My favorite food moment in film is from the movie TOMMY (the rock opera by The Who).

Anne Margret, full of guilt for the way she has treated her son, is trying to kill her pain with champagne. She is lying on white satin sheets, in a white jumpsuit, with a white fur coat.

She keeps switching the channel on the television, from Tommy to advertisements, but the tv keeps coming back to Tommy. The ads are a tribute to American hucksterism, touting soap, baked beans, and chocolate.

In the end, to get rid of the image of Tommy, she flings the champagne bottle through the screen. Soap bubbles come flooding through the broken screen, filling the room. Then a torrent of baked beans. Finally, a river of chocolate. The image of Ann Margret's writhing dance amid the muck is archetypal in its intensity. To see a woman covered with baked beans is an amazing thing. The fact that it's all a drunken hallucination takes nothing from the symbolism.-- Barbara Green via e-mail

"The scene in FIVE EASY PIECES where he's ordering his food in the diner, that's me -- I hate mayonnaise on my sandwiches, too. That's how I order my food -- less of this, some more of that -- a sandwich has to be just right, otherwise it's just two pieces of bread with some crap in between instead of the gastronomic experience that it can be." -- actress Linda Fiorentino on Jack Nicholson and Sandwiches in the Oct. '97 NEON

AjM, a buddy since our days in the wild world of college radio, checks in with this tale of the hazards of eating during a date. Just a note, the "Khyber" mentioned below is The Khyber Pass, once the best punk bar in Philly. A killer beer selection, a fab jukebox, and a postage stamp-sized stage that hosted the likes of everyone from the Dwarves and Pegboy to the Fluid, Fleshtones, Elastica, UO, and many more indie rock gods.

This is from THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS. It may seem like a minor "food scene," but it does hold a lot of significance for me, and I'm sure for many others.

It's one of the early scenes in the bar. Noelle (Uma Thurman) has gone to the bathroom to allow Abby (Janeane Garofalo) time to explain to Brian (Ben Chaplin) the truth -- that Abby lied about who she was, etc.

So, Abby picks up a tortilla chip, loads it with salsa, and proceeds to life it to her mouth. It breaks, spilling salsa all over her light-colored shirt. And of course, she doesn't have a sweater to pull over herself. So there she is, already tied up in this lie, in the presence of this really hot guy, and she has a huge salsa stain on her.

Why do I like this scene? Becuase it's true. Becuase it's happened to me hundreds of times in hundreds of different variations. Because it demonstrates how difficult it is to perform the simple tasks of eating and drinking in front of someone you really like. I remember dates at the Khyber (the OLD Khyber, that is), taking a fresh swig from a bottle of Yuengling Lager (no Porter for me, thanks), and having the rest of the beer foam up out of the bottle and over my hand while I tried to be sparkling, witty, and take-homeable. Or ordering way too spicy Indian food and trying to carry on a conversation while guzzling glass after glass of water...or laughing while trying to drink a cappuchino and spraying milk foam halfway across the table. Food disasters are a major reason that most of my clothing is black or dark-colored.

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[This article originally appeared in THG #2]