Creating an Oscar-Worthy Dinner with Film Archivist Carol Hopp 2023 Edition
Every year, we not only celebrate the Academy Awards, but we shout out a dear friend of ours: Toronto archivist Carol Hopp (from the Archives of Ontario), who goes the distance by curating an Oscar-worthy dinner each ceremony. The catch is that every food item has to correspond with a Best Picture nominee, and all nominees have to be incorporated. We’re still working with a full list of ten nominees, and Hopp has pulled the impossible off yet again. You can use today to buy the necessary ingredients for tomorrow’s Academy Awards, so get to it!
You can also check out her 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 menus.
Drink: Water, Blue Gatorade
This is a no brainer. You’re going to need to drink something throughout this evening. Granted, you could take after The Banshees of Inisherin and Triangle of Sadness and indulge in some heavy beers and/or some fine wines and champagnes, but the safer bet is to go with water, as inspired by Avatar: The Way of Water (obviously). If you want to get a little more thematic, you can ingest just how blue this film is with some appropriately coloured Gatorade.
Side: Celery
Huh? Well, this selection has some interesting trivia behind it. Hopp tells us that Steven Spielberg drove himself up the wall during the shooting of Jaws, so much so that he was “having nightmares” during production. He resorted to “[putting] celery under his pillow”, because the smell of the vegetable soothed him back to sleep. Considering that The Fablemans is a film about young Spielberg facing his fears and discovering his love for filmmaking, celery feels quite fitting.
Side: Blueberries with Walnuts
Tom Cruise likes to stay in fit shape, so Hopp concludes that a healthy meal — like blueberries with walnuts (for that extra something) — would suffice. Will this bowl make you confident enough to screech up to the stratosphere in a jet like Top Gun: Maverick, or pull off any of Cruise’s other insane stunts that he is iconic for? Likely not, but it’s still good to look after yourself with the right foods.
Appetizer: Cucumber Salad
Sometimes the answer is just so obvious when it comes to making dishes based on Best Picture nominees. What do you even pick for a film like Tár? Hopp went with a cucumber salad. The lead character, Lydia Tár, is also a health nut who takes care of herself. More simply, Hopp remarks that cucumber salads are “the only thing I saw Cate [Blanchett] eat in the entire movie”. To the best of our knowledge, we can’t recall anything else right now, so we’ll take her word for it.
Appetizer: An Everything Bagel
It doesn’t get any easier than this. One of the most well known absurdist images from Everything Everywhere All at Once is the monumental everything bagel that literally has everything on it. Maybe don’t go that far with your dinner: there’s enough wrong with the world. Just opt for a regular everything bagel instead and that will do.
Appetizer: Apple Sauce
A pivotal moment in Women Talking involves the hiding of “a child’s pills” in her apple sauce; given the importance of this moment and what it represents as a whole in the film, Hopp went with this hefty symbol.
Main: A Sandwich Fit for D̶a̶g̶w̶o̶o̶d̶ Elvis
This may not be for everyone, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime sort of meal for you. Not for Elvis Presley, mind you, who loved eating his infamous sandwich. The sandwich has “banana covered in peanut butter, wrapped in bacon,” and then is subsequently fried. Well, there goes the efforts of Top Gun: Maverick and Tár, but those that love Elvis will likely want to give this a bash.
Main: Irish Corned Beef Hash
Want an Irish dish that dates back to the nineteenth century? Have some corned beef hash to celebrate The Banshees of Inisherin: you cannot get more Irish than this for Martin McDonagh’s latest feature.
Desert: Chocolate Pudding with Coconut and a Cherry on Top
Representing the scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where German soldiers had to traipse through the mud, Hopp suggests a chocolate pudding desert; to make it even more German, you can toss in some coconut and place a cherry on top.
Desert: Ginger Candy
The vast majority of Triangle of Sadness is unappetizing, and we can think of a plethora of scenes that we don’t want to replicate in any meal ever. Hopp has a better idea: ginger candy, which is known for settling one’s stomach when they are nauseous (need she remind you of the captain’s rocking-boat scene?). That’s a nice way to wrap up the meal and keep you going during the Oscars.
We thank Carol Hopp for joining us with her annual Oscars menu again!
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.