Chef's special: Kingussie festival founder picks her favourite food films
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ALTHOUGH Lydie Bocquillon of Kingussie’s Auld Alliance restaurant and guest house is certainly the food side of the partnership when it comes to the town’s annual Food on Film Festival, she has her own favourite foodie films.
Co-founder Helen Graham is a film-maker so usually takes charge of the on-screen element of the event, which is now in its seventh year, but Provence-born Lydie has a few food flavoured films of her own.
Babette’s Feast. Denmark 1987.
Perhaps no surprise that the first film that immediately springs to mind is this international hit. Set in an isolated and dour 19th century Danish village, refugee French cook Babette (Stephane Audran) promises — and delivers — the feast of a lifetime for the villagers. "It’s a film I really like," Lydie added.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. UK 1989.
Like a couple of films on this year’s festival programme, 1991 French film Delicatessen and Fried Green Tomatoes, Peter Greenaway’s lavishly shot Thatcherism parable features an ingredient that will certainly not be available in the Festival Food Hall at the Badenoch Centre this weekend, though a certain Dr Lecter might approve.
A Chef in Love. Georgia 1996.
Probably the most obscure of Lydie’s choices, this is another period film featuring an exiled French chef, Pascal Ichak (Pierre Richard), this time caught up in the violent aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
"There are lots and lots of lovely foodie scenes," Lydie said.
For more from Lydie, see our interview in this week’s Strathspey and Badenoch Herald.
For full details of this year’s Food on Festival go to http://www.kingussiefoodonfilm.co.uk
