winner will have the rights to the restaurant. Throughout the fierce competition they both go into the finals, where they have to find the traditional taste of Kimchi. On the day of the final round, however, the juries and audience are very much surprised to see the process of cooking by the two natural-born cooks…
Cooking with Stella. A warmhearted social satire about a Canadian diplomat (Lisa Ray) and her chef husband Michael (Don McKellar) who are posted to New Delhi. Upon arrival they inherit a household of Indian servants headed by the charming, totally inspiring – and wily – cook, Stella (Seema Biswas). When Stella agrees to become Michael’s cooking guru, to teach him traditional Indian dishes, little does he know that she’s cooking up a scheme of her own.
Hana’s Miso Soup. Based on a true story. Chie (Ryoko Hirosue) enjoys happy days with her boyfriend Shingo (Kenichi Takito), but she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Chie is shaken with anxiety, but her boyfriend asks her to marry him. Chie gives up hope of having a baby due to the drugs she takes for cancer treatment. Nevertheless, she gets pregnant. Even though she is risking her life giving birth, Chie gives birth to a healthy baby. Their baby is named Hana. Chie, Shingo and Hana live happily as a family, but…
Chicken With Plums – Poulet Aux Prunes. Teheran, 1958. Since his beloved violin was broken, Nasser Ali Khan, one of the most famous musicians of his time, has lost all taste for music. Finding no instrument worthy enough to remplace his violin…
A Tale of Samurai Cooking – A True Love Story. Great cook Haru has married into the legendary “Kitchen Samurai” family. But her husband who is the successor of the family can’t cook at all. Haru makes a vow to make him a superb samurai chef, and starts teaching her new husband how to cook.
Mostly Martha. Every great love story has to start somewhere. This one started in the kitchen. Martha is a single woman who lives for one passion: cooking. The head chef at a chic restaurant, Martha has no time for anything – or anyone – else. But, Martha’s solitary life is shaken when a fateful accident brings her sister’s eight-year-old daughter, Lina, to her doorstep.
Extreme Job. A team of narcotics detectives goes undercover in a fried chicken joint to stake out an organized crime gang. But things take an unexpected turn when the detectives’ chicken recipe suddenly transforms the rundown restaurant into the hottest eatery in town. (Hilarious! 🙂 )
Food Inc. This 2010 Oscar-nominated film lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer.
Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System. Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese—both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. Raj Patel conducts a global investigation and what he uncovers is shocking—the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa….
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