Jenn and Clara discuss the intense and gorgeous opening 40-minute sequence in the film, The Taste of Things, which highlights the heavy technique and ingredients in 19th-century French gastronomy. Classics like vol au vent, pot au feu, and techniques like poaching, braising, and flambe are also discussed.

Chapters

0:22 French Gastronomy in The Taste of Things

0:39 One sentence summary of the movie

0:50 Fun fact 

1:00 Why we chose this film

1:30 Cast, crew, and awards

2:14 Chef Pierre Gagnaire 

2:59 Culinary team

4:19 Culinary Class Wars: Hollywood edition

5:06 What's in a name?

6:00 The garden

7:17 Purple carrots

8:03 Zero food waste

8:50 The props

9:45 The lunch menu

10:15 Consomme

10:35 All about poached turbot

12:13 Tourneed potatoes (any why we don't like them)

13:24 French mother sauces

14:11 Auguste Escoffier in the house!

[Ad break]

16:25 Seafood vol au vent

18:30 Asparagus

19:19 Meat course

21:08 Sauce bourgignette

22.37 Baked Alaska

24:47 Where is the scene in the movie?

28:37 Culinary terms

33:14 Meal of love versus a meal of zero substance

34:12 Clara and Jenn's picks

35:58 Our next episode 🐷👻

Links We Mentioned

Sounds/Music We Used

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Jenn and Clara discuss the different lunches the teens bring to detention in The Breakfast Club and what these lunches tell us about their personal lives, who they are, and how we can improve upon what they brought. Is there a best way to make a PB & J? Is there a place for Cap’n Crunch beyond breakfast?

Chapters

0:19 School lunches in The Breakfast Club

0:24 Content warning

0:37 One-sentence summary of the movie

0:52 Movie cast, crew, and awards

1:22 Clara almost lived with the costume designer on the film

1:58 "Don't you forget about me" becomes an instant movie classic

2:20 How Pitch Perfect is connected

2:58 Who these teens are via their lunches

3:18 Claire's lunch

5:25 Rice controversy

8:00 Benefits of reheated rice 

8:52 Andy's lunch

9:25 What's the best cheese for turkey sandwiches?

10:20 Dijonaise!

11:54 Brian's lunch

12:58 Best PB & J

14:20 Sandwich taquitos

15:00 Wonder Bread canapés

[AD BREAK]

17:10 Alison's lunch

19:00 Cap'n Crunch as an ingredient

19:54 Bender's (lack of) lunch

21:00 Soda is BAD

21:50 Clara's typical school lunch

23:00 Jenn's typical school lunch

23:43 Jenn's life in hot dogs

24:35 Eric Joon Ho Kim's best peanut butter sandwich

25:36 Clara's perfect lunch

27:00 Jenn's perfect lunch

28:15 Where is it in the movie?

36:29 Culinary terms

33:53 What happened to pimento?

34:52 Restaurant recs from Clara and Jenn

37:20 Our next episode 🇫🇷

Links We Mentioned

• Is Leftover Rice Better For You? Via Delish
• Effect of cooling of cooked white rice on resistant starch content and glycemic response - PubMed
• The History of Sushi in America via Michelin Guide
• Dijonnaise commercial
• Cereal French Toast by Binging with Babish
•  

Sounds We Used

• Timpani boing fail by u_ss015dykrt
• Jazz Restaurant Cafe Music by HitsLab
• AlBundyX-Mexican-Turkey by Freesound_Community
• Plastic Crunch by Freesound_Community
• Soda Can Open by OxidVideos

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Jenn and Clara explore the hybrid noodle dish jjapaguri in Parasite and how the addition of hanwoo beef turns this cheap, quick dish into something only the wealthy can enjoy. The duo also discuss the Wagyu grading system and some culinary details lost in translation.

Chapters

00:52 One sentence summary of Parasite

1:25 The cast

1:50 Awards sweep

3:00 Everyone loves Korea

3:47 What is jjapaguri/chapaguri?

4:26 What is Hanwoo beef?

4:59 Korean Beef Rhapsody

5:28 What is Wagyu beef?

6:00 Meat terroir

7:10 Alphanumeric meat grading system explained

10:57 Hanwoo beef versus Wagyu beef

12:05 Korean Airlines 

[Ad break]

14:54 How the Kim family diet changes over time

15:46 Nong Shim stock skyrockets

16:48 Jaapaguri scene

17:20 Do high-quality ingredients belong on cheap food?

18:05 Where is jjapaguri in the movie?

19:30 Jajangmyeon versus jjapaguri

21:00 Korean Chinese food

21:30 Does water boil faster on induction burners?

22:07 Tips for making the best jjapaguri

23:30 Lost in translation

25:55 Culinary terms from Parasite

26:19 Soju party!

