It’s that Sunday afternoon quiet when one either has a nap, or a sense of melancholy can sometimes wrap itself around you.
I am, however, going to spend the time writing about a film whose message(s)
have been permeating my thoughts about food and hospitality over the last few days.
I read a significant amount and certainly appreciate a good movie. Now, when a book or movie is good and involves food and hospitality, I am there!
Of the score of movies with a food/relationship focus, none stands out in my experience more than Babette’s Feast.

Isak Dinesen wrote this short story, turned into a movie by Gabriel Axel in 1987.
Yep, a while ago but a timeless message. The foundational Christian messages of death, resurrection and redemption.

Babette, accomplished Parisian cook, finds herself as a refugee to an austere Danish village after her husband and son die in the French civil war. Babette is maid to two spinster sisters who preside over a small group of pious, charitable, austere disciples of their deceased Christian minister father. By the time Babette came on the scene, the little sect had become quarrelsome, dry and cold in their relationships.

In a desire to honour their father, the two sisters decide to hold a meal on a day that would have been his 100th birthday. Babette throws the style of meal on it’s head and severely disturbs the communities’ harsh attitudes to enjoying good things by spending ALL her newly found lottery win on the ingredients for a feast not known before to this group. The members adamantly try and deny their enjoyment of this sacrificial feast, but as the food and wine positively assaults their senses, they warm up. They warm up not only to allowing themselves to appreciate and enjoy the tastes and textures, sights and smells, but they warm up to each other. Past difficulties are dealt with, sins forgiven and love acknowledged.

My mind, and I’m sure it is the intention of the film, goes to thinking about the generous loving sacrificial service of Jesus that brings redemption of relationships, the reconciliation of participants at a glorious feast that rises above bodily nourishment to restore the soul.

For a more comprehensive analysis of Babette’s Feast see an article by W. Wright – Babette’s Feast : A religious film 1997 Journal of Religion and film.

If you get a chance, digest this movie with relish.
And for me, writing this was a delightful way to share something I think is special, on a quiet Sunday afternoon.