Final Journal

The United States of America is one of the few countries that never really got the chance to develop its
own culinary tradition. It is nearly impossible to define American cuisine when the history of food in this
country is influenced by so many other countries. Who’s to say whether the German influenced
hamburger is more or less American than the Chinese-American sweet and sour chicken you can find
almost anywhere. What the film What’s Cooking does excellently is finding the meal that - perhaps more
than any other - defines American cooking: Thanksgiving.

Part of what makes Thanksgiving so American is its ability to be interpreted. There are a few agreed
upon dishes or ingredients, but there are thousands of ways to interpret those dishes. The cultural divides
that permeate What’s Cooking are least apparent in the food. Even though the food differs drastically
across the different households, the care that goes into the food, and the sense of family and community
that surrounds it, are shared.

As the film explores, a passion for good food isn’t the only Thanksgiving tradition shared by every
American family. The holidays are rife with familial conflict - cheating exes and angry kids and
domineering parents and intergenerational misunderstandings are prevalent in each and every household.
The cultural differences are vast, but the underlying humanity of each family unit represents an
idealistic view of what it is to be American - that no matter who we are or where we come from, we are
all connected.

What’s Cooking is an example of extraordinarily compassionate filmmaking. Director Gurinder
Chadha has used her artform as a means of trying to understand the ideals of families with vastly
different cultural backgrounds than her own. The movie’s very existence is a gesture of empathy, and
twenty years later, that kind of empathetic filmmaking is just as important.