28:15 The significance of cut fruit

29:34 Socio-economic hierarchies

30:05 About the house

30:28 Our recommendations

32:30 Our next episode 🍱🥪

Links We Mentioned

• Ramen Hacks (Members only)
• Hanwoo Rhapsody
• Food52 - What is Ramdon?
• Korea Pops, Seafood Soars, and More Top Trends from 2025 Summer Food Show
• Raku in Las Vegas
• Soju Party by Irene Yoo (Affiliate link)

Sounds We Used

• Cow Mooing by u_jd81cxyq22
• Sting, Rimshot, Drumroll by Freesound Community
• Stray Wolves by Moodmode

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Jenn and Clara explore the world of offal through the lens of Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom. While the courses at the royal banquet were meant to shock and awe, we break down the delicious ways you can enjoy nutrient powerhouses: blood, bones, and offal (organ meats). Make sure to take your time and let your offbeat proteins get a good soak.

Chapters

1:04 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

2:15 Music by John Williams

2:34 Production was cursed but won awards

4:00 All about Ke Huy Quan

4:34 Hysterical female and orientalism

6:25 Where is it in the movie?

6:33 Snake surprise

7:18 Scarabs and eating bugs

9:59 Soup of the Head

11:37 [Ad Break]

12:32 Chilled monkey brains 

13:09 Head cheese and the benefits of eating brains

14:40 Offal and nose-to-tail dining

16:25 Our favorite offal

16:45 Do's and don'ts of cooking offal

18:43 Blood sausage around the world

20:38 Culinary terms

21:59 Clara and Jenn's favorite places for offal

23:01 Our next episode 🍜

Links We Mentioned

Sounds We Used

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Jenn and Clara discuss the differences and similarities of New Orleans Creole and Cajun in the film Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah. Learn about the heavy European, Native American, and African culinary influences in this flavorful and vibrant cuisine. Do tomatoes make that big of a difference, and who has time to make dishes with more than 12 ingredients? The popular dishes of the Big Easy are anything but easy to prepare.

CHAPTERS

0:30 Kick off to season 2 and Last Holiday

1:01 Content warning

1:21 Why we chose this movie

2:05 Notable actors

4:20 Jenn and mise en place

6:14 Food porn

7:30 Chicken Tchoupitoulas

9:04 New Orleans cuisine defined

12:20 Roux defined

12:54 The Holy Trinity

13:30 Immigrants in New Orleans

15:30 Jenn's picks for NOLA

[Ad Break]

18:15 Collard greens and more

20:00 Clara's and Jenn's favorite Creole dishes

23:40 Where is Cajun and Creole food in the movie?

25:30 The secret of life 

26:30 Knife cuts and culinary terms

28:50 Dark roux

30:00 Muffuletta

32:28 Clara's and Jenn's best places for Creole and Cajun food

34:44 Our next episode 🙊

Links

Additional songs

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We're back, with a vengeance! Clara Park and Jenn de la Vega are back with a new season of The Cinema Chefs. Two new episodes drop Monday, August 31st at 6PM ET. 

The Cinema Chefs podcast highlights the fundamentals of cooking and food culture by exploring food scenes in movies. Hosted by Chefs Clara Park and Jenn de la Vega, this duo has decades of culinary experience: Michelin-starred restaurants, nearly two dozen cookbooks, product development, culinary instruction, and, of course, food styling and craft services for film and TV. You might recognize them from Chopped, Snack v. Chef, Guy’s Grocery Games, and Gastronauts. Highlights from season 2 include the ins and outs of offal in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, secrets to making tomato sugo that rivals Clemenza’s Sunday Gravy in The Godfather, and we go back to culinary school courtesy of The Taste of Things and Ratatouille. For our lucky subscribers, bonus content includes chef hacks for the best school lunches, tips and tricks for the coolest and tastiest cocktails, plus a cannoli crawl.

About your hosts:

Chef Clara Park is the founder of the cooking school, eat cetera philly and the co-host of the “The Cinema Chefs” podcast. She honed her skills in Michelin starred restaurants in San Francisco, Napa Valley, Philadelphia, and New York. A highly skilled recipe developer, past clients include Campbell’s Soup, Swanson, Pepperidge Farm, Tabasco and Nature’s Bakery. As a culinary development chef, Park has created hundreds of products for the nation’s top grocers, including Costco, developed menus for all tiers of restaurant dining and trained both front and back of house hospitality professionals. She has appeared on Netflix's "Snack v. Chef" and "FYI Philly". Park has written for Philadelphia magazine, The Huffington Post, and The Kitchn, and has appeared in mashed.com, chowhound.com, Real Simple, and Yahoo! Shopping. Other career highlights include winning Best Burger in Philly in 2016, emerging victorious on the Food Network’s Chopped, and eating live octopus with chefs Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert. She is on the board for The Food Lab at Drexel University and the advisory council for the Culinary Literacy Center at the Free Library of Philadelphia. You can follow her on Instagram @claraparkcooks and @eatceteraphilly

