Babette's Feast

I found the movie Babette's Feast to be a very insightful and inspiring film. It was about the bringing people together over a meal to connect, and celebrate in ways that perhaps they had never experienced before.


You could tell that many of the elders who sat down to this meal had never had an eating experience like this before at all, while to the French company, this was as common as any other meal.


Food has always been a tool used to bring people together and teach one another about our own cultures. A lot is told about ourselves through our food. It is a collection of our cultural experience.


Religion was another barrier that had to be jumped over this meal. Many of the older people of the village felt that to drink wine was to indulge in anti-religious ideals, while the French find drinking wine harmless and quite a necessity when it comes to great dinning.


I feel the climate and the location of where they lived caused them to have many different ideas on how to eat a meal and how the entire ordeal should run. They had little light of day, which I think caused much to be done in those few hours, and to dine for lengthy periods like that were just not possible, but the human contact and interaction that is needed to stay a happy and an interlocked community was neglected. This meal I think for a brief moment allowed these people to connect.


I liked the idea of the film, that something so simple like food, could bring people together and give them an experience never had before, and even bring people of a community closer together.