Tina, eat the food

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There’s one scene in 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite that has haunted me ever since I was a kid. Napoleon, having just finished working at a chicken coop, stands in front of a table featuring an assortment of foodstuffs: a large bowl of eggs (hard-boiled), a smaller bowl of eggs (raw), a tray of what appear to be either sandwiches or just two slices of bread smushed together, and a large jar containing a mysterious orange liquid. As flies buzz about, one of the farmers cracks a fresh egg into this latter concoction and tastes it with an approving nod before telling the assembled crew to “dig in.” They slowly comply, tenuously eating this panoply of chicken byproducts—their soft, wet chewing the only audible sound.

It’s disgusting, but that’s not why the scene has lingered. After all, there’s plenty of gross-outs in popular media these days, and compared to the emetophobia inducing feats of films like last year’s Triangle of Sadness, it barely holds up. No, the scene stuck out because I actually found the opposite to be true: it was irresistibly, uncannily appetizing. In fact, I was hungry throughout the entire film. Those bland eggs, uncle Rico’s bloody steak, the lonely corn dogs and microwaved burritos. I wanted them all.

I’ll be the first to admit how absurd this sounds, especially given a culinary-obsessed mediascape trapped in an escalating food arms race. Every year, new shows and films—The Menu, The Bear, the unceasing procession of Chef’s Table spin-offs, etc.—vye for our drooling attention with an assortment of increasingly delectable delicacies. The more achingly mouthwatering and complex, the better; tater tots need not apply. Yet even amongst this crowded field, I can’t shake the feeling that Napoleon Dynamite (with its bland, beige, sad grub) is a first-rate food movie we’ve sorely overlooked—one that satiates a more complex hunger forgotten by contemporary media.

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