James Beard Q&A with Josh Penn: Food & Beasts

The James Beard Foundation interviewed producer Josh Penn about the role of food in Beasts of the Southern Wild and within film in general.

JP: So much of the culture in the Louisiana bayou is about food, and more specifically, living off the water. It’s intertwined with everything, it defines the community, and is something that we really wanted to capture. Our first day of shooting was actually the day of the BP oil spill. Most people in the area live off the water in some way or another, and the spill threatened their entire lifestyle—because whether or not it’s your livelihood, it’s still the source of what you eat. It’s what’s all around you. It really underscored how food is interwoven into every aspect of life there. And the approach to food and how it should be eaten would obviously be different if we were telling a story about another community. I’m sure they eat crabs pretty differently on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Read the full interview here.

A Menu Inspired by Beasts

The fine folks at food blog, Epicurious, put together a recipe playlist inspired by Beasts!

Check it out here.

Beasts of the Southern Food

video via Fox Searchlight

"Q: What was your favorite part of working on the film?"

"Quvenzané: Whenever the seafood came."

In the Bathtub, as with the rest of the South, food is a big deal!  Cooking and eating are as much about about community, love and celebration as sustenance.  From the crawfish boils to Hushpuppy's name to Dwight's being discovered as a result of running the Buttermilk Drop Bakery right across from the Court 13 production offices, food is at the core of Beasts.

image via the Amateur Gourmet

Beasts writer Lucy Alibar spoke to the Amateur Gourmet about the role that food played in both her upbringing and the film.

So you named the main character Hushpuppy. Is there anything about an actual hush puppy that speaks to her character or was it just a fun name?

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is based on a play I wrote called “Juicy and Delicious,” following these two characters as they face the end of the known world. Hushpuppy’s dad talks about how after Hushpuppy was born, he and Hushpuppy’s mom couldn’t think of a name, so they called their baby “Big Fat Baby”. And then Hushpuppy’s mamma suggests the name “Hushpuppy”, because “a hushpuppy is a small, warm, stupid, good little thing.”

Read the whole thing here.