THE PLATE & THE REEL - a story about a souvenir

This film blog begins with a story about a souvenir from my mother’s kitchen—a 12-inch round tin with a lid that kept a tight seal.   

This tin and others like it, made their way into our household as a storage container for special Greek pastries—handmade with love for dinners and parties at our home. These sweets fit perfectly inside these containers with their paper doilies and a piece of wax paper lying on top for freshness.  The cans’ tight seal and easy storage size and shape became my mother’s favorites.  They also signaled to us that the contents were off limits, not to be touched EVER for a snack but instead saved for company.

After my mother’s passing six years ago, I kept a tin in memory of her love for cooking and as a souvenir reminding me of baking days when baklava and other Greek sweets were carefully prepared and placed inside neatly to be shared with friends and relatives.

But it wasn’t just for food memories that I kept this tin.  On the lid, the company name and logo were embossed.  It read:  “This can made by Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N .Y. U. S. A.”  The Logo, resembled a rendition of the 1907 original one.

Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, formed in 1892, developed its logo in 1907. Tin canisters were used in the first half of the twentieth century and had become an icon of the film industry until replaced by plastic canisters. No problem. They had a home in American kitchens.

The Eastman Kodak connection a re-purposed storage container for food was kind of a fun idea but it grew in significance.  I didn’t know it at the time but the can represented a memento of my film studies days.  It intrigued me that a film of some kind once sat inside, but when I created the P&R idea the memento turned into something more.

The simple thought that food literally meets film in these cans added some humor to my exploration of food and film.  And there was my metaphor—a literal intersection of where the two meet, a container of stories, in the company of family and friends, points of connections, and yes….a plate and a reel. There’s just something satisfying about both.