Last week we quoted a review of ‘Casino Royale’ that called it the “gourmet” James Bond film. It got us thinking - is James Bond a gourmet anymore?
The director who brought James Bond to the silver screen, Terence Young, was certainly a gourmet. Along with the added dry humour, Young’s taste for the finer things in life bled through into the early films. This aspect of the character is carried through Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton’s interpretations. However, snobbery about food seemingly disappeared with the Pierce Brosnan era and is also absent through Daniel Craig’s run (ordering generic caviar with plenty of toast is about it). Also gone in these latter two eras is the traditional formal dinner with the villain.
At the recent Christie’s 60th-anniversary charity auction was a menu from ‘Thunderball’s Café Martinique. After beating Largo in the casino, Bond invites Domino to join him for a drink and he orders the Beluga caviar. It was also on the top line of the menu so perhaps Bond had better things to focus his attention on.
The menu contains much more interesting choices and is a time capsule of fine dining that Fleming would have enjoyed.
Fast-forwarding to the Roger Moore era, one of the more ostentatious examples of Bond’s food and drink snobbery comes in ‘For Your Eyes Only’ when Bond plays one-upmanship with Kristatos on his choices. In the draft script, it was Kristatos that made the selections, but this was flipped to Bond making the order when shooting.
Aperitif, please?
Ouzo for me, please.
And a whiskey.
And to eat?
I'll have the preveza prawns, savara salad and bourdetto.
An excellent choice. I'll have the same.
May I suggest a white robolo wine from Cefalonia, my home place?
If you'll forgive me, that's a little too scented for my palate.
I prefer the Theotaki Aspro.
Timothy Dalton’s Bond had strong opinions too. When M orders a hamper from Harrods for the debrief of Koskov at the safe house, 007 takes it upon himself to tweak the contents.
What's this? Caviar. Well, that's peasant food for us, but with champagne it's OK. Bollinger RD. The best!
The brand on the list was questionable, sir, so I chose something else.
Superb, Mr Bond!
Do you think we will see a return to formal dining and James Bond having strong opinions on his food? Perhaps the new villains will throw a formal dinner for their captive audience once more?
News
Author Kim Sherwood has finished her second novel in the ‘Double-O’ trilogy (the first, ‘Double or Nothing,’ was published in the UK in September). No clues yet as to the plot, but the first draft weighed in at 101,042 words.
Guy Ritchie will direct a WWII action spy adventure 'The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare' with Henry Cavill and Eliza González in the lead roles. Reported to be based on real events, the film will chart Winston Churchill’s and Ian Fleming’s secret WWII combat organization. The clandestine squad’s unconventional and entirely ‘ungentlemanly’ fighting techniques against the Nazis helped change the course of the war and in part gave birth to the modern Black Ops unit. Cavill will play the leader of the combat organization, so expect plenty of nods to Bond as Fleming's war experience gets stretched even more. Of course, they are pitching this as the first film in a possible franchise.
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We're back with our first regular episode in months (after wrapping the weekly 'Debrief' season) to share our thoughts on James Bond's cinematic 60th anniversary. We report from Christie's where there was an exclusive interview with producer Michael G. Wilson, review the 'Sound of 007' documentary and Royal Albert Hall concert, run through the box-office success of the UK cinema re-releases, and cast our eye over the plethora of merch.
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‘Día de Muertos’ (Day of the Dead) is a traditional holiday celebrated in Mexico at the start of November, but there was no annual parade until ‘Spectre’ made one up for the film’s pretitle sequence in 2015. It was such a popular creation that the capital city kept it going for locals and tourists alike. This year’s parade was live streamed and you can catch up on YouTube and try and spot all the Bond-inspired floats and costumes.
Exit Through The Gift Shop
If you are interested in Bond’s food choices over the years, you will be fascinated and delighted by this great new book from our friend and frequent contributor Edward Biddulph. 'Double-O Dining' is a book of Bond-inspired recipes that takes readers on a culinary journey through Ian Fleming’s novels and the Bond film series.
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Do we have any idea when "The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare" will be released? I assume it's just in the early planning stages?
As for the "gourmet" James Bond, he used to be an icon of style for men, a cultural reference. In the last decades, its authors wanted to avoid the risk of him being too sophisticated for our times, so he became more and more virile and, in the Craig years, he was transformed into someone who doesn't really belong to the upper class. Although he does his job with sophisticated people (M, the villains), he's not one of them. Good job, because now the majority of us can identify with him much more than before, but of course something went lost along the way. They dropped the gourmet but kept the alcohol lover. Smart people, the authors. ;)