The Hundred-Foot Journey: More than takeout

Here’s a conversation you might’ve overheard in 2014: 

Asian person: *mentions their specific ethnic heritage*
White person: “Oh, I love that Thai (or Indian or Japanese or…) restaurant around the corner! Aren’t the drunken noodles amazing?
Asian person: *baffled*

Are immigrant food stories overdone or still relevant?

It’s 2023, I would like to think that this conversation happens less and less. And in diasporic media, using Asian food as a placeholder symbol for ancestral relations has become less prevalent. Notably, the most prominent food in the recent Oscar-sweeping Everything Everywhere All at Once is bagels, a food with Jewish connotations.

Food is an undeniable cultural touchstone for the Asian diaspora and the non-Asians that interact with us. So, for a long time and still today, movies and shows with Asian leads heavily emphasizes food or cooking to symbolize familial ties. 

Food and family go together for almost all humans. Our senses of taste and smell have strong connections with our memory. And for many, memories involving food feature family. 

However, Asian diasporic media might be departing from food-driven storylines. Movie makers fear being pigeonholed into the same stereotype and assimilationist storyline. 

To avoid trope-ridden plot lines, I am not convinced that stepping away from food as a symbol in movies is a necessary solution. There are interesting and nuanced narratives left to tell through the lens of food. Storytellers perhaps need to think more creatively with food-related symbolism. Instead, they should lean into the specificity of cultural experience—like The Hundred-Foot Journey. 

Hassan, family, and food

The 2014 movie, The Hundred-Foot Journey, centers on Hassan and his large, boisterous family, who are forced to flee to France upon the traumatic death of their mother. 

Hassan’s family is in the restaurant business, and he is the cook. They struggle to have their Indian restaurant (their food and family as well) accepted in a French town that seems to have no appetite in broadening their opinion or worldview. 

In the movie, cooking and food play a central role in Hassan’s character growth and the broader plot. Still, it doesn’t pin its thematic content on the mere connection between food and family like other media from the period.

Often, Asian diasporic movies center food as a connector between people. Food for Hassan, rather, is not always connecting him to the people around him. Instead, it separates him—his tastes split him away from the relationships he has forged. All the while, food serves as a lens into the inner workings of Hassan’s heart.

See also: How cultural food empowers Pakistani women across generations

Asian food In mainstream Hollywood

In movies from the 2010s featuring Asian characters across the diaspora, food stands in for family and a homeland. For Nick, in Crazy Rich Asians, food reconnects him to his family and home. Whereas for his fiancée, Rachel, having meals with Nick’s family doubles as a welcoming ritual and litmus test for Nick’s family to judge her entrance to their family.

We also see food pop up in movies like The Big Sick, where containers of Biryani act as familial love letters, or To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, where Korean pork serves as a reminder of a passed loved one. Even the groundbreaking Asian American sitcom, Fresh off the Boat centers around the life of Eddie Huang, known to the public for his achievements as a chef and restaurateur. 

Besides fictional productions, there are plenty of documentaries and docu-series that focus on Asian food stories. Think Netflix series Chef’s Table, Ugly Delicious, Street Food: Asia, or Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Often, the stories they tell use food to dive into narratives about family.

Greater than just takeout

In The Hundred-Foot Journey, upon arriving at the remote French town, the curious Hassan ventures to learn about traditional French cooking. Hassan’s family views that act as him parting from the South Asian culinary education and family customs he grew up with. Hassan is drawn to French food because it represents his desire to learn more about the new place his family has settled, the world, and himself.

His inclination to leave behind South Asian cooking makes sense. Hassan traumatically lost his mother (who taught him how to cook) in a burning South Asian restaurant. But, unlike so many other Asian protagonists, food reminds Hassan of a painful past.

Hassan’s family sees his desire to leave behind South Asian cooking as a means of leaving them behind. However, this idea is caught up in the notion that food and cooking are direct corollaries for the family. But, in this movie, it’s not the case.

Hassan eventually finds his own culinary success by enhancing traditional French dishes with South Asian spices. Then, he gets a job at a prestigious restaurant in Paris, where he becomes the head chef and gains a coveted Michelin Star. Here is where the typical modern-day assimilationist story would end: the protagonist finds success and fits in by blending the cultures of his old and new country.

What makes The Hundred-Foot Journey different from similar movies produced around the same time is that Hassan’s story does not end there. Hassan gains fame from his new culinary style, but it also cuts him off from the world. The assimilation he has attained leaves him with virtually no human connection in Paris outside of the passing stranger asking to take a photo. 

He becomes tense, dark, single-minded, and sterile of human emotion. The kitchen decor of his new restaurant reflects the new personality quite well. Food, here again, has separated him.

See also: Best books about food and identity by Asian authors

An appetite for storytelling through food

The story ends with Hassan cooking the sea urchin dish shown in the film’s introductory sequence. He decides to move back to the town in the countryside where his family settled. Finally, the food he cooks connects him to others, and most importantly, his family. For Hassan, cooking South Asian food again represents how he coped with the grief of losing his mother. 

Without reading into the food that Hassan cooks, the theme of overcoming grief is lost entirely. The theme of grieving through food rings true for many Asian families, and The Hundred-Foot Journey depicts it uniquely through subtle commentary. 

The inclusion of food-related symbols in Asian diasporic movies still has power and possibility in it. It just needs a bit of flair and specificity. I’m hungry to see more Asian diasporic stories that rely on creative culinary symbols. 

See also: Love Through Food: Part 1 – Cultivating Culture & Identity Through Cooking