Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (19 page)
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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism
BOOK: Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series)
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Food is vitally important to small towns. Local eateries shape the town’s identity, while potlucks and shared meals provide a context for social interaction. Residents show care to one another through the bringing of meals and desserts. Food is about more than sustenance: it is a means of communication.
Gilmore Girls
establishes its interest in food from the very first episode, as the following conversation between Emily Gilmore and Lorelai Gilmore attests:
establishes its interest in food from the very first episode, as the following conversation between Emily Gilmore and Lorelai Gilmore attests:
EMILY: An education is the most important thing in the world, next to family.LORELAI: And pie. (Silence) Joke, joke. (“Pilot,” 1-1)
But she’s not joking. Food plays a role in Stars Hollow and in the lives of the Gilmores that rivals education and family. Stars Hollow is a town so in love with food that Al’s Pancake World serves clams, the best egg foo young in town, and occasionally hosts a salute to Jamaica. Food almost serves as a character itself on
Gilmore Girls
. In particular, it functions as one of the show’s primary means of communication. Food defines characters, becomes the vehicle for delivering the message of many episodes, and expresses the show’s moral center and understanding of community. With each episode,
Gilmore Girls
offers up a smorgasbord of food for thought.
Gilmore Girls
. In particular, it functions as one of the show’s primary means of communication. Food defines characters, becomes the vehicle for delivering the message of many episodes, and expresses the show’s moral center and understanding of community. With each episode,
Gilmore Girls
offers up a smorgasbord of food for thought.
When Sookie St. James learned of Rory Gilmore’s acceptance at Chilton Academy, she said, “I’ll make cookies. Protestants love oatmeal” (“Pilot,” 1-1). Food defines people on
Gilmore Girls
. What they eat, how they eat, where they eat, and the way they cook reveals truth about their lives and their personalities. For Emily and Richard Gilmore, eating is a delicate art form and food a symbol of status and wealth. They never cook for themselves (that’s what servants are for), and dinner must be eaten with decorum and etiquette. Their Friday night dinners with Lorelai and Rory offer up a menu (cassoulet, squab, escargot) that screams of sophistication and elitism.
Gilmore Girls
. What they eat, how they eat, where they eat, and the way they cook reveals truth about their lives and their personalities. For Emily and Richard Gilmore, eating is a delicate art form and food a symbol of status and wealth. They never cook for themselves (that’s what servants are for), and dinner must be eaten with decorum and etiquette. Their Friday night dinners with Lorelai and Rory offer up a menu (cassoulet, squab, escargot) that screams of sophistication and elitism.
By contrast, Lorelai and Rory’s diet is a manifestation of Lorelai’s desire to be as independent of her parents as possible. Like her mother, Lorelai almost never cooks, but for a completely different reason, finding even instant mashed potatoes to involve too much manual labor. As if in rebellion against high cuisine, Lorelai and Rory sustain themselves with their own version of the five basic food groups: pizza, cheeseburgers, Beefaroni, pie, and coffee. Fast food compliments their fast-paced lifestyle. Lorelai’s reference to Tums as “amateur pills” (“A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving,” 3-9) reveals her pride in how her and Rory’s healthy appetites symbolize their not only surviving, but thriving against the odds.
For Luke Danes, food identifies the duality of his character. This is a man who runs a greasy diner serving donuts, chili fries, and cheeseburgers, and yet is himself a health nut. Despite the unimpressive appearance of his diner, the food is outstanding. These contradictions symbolize the duality between what Luke projects on the outside—a gruff, belligerent, and uncharitable personality—and what he truly is on the inside—a sensitive softy who, despite his vocal protests, is always there when people need him.
Duality is also at play in the Kim household. The extreme health food approach of Mrs. Kim represents her ascetic outlook on life. For her, French fries are “the devil’s starchy fingers” (“The Party’s Over,” 5- 8) and the Cookie Monster a representation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins—gluttony. That she brought pamphlets on the evils of dancing along with her eggless egg salad to a charity dance reveals her position on the interconnection of physical and moral well-being (“They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They,” 3-7). This forces Lane to exist in two worlds: her mother’s Korean Christian world and her own American teenager world. That she has been known to wear a yellow “Trust God” T-shirt beneath a black “Dead Kennedy” T-shirt shows her attempt to walk this tightrope. Lane dutifully eats the tofu and kimchi her mother provides, but then sneaks off to Rory’s for pizza and Snickers bars.
As chef and produce supplier, Sookie and Jackson employ food as their primary means of communication. They argue and bicker about food as though it is the only means through which they can reveal their true feelings. When Sookie first asked Jackson out on a date, their conversations about food suddenly became very awkward (meaning polite), because their relationship had become awkward (“Double Date,” 1-12). Later, Sookie and Jackson experienced a rough patch in their marriage, and it was only when Lorelai witnessed them bickering over radishes that she concluded they had made up (“Last Week Fights, This Week Tights,” 4-21).
