When food shows on Netflix have become content, the unassuming simplicity of Somebody Feed Phill got me hooked

“Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell.” Ratatouille gets us. In this series ‘Food for Film,’ we pick food films/shows that make our mouths water and our souls richer. * During the 25 years that I’ve been receptive to [and later obsessed with] films, I’ve picked up on some of the most inane things on screen. How Rahul Bose elegantly rolls his roti before tearing one end of it in Dil Dhadakne Do to suggest his royal lineage, or the way Abhishek Bachchan rips up a paratha, and smothers it with palak paneer in one of his least known films  Shararat to underline his devil-may-care attitude. The cute gadget in Spy Kids, where one only needs to insert tokens into a microwave-like machine, close the door, and in the span of a second, they’re served Happy Meals, replete with crispy looking fries. Sometimes, I also reminisce about the time Farida Jalal swooped into Shah Rukh Khan’s kitchen in Duplicate, and ‘corrected’ the Japanese dishes by adding Punjabi spices to them, only to see [much to everyone’s surprise] the Japanese delegation relishing the food. Never has a Hindi commercial cinema logic made more sense to me. Of course, the Japs loved chhole masala and kasuri methi in their food. Have you had good chhole bhature? Or rajma with a generous amount of kasuri methi in it? As you might be able to tell, I’m passionate about food. It’s almost lazy that I also come from West Bengal. But I wasn’t aware this love for food qualifies as a ‘passion’ till recently. I didn’t know I was a part of a target audience of millions, who were turned on by the crunch of a toast or a creamy pasta dish. I vividly remember a scene from The Matrix, when Joe Pantaliano’s character preempts the juiciness of the steak he’s about to bite into, or how Samuel L Jackson ‘washes down’ his Big Kahuna burger with a tall glass of Sprite while staring straight down at a man he’s about to shoot in another three minutes. The sensory overload – especially how Aamir Khan chomps his salad in Dil Chahta Hai and says “Heaven!” almost as a reflex – is where I draw my inspiration from while expressing compliments for the chef anywhere. Whether it’s a restaurant or someone’s home – it was something that was inculcated into me at a very early age: if you’re fed something, you express your gratitude in the most generous way possible. I realised I was a part of the tribe that had grown up on multiple seasons of Masterchef Australia – and were probably also a part of the annoying bunch that began referring to onions as shallots almost overnight. Lapping up every second show on Fox Traveller, NDTV Good Times [Highway On My Plate FTW!], and Nat Geo Traveller introducing us to new dishes and cultures – I learned I was a part of the #FoodPorn generation. We had grown up idolising Anthony Bourdain, and been equally perplexed and entertained by Gordon Ramsay. Nearly all of us nursed a desire deep down somewhere to commit to running a full-fledged food blog at some point. But soon after I began working in media, it became clear that ‘food videos’ or ‘food movies’ weren’t just that. Curated by an algorithm, perfected by umpteen formats between Tasty and Bong Eats, I could see Big Tech’s cogs functioning smoothly behind the close-up of the cream cheese oozing out of a sandwich or the sizzle of the birista    [fried onion for garnish], and all of a sudden, the food didn’t seem that appetising. Watching all that tasty food in films while growing up didn’t feel as anymore.   With the onset of the pandemic, I knew things were only going to get worse. As Netflix tripled down on food+travel shows for its captive audience, I was almost permanently staying away from #Foodgasm content. I’d realised it was just that in the end, ‘content’… to clock viewership data. It could be argued that some of these shows didn’t even seem to have genuine love for food [like Amole Gupte’s Stanley Ka Dabba]  or a point-of-view on a particular cuisine/culture. It was at a time like this that I first bumped into Phil Rosenthal.   While sampling my first episode of Somebody Feed Phil [on Netflix], I didn’t know him at all. I’d seen a few stray episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, but this was the first time I was meeting its creator. And he was hosting a… food+travel show. A curious choice, indeed. Some digging later, I learned he had done one season of a six-part show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having [2015] for PBS, which was later rebranded for Netflix in 2018.  

Rosenthal does the unthinkable, where he keeps a frothy tone like a sitcom, and yet never does his ease on camera look manufactured. He seems genuine and present through each second of an episode.  

There’s a beautiful segment in the show – where at the end of each episode, Phil video-calls his parents. Sometimes, they’re joined by Monica, or sometimes Monica joins Phil and speaks to her in-laws. He tells them about his travels, what he ate, and Helen usually has a question or two [usually a rebuke for her son when he was younger or irritation for something Max might be doing]. After Helen passed away because of ALS, in the show’s fourth season, it was only Max who would appear on these end-of-the-episode calls, where he would come up with a joke for the audience. It’s one of the most adorable portions of the show, and who would identify with the ritual of constantly talking to your parents, even when you’re thousands of miles away. In an era, where ‘food’ has become content, and simplicity has been traded for excesses, Somebody Feed Phil reminds us about getting the basics right. Rosenthal underplays his role as the host, as he bounces around the world eating, drinking, and exchanging pleasantries with the people he bumps into. He also undersells himself as the storyteller, as he generously offers the stage to the people around him to tell us about how things came to be, while also engaging them in playful banter. Rosenthal’s wit as a host is unquestionable, but what also sets him apart is how he always has warmth to spare for those around him. He seems present, exuberant, never shies away from a compliment, and yet is never patronising. Watching Rosenthal eat and seeing his eyes light up reminded me of my bond with food. Somebody Feed Phil also showed me that it’s possible to be irreverent, curious, and kind, all in the same breath. #FoodPorn isn’t going anywhere, but only we’re responsible for protecting our intimacy with food. And for that, I owe a thanks to Phil Rosenthal. Read more from the series  here . [caption id=“attachment_10273431” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Food for Film. Illustration by Poorti Purohit[/caption] Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR.