This piece on the food in Pulp Fiction was originally published in Epicurious, March 2014.
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with his first feature “Reservoir Dog” in 1992. But it was “Pulp Fiction”, two years later, that was the revelation and the game-changer, a film that whose influence is still felt today. “Pulp Fiction”‘s non-linear storytelling structure was seen as revelatory at the time, and it represented a long-overdue comeback for iconic actor John Travolta, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as ponytailed hit-man Vincent Vega. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of “Pulp Fiction” that the script is “so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it”; Tarantino won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.
In Tarantino’s films, the characters are always busy either talking, shooting guns, or eating. Tarantino’s sensibility comes from the drive-in movies, Automats, and all-night diners from America’s past. His characters are not gourmets, but all of them experience voracious hunger, for burgers, for breakfast, for pie. The juxtaposition, of assassins and hit-men chatting about pop culture over breakfast before heading on to their next kill, is comedic and ironic, and all part of the world Tarantino so loves to create. “Pulp Fiction” revolves around food, from the first scene to the last.
Royale with Cheese:
Hit men Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Wingfield (Samuel L. Jackson) discuss Vincent’s recent years in Amsterdam while driving to their next hit-job. Vincent relates how different things are in Europe and all of his observations have to do with food. Did you know that Europeans eat French fries with mayonnaise, not ketchup? Did you know you can get a glass of beer at the movies? Most fascinating is what “they” call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris: They call it a “Royale with Cheese”. Vincent informs the amazed Jules that they call it that due to the metrics system. This early scene introduces us to the Tarantino voice and style, two killers bantering about hamburgers. It was a fresh and new sound. And, like so many of Tarantino’s scenes, it made you hungry.
Big Kahuna Burger:
Vincent and Jules have been hired to retrieve a black leather briefcase hijacked by three kids, a briefcase that belongs to their boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). The briefcase, when opened, sheds a golden glow onto the face of Vincent Vega, but we never learn its contents. Vincent and Jules burst in on the three kids, holed up in a dank apartment, interrupting their breakfast which consists of big juicy burgers from a Hawaiian place called Big Kahuna’s. Jules takes the lead in the terrifying interrogation, and asks if he may try the burger. Once he takes a big juicy bite, he says, with stunned appreciation, “That is a tasty burger!” Of course, the three boys are frozen in fear, watching this intimidating gun-wielding man chomp down on their breakfast, expressing sheer sensual delight in the taste.
Five Dollar Milkshake:
Marsellus Wallace has asked Vincent Vega to take his wife out while he is out of town. Wallace’s wife, Mia, is played by Uma Thurman, wearing a pert Louise Brooks-style wig, and gold ballet flats. Mia takes Vincent to a restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slim’s, an ode to 1950s culture, with impersonators of Ed Sullivan, Ricky Nelson, Marilyn Monroe, and others wandering around waiting on tables. The booths in Jack Rabbit Slim’s are gleaming tail-finned cars, the entire scene being an homage to the car-restaurant in the Elvis Presley film “Speedway”. Vincent and Mia order food from their Buddy Holly lookalike waiter (played by Steve Buscemi): Vincent orders a “Douglas Sirk steak” and a “vanilla Coke”, while Mia orders a “Derwood Kirby burger” and the famous “Five Dollar Milkshake.” Their date has an innocence to it, despite the unsavory aspects of both characters: their date is a throwback to a simpler time, when girls and boys drank milk shakes on their dates, and had to be home by 11.
Strawberry Cheesecake Milkshake
Diner-Style Strawberry Milkshakes
Blueberry Pancakes:
“Pulp Fiction” features seemingly unconnected characters weaving in and out of each other’s lives in unexpected ways. Bruce Willis plays boxer Butch Coolidge, hired by Marsellus Wallace to throw an upcoming fight. Butch is planning on double-crossing Marsellus Wallace, taking the money, and fleeing the country with his wife Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros). Butch calls Fabienne by pet names, all sweet-sounding and sugary, “Lemon Pie,” “Sugar Pop”, suggesting how delicious he finds her, and in one scene, Fabienne tells her husband of the breakfast she yearns to consume that morning. It involves a “big plate of blueberry pancakes, eggs over easy, and five sausages.” Fabienne wants to top it all off with a piece of blueberry pie. As Butch and Fabienne discuss their escape to Bora Bora, Fabienne has competing dreams of breakfast and growing a sexy little “pot belly”. Unfortunately for Fabienne, a huge breakfast like the one in her dreams will not be in the cards, at least not that morning, but it was scrumptious thinking about it.
Diner-Style Buttermilk Pancakes
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Toaster Pastries:
Butch, before fleeing, has to go back to his old apartment to retrieve a precious gold watch, given to him by his father (the meaning of the watch is explained to us by Christopher Walken, in one of the funniest monologues in the film). Once back at the apartment, he realizes he is hungry, since his wife’s big breakfast never came to pass, so he pops some frosted Pastries into the toaster. Then he notices the giant gun on the counter. At the same time, he hears the toilet flush in the bathroom. Picking up the gun, he points it at the bathroom door. At the moment Vincent opens the door, the Pastries pop up out of the toaster, startling Butch, who shoots Vincent in the chest. Butch’s day will go from bad to worse after that, and he does it all on an empty stomach.
Corn Muffin/Bacon:
The film opens in the famous Los Angeles eatery The Hawthorne Grille, demolished soon after the shooting of “Pulp Fiction”. Two robbers (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) drink coffee and discuss how they should rob the restaurant. We leave the robbers for the rest of the film, until its final scene, when “Pulp Fiction” loops itself back to that location, showing Vincent and Jules sitting at a table adjacent to the conspiring duo. Jules and Vincent talk about God, redemption, and miracles. Jules feels he has been given a sign, he wants to “try to be a shepherd”. Vincent chows down on pancakes and bacon (the breakfast Fabienne had been drooling over in her fantasy), and Jules refuses an offer to eat some of Vincent’s bacon because “the pig is a filthy animal.” Jules picks delicately at his big corn muffin, an activity that takes him through the rest of the scene, where his path intersects with the paths of the two robbers we saw in the opening. Breakfast, the most important meal of the day, is where their destinies collide.