In “Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving” (3-9), Lorelai and Rory got invited to four Thanksgiving dinners. Each one stood as a testimony to the character of its host(s): Mrs. Kim provided Tofurkey; Jackson deep-fried a turkey, to Sookie’s endless disgust; Luke hosted his meal in the diner as though serving up bacon and eggs; and Emily and Richard had a ceremonial cutting of the turkey (one slice) before having it taken away into the kitchen for completion by the help. If the old maxim is true that “you are what you eat,” then, on
Gilmore Girls
, identity is forged at the dinner table.
Gilmore Girls
, identity is forged at the dinner table.
Food is more than just salad dressing on
Gilmore Girls
. It plays an integral role in forwarding the plot and in communicating an episode’s central ideas. When Sookie experienced pregnancy cravings, Jackson went out and bought her requested food, only to discover upon returning that she no longer desired it. Then Emily, separated from Richard, decided she wanted to date. She was craving a new life. Following her first date, though, she came home and cried. Like Sookie, she was craving something she didn’t really want (“Emily Says Hello,” 5-9). One Stars Hollow fundraiser called for bids on picnic baskets where the meal was to be shared between the bidder and the basket-maker. The hitch was that the bidder had to bid without seeing the contents. The baskets thus symbolized the uncertainty plaguing the relationships of Stars Hollow citizens. Jess outbid Dean for Rory’s basket, and their subsequent meal underscored the uncertainty contained in any romantic triangle. Luke and Lorelai’s meal hinted at the uncertainty of their relationship—was it friendship, or was it more? Sookie’s basket represented her and Jackson’s uncertainty about the status of their future. Only when Jackson went to great lengths to acquire Sookie’s basket from the perennially basket-less Kirk did he address the uncertainty and propose (“A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” 2-13). Even rotten food plays a symbolic role. A foul odor in the town square got traced back to the fifty-nine rotting Easter eggs that had been missed during the previous week’s hunt. Then, when Rory and a married Dean revealed their previously hidden affection for each other and Jason’s dad revealed the secret news that Lorelai and Jason had been dating, we discovered the message of that episode: that some things shouldn’t stay hidden, or they begin to smell (“Tick, Tick, Tick, Boom!” 4-18).
Gilmore Girls
. It plays an integral role in forwarding the plot and in communicating an episode’s central ideas. When Sookie experienced pregnancy cravings, Jackson went out and bought her requested food, only to discover upon returning that she no longer desired it. Then Emily, separated from Richard, decided she wanted to date. She was craving a new life. Following her first date, though, she came home and cried. Like Sookie, she was craving something she didn’t really want (“Emily Says Hello,” 5-9). One Stars Hollow fundraiser called for bids on picnic baskets where the meal was to be shared between the bidder and the basket-maker. The hitch was that the bidder had to bid without seeing the contents. The baskets thus symbolized the uncertainty plaguing the relationships of Stars Hollow citizens. Jess outbid Dean for Rory’s basket, and their subsequent meal underscored the uncertainty contained in any romantic triangle. Luke and Lorelai’s meal hinted at the uncertainty of their relationship—was it friendship, or was it more? Sookie’s basket represented her and Jackson’s uncertainty about the status of their future. Only when Jackson went to great lengths to acquire Sookie’s basket from the perennially basket-less Kirk did he address the uncertainty and propose (“A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” 2-13). Even rotten food plays a symbolic role. A foul odor in the town square got traced back to the fifty-nine rotting Easter eggs that had been missed during the previous week’s hunt. Then, when Rory and a married Dean revealed their previously hidden affection for each other and Jason’s dad revealed the secret news that Lorelai and Jason had been dating, we discovered the message of that episode: that some things shouldn’t stay hidden, or they begin to smell (“Tick, Tick, Tick, Boom!” 4-18).
The use of food as a foreshadowing device is common on
Gilmore Girls
. Scenes involving food that occur near the beginnings of episodes often set up ideas or events that develop later. One such episode opened with Lorelai tasting cake samples for her and Max’s wedding while Fran lectured her on the importance of choosing the right cake. By the end of the episode, Lorelai had broken off her engagement, determining that Max was just not the right piece of cake (“Red Light on the Wedding Night,” 2-3).
Gilmore Girls
. Scenes involving food that occur near the beginnings of episodes often set up ideas or events that develop later. One such episode opened with Lorelai tasting cake samples for her and Max’s wedding while Fran lectured her on the importance of choosing the right cake. By the end of the episode, Lorelai had broken off her engagement, determining that Max was just not the right piece of cake (“Red Light on the Wedding Night,” 2-3).
Friday night dinners and Luke’s diner serve as the primary locations for food consumption, so it comes as no surprise that the recipes offered up there often establish the recipe for the entire episode. An argument broke out at one Friday night dinner when Emily’s cook put walnuts in the salad against her orders. When Emily decided to fire her, Lorelai related a meandering story with the following moral: “All I’m saying is sometimes eating a walnut is preferable to getting hacked to death or set on fire during dinner” (“Let the Games Begin,” 3-8). The point was that sometimes fighting over the little things, like walnuts, just isn’t worth it. That’s good advice, and it was advice Luke, Lorelai, and Rory needed to learn. When Luke discovered Rory and Jess kissing in his apartment, he overreacted and tried to control their relationship—until he learned to let go of the little things. Then, when Richard deceived Rory into meeting with a Yale admissions advisor despite her longstanding preference for Harvard, Lorelai and Rory were furious. The episode ended, however, with Lorelai and Rory sitting in their respective bedrooms reading Yale brochures, having realized that sometimes it’s better to just eat the walnuts (“Let the Games Begin”).