Chef Jenn de la Vega (Co-host & producer) has built a unique culinary practice at Family Party Catering, which mashes experiential with visual art and food. Jenn honed her skills through residencies at TASTE Cooking (Penguin-Random House), Babycastles Gallery, and Kickstarter. Her kaleidoscopic food writing appears on Burlap & Barrel, Food & Wine, Food52, The Kitchn, Thrillist, and Wine Enthusiast. Jenn’s cookbook collaborators include author Von Diaz, Forbes 30 Under 30 chef Tue Nguyen, Michelin-star chef Nick Curtola, and NYT Best-Selling author Justine Doiron. On her menus, you'll find a mix of her Filipinx heritage, Spanish tapas, artisanal cheese, and ' 90s-inspired fast-food cuisine. She is known for her Randwiches or "random sandwiches," in Brooklyn, where clients are given no choice in what they order. She is also a Bed-Stuy BBQ champion, winner of The Bacon Takedown, appeared on Guy’s Grocery Games: The Cheesy Special (Food Network), and competed on season 2 of Gastronauts (Dropout). Outside of the food industry, Jenn serves on the Board of Directors for indie theater The Tank. She is also an ENNIE Award and CRIT Award-nominated voice actor on the Shadowrun podcast, Fun City. Her Instagram is @randwiches.

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Jenn and Clara dive into special occasion dining via the lavish meal prepared for VIP Louis Prima in Big Night. How do you set the best table? Do all centerpieces need to be flowers? How do you cook for people with highly varied diets? Why make-ahead dishes are your lifeline and where to go if you don’t feel like cooking a special occasion dinner.

Chapters

0:26 About Big Night

2:48 The table setting

4:18 Allison Janney & some flower tips

5:39 A trick for tea light candles

6:15  What if I don't have nice silverware or glassware?

7:08 Planning a special occasion menu

9:13 What are our showstopping dishes?

 11:59 The menu for Big Night

14:50 The timpano

18:13 Culinary terms in the movie

21:19 Where to celebrate special occasion meals

23:14 Thanks, and that's a wrap on season 1

Other media we mentioned:

• Timpano alla "Big Night"

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Jenn and Clara explore the world of ramen through the eyes of the titular character Tampopo and her merry band of “experts.” What makes a great ramen soup base? Does the age or quality of the chicken matter if you’re simmering it? How exactly do you make bonito, and why you might want to leave ramen noodle making to the experts.

Chapters

0:38 About Tampopo

3:44 How to make a great ramen broth

9:41 Tonkatsu vs Tonkotsu

11:11 Where is ramen in the movie?

13:50 Why we don't make noodles at home

23:59 Culinary terms in Tampopo

28.12 Where is the best ramen?

29:22 Our next episode 🍝

Other media we mentioned:

• Clara's bowl of ramen
• Shoyu Ramen by Just One Cookbook

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Jenn and Clara explore the world of diner food in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, where you can have breakfast any time of day! They extol the virtues of the metric system when it comes to cooking and baking, as well as the intricacies of a $5 shake (not adjusted for inflation). Is all fast food The Worst? Can food be cheap AND delicious? What makes a great pancake rise? Tune in to find out.

Chapters

0:52 About Pulp Fiction

2:30 Metric vs Imperial measurements

4:37 Where are diners in the movie?

5:07 Our requirements for a good diner

5:50 The secret of the flattop grill

8:30 Alternatives to pork bacon (and other diner sins)

9:29 Muffin tips

10:50 Pancake tips

11:13 Will it waffle?

12:40 Our go-to diner orders

14:55 Where are diners in the movie? (Continued)

15:50 Red Apple cigarettes

20:58 The $5 shake, today

24:26 On the diner table

28:20 Where are the best diners?

29:44 Our next episode 🍜

Other media we mentioned:

• Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes on Recipe Tin Eats
• Red Apple Ciagarettes
• Will it Waffle? (affiliate link)

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Jenn and Clara debate the pluses and minuses of meals prepared in Michelin-starred kitchens. Is it possible to achieve culinary perfection and still be a nice person? Does it make sense to source hyper-locally for all four seasons in a deciduous climate? Has abusive chef culture gone out of style, and what are the effects on kitchen culture? Plus, the world’s greatest smash burger hits the spot, no matter who you are.

Chapters

1:51 About The Menu

2:43 Amuse bouche

5:08 The diners

9:40 What is a Pacojet?

10:42 References to Noma

11:38 How do fine dining restaurants turn a profit?

13:34 Dining as a competitive sport

14:40 The burger

18:56 Our thoughts on pickles

21:47 Culinary terms in The Menu

32:49 Where do you get the best burgers?

35:46 Our next episode 🥄

Other media we mentioned:

• 3-Minute Double Smash Burgers by RecipeTin Eats
• Cleaning at Mugaritz
• Soak Your Ground Meat in Heavy Cream

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