7 Foodie Film Scenes that’ll set off your Craving Alarm

You know when you’re watching a film and there’s a food scene? Am I the only one who gets huge cravings for whatever it is they’re eating?

Well, not for every food scene – I didn’t get cravings to chow down on a raw horse’s heart during that episode of Game of Thrones, or to rip into a live, wriggling squid when I watched Oldboy. But there are certain foodie scenes in certain films that always make me hungry, and these ones are at the top of my list.

1. Apple Strudel with Cream – Inglourious Basterds

“Wait for the cream!”

In Inglourious Basterds there’s that great scene when Shoshanna meets Hans Landa again for the first time since he massacred her entire family. It’s really intense and dramatic, but for some reason I can never concentrate on what’s actually going on, because all I can think about is how much I really want a slice of apple strudel with cream. Dammit.

2. Clemenza’s Tomato Sauce – The Godfather

“Oh, Paulie – won’t see him no more.”

The Godfather trilogy is famous for being filled with oranges – the fruit turns up every time somebody’s about to bite the dust. However, the most mouth-watering food scene comes in the first film, when Clemenza teaches Michael his secret recipe for sauce: “You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar—that’s my trick.” Yum.

3. Big Kahuna Burgers – Pulp Fiction

“Mmm-hmm! This is a tasty burger!”

The closest thing I’ve ever found to how I imagine a real Big Kahuna Burger actually tastes was a burger from Five Guys. I probably could have eaten three of them in a row, washed them down with a five dollar shake, and then asked Brett if he thought my boss looked like a bitch before blowing his head all over the wall. Mmmm, burgers.

4. Dumplings – Oldboy

“All I could think about in that moment was the guy in the next room was eating with only one chopstick.”

I didn’t get a craving for raw, live squid while watching Oldboy, but what I did get a craving for was dumplings. Lots and lots of dumplings. To give this a little context, dumplings are the only food the main character is given to eat after he has been inexplicably imprisoned for fifteen years. I love dumplings, but fifteen years of them might be a bit much even for me.

5. White Russian – The Big Lebowski

“Hey careful, man, there’s a beverage here!”

Alright, I know a White Russian is a cocktail and not a food, but every time I watch The Big Lebowski, which has the Dude sucking those damn things down every five minutes throughout, it makes me want to drink one. Even though I hate them. That’s the power of the Coens for you, I guess.

6. Cooked Breakfast – Howl’s Moving Castle

“May all your bacon burn!”

Actually, every food scene in any Studio Ghibli movie makes me hungry, but the breakfast scene in Howl’s Moving Castle is probably top of the list. Not least because of the fact that it’s all cooked on top of Calcifer the fire demon, which I imagine makes that bacon taste extra wonderful.

7. White Cake – Django Unchained

“Now gentlemen, if you’d care to join me in the parlour, we will be serving white cake.”

Considering that there’s already two other Tarantino movies on this list, I wasn’t planning on including the amazing scene in Django Unchained where Calvin Candie cottons on to Django’s plan, but the pure menace of Leo DiCaprio’s performance talked me into it. The obvious significance of serving white cake at the moment of his apparent triumph isn’t lost on me, but darn it, I still don’t know how Dr King Schultz resisted eating a slice of that thing before he whipped his gun out.

So these are my top foodie scenes, but what about yours? Stick ’em in the comment section.