At another Friday night dinner, Lorelai was enjoying an unidentified food—until it became identified. Emily informed her she was eating a dish with the decidedly pleasant name of “sweetbread,” but which was in fact pancreas. This set up the central theme of the episode: that what appears pleasant on the outside might be something completely different underneath. This theme found expression in Paris Geller who, while doing an exposé on seemingly idyllic small towns, came to Stars Hollow with the goal of finding its seedy underbelly, as well as in Richard who, upon learning that Dean built a car for Rory, became convinced that, despite its shiny exterior, something was wrong under the hood. Richard’s time in Stars Hollow also led him to the realization that his retirement, for all its hopeful promise, had turned out to be less than desirable. In these instances, Paris and Richard either sought or found the pancreas behind the sweetbread (“Richard in Stars Hollow,” 2-12).
Luke’s diner also establishes the recipe for episodes by setting up storylines or introducing themes. In the episode “One’s Got Class and the Other One Dyes” (3-4), the theme of death received treatment in a figurative and playful way. The episode opened at Luke’s diner with Lorelai telling Rory of her premonitions about her own death, which appropriately involved food (such as slipping on a banana peel and falling into a vat of whipped cream), and leading the viewer to expect Lorelai to experience some form of death. At that same moment, Luke brought them hamburgers which, for the first and only time in the series, he referred to as “dead cow.” When Lane walked in, took a bite of Rory’s dead cow, and then left, taking Rory’s burger with her, it indicated that Lorelai and Lane would be linked in this episode by the theme of dying. Indeed, they proved to be the two individuals hinted at in the title of the episode, and what connected them was the episode’s playful look at death. Thus, Lane, in an amusing word-play on the concept of death (as represented in the title), went on to “dye” her hair purple in an act of defiance against her mother, while Lorelai, in fulfillment of her premonitions, figuratively “died” in her disastrous speech to a high school class.
In another instance, Lorelai complained about Luke changing the special on his blackboard to “Luke’s Special Omelet.” She ordered the omelet, but then frustrated Luke by proceeding to change everything special about it until it became an ordinary omelet. Thus, the theme was set: changing a working recipe leads to frustration. Consequently, Lane got upset when a high school aptitude test confirmed that she should work in sales, thus altering the recipe for her life. Michel got upset when Lorelai told his mother he didn’t eat carbs, leading his mother to become more invasive in his life and changing the recipe for their relationship. Richard got upset when the school project he consulted on for Rory failed to win the contest, causing him to come to terms with how retirement had altered the recipe for his life. Finally, Dean got upset over how Rory’s crush on Jess was changing the recipe for their romantic relationship (“Back in the Saddle Again,” 2-18).
In “Emily In Wonderland” (1-19), Luke was bothered to see Lorelai and Rachel hanging out, as it represented an uncomfortable mixture of two women in his life. Later, when Rory asked Lorelai if she would ever be able to talk out her differences with her mother, Lorelai commented that she and Emily spoke different languages and simply didn’t mix. Near the end of the episode, Rory and Lorelai ordered coffee at Luke’s. After one sip, they both commented on how the coffee tasted different and then turned to look at Luke and Rachel, awareness dawning at how the addition of Rachel to the mixture was changing things. All this was set up near the beginning of the episode when Lorelai ordered pancakes and eggs at Luke’s. Luke placed the eggs on top of the pancakes, inadvertently creating a breakfast face and freaking out Lorelai, who believed the eggs were ogling her. She insisted the two be separated because some things just don’t mix.
The moral vision of
Gilmore Girls
finds expression in the show’s conception of community. The community of Stars Hollow bears the marks of reality: people bicker, hold grudges, invade each other’s privacy, and occasionally lie to one another. Despite all this, Stars Hollow represents something of an ideal community. It is a place where citizens look out for each other, where church and synagogue share a building in peace and friendship, and where the entire town celebrates together and grieves together. After their break-up, Lorelai lamented that she had thought Max would be the “one person who would always be there for me.” Yet after witnessing how the town rallied around her in her time of need, she realized that it was actually the townspeople who would always be there for her and, consequently, she for them (“Run Away, Little Boy,” 2-9).
Gilmore Girls
finds expression in the show’s conception of community. The community of Stars Hollow bears the marks of reality: people bicker, hold grudges, invade each other’s privacy, and occasionally lie to one another. Despite all this, Stars Hollow represents something of an ideal community. It is a place where citizens look out for each other, where church and synagogue share a building in peace and friendship, and where the entire town celebrates together and grieves together. After their break-up, Lorelai lamented that she had thought Max would be the “one person who would always be there for me.” Yet after witnessing how the town rallied around her in her time of need, she realized that it was actually the townspeople who would always be there for her and, consequently, she for them (“Run Away, Little Boy,” 2-9).
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