Blog #2 - Power of Food and the Protestant Ethics presented in "Babette's Feast"

 Blog #2 - Power of Food and the Protestant Ethics presented in Babette's Feast

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Gabriel Axil’s film, Babette’s Feast can be described as having multiple main ideas. One of those main ideas that represents this film is the “power of food and the protestant ethics.” I was not sure what Protestant Ethics really was, but after some research I got a better sense of what it is. Protestant Ethics can be looked at as the religious ideas of groups, morality to be specific. So, let’s talk about the relationship between the food and the religious ideas that are shown throughout Babette’s Feast. 
Babette’s Feast takes place in an isolated Lutheran sect, which provides us with that religious background. A lot of the film revolves around the idea of forgiveness and mourning, along with the cooking powers of the culinary artist, which in this case is Babette. Babette is servant (chef and maid) to two sisters named, Martine and Philippa. Over time, the sisters became progressively dependent on Babette and what she was doing for them.  
When it comes to Martine and Philippa, they are completely devoted to the spiritual goals that they believe in. They believe that their spiritual goals can only be achieved through two things. Those two things are though the denial of sensory and sensual appetites, which both relate to the power of food. Therefore, they reject worldly love, ambition, admiration, and wealth.  
In this film, food influences the feeling that you could have witchcraft practiced on you from commenting on it. The sisters believed that Babette may be engaged in a witch’s sabbath. Due to this feeling that they have they made sure not to comment on the food that was prepared by Babette. They did this so that “dangerous or maybe even evil powers” of Babette's so called “witchcraft” could not be let into the celebration of their father’s memory. This was the purpose of this occasion. The food that was served, along with the drinks were to allow all the diners to commune with the dead. This is the power that this meal that was served had on this sect.  
Martine, Philippa, and their guest eating the dinner that Babette's prepared
Babette has a real art for cooking and for food. It was said that Babette has the “ability to transform a dinner into a kind of love affair, a love affair that made no distinction between bodily appetite and spiritual appetite.” At the end of the film, Babette tries to teach the sisters a lesson. She teaches them that they do not have to deny themselves pleasure and joy. She teaches them that they can experience pleasure and joy, such as the pleasure and joy that they can receive from food, good food to be exact and still live righteously, and keep their same religious ideas and beliefs.
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One of Babette's dishes (Quail)
Sources:
Keller, James R. Food, Film and Culture. A Genre Study. McFarland, 2006. p.152-162
 https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2011/04/14/my-favourite-film-babettes-feast
https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/the-many-metaphors-hidden-within-a-feast-shebaba-by- renuka-narayanan/story-a4chCzyEa8gnKpxgyFfJZP.html 
https://www.amazon.com/Babettes-Birgitte-Federspiel-Anderson-Stephane/dp/B074NDHX48 

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