The Top Ten Meaty Moments in Modern Movies

I love meat, obviously.  But I also love movies.  Who doesn’t?  When these two phenomena cross paths, I’m a doubly happy man.  Here, find my favorite carnivorous cinematic moments in recent years.  Have one yourself?  Please share in the comments section!

1.    The Matrix – In the future, when the Earth and humanity have all but been destroyed by homicidal machines, the only foodstuff remaining is a thin protein slop that one character refers to as a “big bowl of snot.”  This probably wouldn’t be a big deal if you were a vegan before the robots turned evil – in my experience, most vegan food isn’t far removed from that sort of meal – but for a carnivore, it’s about as depressing as never being able to see the sun again.  Joe Pantoliano’s character, Cypher, decides he can’t take the gruel any longer and turns double-agent for the machines, meeting with the evil Agent Smith inside the virtual reality of the Matrix.  As he leisurely smokes a stogie, rolls a deep burgundy around a goblet and cuts into a giant, rare porterhouse while harps play angelic cantos in the background, he explains his treason: “I know this steak doesn’t exist.  I know that, when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it’s juicy and delicious.  After nine years, you know what I realize?” he asks as he forks a hunk into his mouth and sighs in abject pleasure. “Ignorance is bliss.”  Betraying the entire human race never looked so delectable.

2.    P.C.U. – At the ultra-liberal Port Chester University, protesting hippies have run amok.  When they stage a “Meat is Murder” protest – complete with a guy in a cow suit pleading for his bovine life – the subversive members of the college’s only remaining fraternity, The Pit, take action, raining down on the chanting mob from on high with melon-sized balls of raw ground beef.  The scene is like the Tet Offensive of Meat.  I can’t say I condone wasting perfectly good ground chuck, but watching the crunchy vegan proselytizers scream in terror as they’re pelted with raw hamburger is so worth it.

3.    The Great Outdoors – I’m no fan of gluttony, but watching John Candy go to town on a ninety-six ounce slab of steak is an awesome cinematic display, especially when put into context.  At this point in the film, Candy’s character has been shown-up at every turn by his hotshot stockbroker brother, Roman (Dan Aykrod), and his only recourse, the only area in which he knows he can best his patronizing brother, is by taking a restaurant’s challenge to ingest a piece of meat the size of a tractor tire.  When he finally finishes “The Ol 96’er”– gristle, fat and all – and wins his whole family a free meal (plus T-shirts, hats and other souvenirs), it is a moment of pure, carnivorous victory.

4.    Funny Farm – While not Chevy Chase’s best effort (the movie pales horribly when contrasted with the genius of Fletch, Caddy Shack and Vacation), there is one scene that makes this movie worth renting. When Chevy’s city-mouse character can’t get enough of a rural diner’s specialty, even setting a new record for amount consumed, he just can’t believe more people aren’t as crazy about these “Lamb Fries” as he is.  Then the waitress muses that “most folks just don’t seem to have a  taste for testicles no more.”  The real kicker comes when the gentleman sitting nearby asks the server to explain why her dish is so tasty.  “The trick is,” he says as we watch Chevy slowly turning green, “you got to clip ‘em off way high.”  Like all great comedy, it’s funny because it’s true: deep fried testicles really do taste great.  I know this, of course, because I’ve been to the official Testicle Festival in Rock Creet, Montana.

5.    Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? – Two words: “Gopher, Everett?”

6.    Big Night – In a movie that spills over in its adoration of good food (I consider it one of the finest food movies in cinema history), the crowning moment is the “Timpano,” a notoriously difficult to prepare wedding cake-sized baked pasta dish containing all but the kitchen sink.  The dish shares its name with the famously large drum, and the final product does indeed resemble the instrument.  When Primo (a brilliant Tony Shalhoub) carefully makes his initial slice, we’re rewarded with a gorgeous cross-section revealing the dish’s contents, including both meatballs AND sausage.  And when the party guests get their first taste of timpano, the camera makes sure to linger pornographically on their sighs and moans of epicurean ecstasy.

