Speculative visions and imaginary meals - Food and the environment in (post-apocalyptic) science fiction films

As speculative visions, science fiction films reveal the dreams and the anxieties of the present. This essay focuses on food scenes in science fiction films depicting the future on a post-apocalyptic earth to explore the commentary they offer on the health of the environment ( including humans). Familiar and unfamiliar foods, prepared, shared, denied, and eaten illuminate popular perceptions about nature, technology, and humanity. In this analysis, food is imagined not only as a necessary sustenance for corporeal needs, but also as a liminal cultural symbol of life and death, nature and culture, human and non-human. Such projections of food, whether dramatic or parodic, help illustrate competing claims of nostalgia, progress, failure, control, alienation, and excess.