Six Bonds and 23 films later, we can re-count many spectacular moments and close scrapes that the handsome secret agent James Bond encountered in the name of duty. What is more difficult to recall are his dietary habits. Did he have a penchant for the finer food in life; a craving for caviar, a soft spot for eggs benedict? Or was he happy enough with a simple steak and chips?
For most of us, onscreen James Bond is a character associated more with fast living than with decadent dining. Conversely, off-screen, in the original 007 novels, the author Ian Fleming, goes to great lengths to describe Bond's love of fine food. "I myself will accompany Mademoiselle with the caviar, but then I would like a very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Bearnaise and a couer d'artichaut. While Mademoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve?" (Ian Fleming, Casino Royale 1953).
Fortuntately, photographer Henry Hargreaves and food stylist Charlotte Omnés have been hard at work putting Bond's dishes back into the spotlight and filling in the culinary gaps with their series of 'dying to eat' photographs. For the first time we are given a visual glimpse into Bond's culinary world. Presenting one meal from each Bond film with the accompanying original text, clues are strategically left, including a half finished cigarette, a woman's purse, a pair of cufflinks, and the imagination is left to complete each scene. What is clear, judging from the kobe beef and lobster claws, is that Bond's love of the finer things in life did extend to food.
Head over to designboom for some more luxurious dishes and behind the scenes shots showing the level of precision the team went to in re-creating Bond's favourites.
Photos courtesy of Henry Hargreaves.
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