7.    A Christmas Story – There are so many unforgettable moments in this film, it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite scene.  For meat purposes, though, A Christmas Story manages to provide elements of carnivorous tragedy, comedy, and triumph – in a movie moment that makes me cringe and shift in my seat, the family’s much anticipated and gloriously depicted Christmas turkey is knocked from the kitchen table and swiftly devoured by a marauding pack of neighborhood dogs.  The mother weeps in shock, Dad lets forth a howling torrent of profanity directed at his next door neighbors, and little Ralphie, our protagonist, experiences something close to existential dread at the thought of not just missing out on the Christmas feast itself, but also missing out on the myriad joys of leftover turkey.  “The heavenly aroma still hung in the house. But it was gone, all gone! No turkey! No turkey sandwiches! No turkey salad! No turkey gravy! Turkey Hash! Turkey a la King! Or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, ALL GONE!”  The paterfamilias won’t leave his family to starve on Christmas, of course, and takes his wife and children to the one place we Jews have long considered our Xmas refuge: the local Chinese restaurant.  We watch as the family is hilariously serenaded by the waitstaff,  and presented with a beautiful, whole roasted duck.  When father mentions that maybe it shouldn’t still have its head attached (“It’s…smiling at me,” he explains), the maitre de takes no time violently whacking the offending cranium off with a gigantic meat cleaver.  These are fine carnivorous moments not just because we identify with Ralphie’s loss – I still wince every time I see that gorgeous bird toppled over by slobbering mutts – but because it ends in the splendid, comedic joy of the family’s first “Chinese Christmas.”  Plus, if that glazed Peking Duck doesn’t make your mouth water, you should be forced by law to surrender your taste buds posthaste.

8.    Pulp Fiction – Yes, I realize that Quentin Tarantino’s ultraviolent, profanity riddled masterpiece is rarely recognized for the food, but Quentin obviously has a deep and abiding love for carnivorous pleasures .  From the famous “Quarter Pounder with Cheese in France” conversation between Jules and Vincent, to Mia Wallace and Vince’s meal of steaks and burgers served “bloody as hell” at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, this is a flick that digs its meat.  My favorite is a brief close-up on the soon-to-be assassinated Brett’s “Big Kahuna Burger,” which invariably makes me want to run out and order one for myself.  Do you think a vegan writer/director could have so lovingly portrayed the honest, simple joy of a cheeseburger? Didn’t think so.  “Now that,” as Jules exclaims before dispatching poor Brett, “is a tasty burger!”

9.    Amelie – There is one scene in this film that is a short but wholly glorious depiction of carnivorism, even though the movie has little, if nothing to do with food. Each individual that Amelie decides to help has a small montage showing that gives us a small window into that person’s life, a tiny representative sample of that character’s personality.  “Every Tuesday Morning,” the narrator says as we see a man strolling through a Parisian market, “Dominique Bretodeau buys a chicken.  He roasts it with potatoes.”  Here we’re treated to an image of a perfectly baked chicken on a cutting board, perfectly brown on the outside and steaming.  “After carving the legs and wings, he loves picking the hot carcass with his fingers, starting with the oysters.”  Bretodeau savors the meat thoughtfully, and says “Mmmm,” softly, a small song of simple pleasure. It’s a brief scene, barely half a minute, but I can think of few better cinemagraphic representations of the simple joy to be found in a roasted chicken. Plus, it introduced me to the concept of “chicken oysters,” the two small, oyster-like scraps of plump meat on the back side of the bird, near the thighs.  Though they’re often considered the most delectable part of the chicken, most people don’t know about them, generally because whoever cooked the meal and carves the bird makes sure to pluck them out before placing the rest of the chicken on a serving platter.  Much like Mr. Bretodeau.

10.    The Slums of Beverly Hills – It may have taken until 2007 for Alan Arkin to finally win an Oscar, but he had my vote for this smallish film, in which he played a schlubby, sad-sack of a dad shuttling his kids around the shabby fringes of Beverly Hills.  The character was hard not to love, in all his paternal wisdom insisting that his three children eat steak for breakfast so that they’ll be fit and strong, even if the steak came from Sizzler. Most notably is the scene in which he regales the kids, for the umpteenth time, with his one true story of victory: working as a restaurant manager (“The steaks back then were great!” he waxes, “Seasoned, rare, bloody…”), eventually catching an employee attempting to smuggle some meat from the restaurant by alarmingly stabbing the poor guy in the thigh with a fork and tasting the blood that issues forth from the wound.  “Mmm…seasoned,” Arkin proclaims, knowing full well that the thief had strapped the meat to his bare legs.  Hilarious, and yet, it somehow still manages to make me hungry for steak.  Seasoned steak, of course.