The Untold Story of The Best Picture Menu
By Grace Jacobson / Public Affairs Programming Producer
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — It’s award season in Hollywood. As the actors, actresses, directors, producers, and other creatives gear up for the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15, two people in Central Minn. are gearing up as well.
The Oscars are KVSC Station Manager Dan Seeger and his partner, Andrea’s, version of the Super Bowl. In celebration of Hollywood’s biggest night, the two create menu items for each of the Best Picture nominees.
“We think the first year we did it was for the movie year 2015,” says Dan. “We decided that for every one of the Best Picture nominees, we are going to make a multicourse meal that matches up with them.”
Image provided by Dan Seeger
They call it The Best Picture Menu. Unlike other people who cook for the Oscars and make food puns on titles or a literal meal representation of the film, Dan and Andrea go a step further.
“We’ve really dug into trying to connect it to something that happens in the movie that’s food related,” says Andrea. When it comes to watching each Best Picture nominee, she says, “There’s a little thread in your head going, ‘What are they going to eat?'”
But a lot of the meal items end up not being food, rather drinks.
“Many movies have no food at all,” Andrea says. “You’d be amazed how many movies have no food at all–no reference to food. There are years we give up.”
A movie like the 95th Academy Awards Best Picture nominee Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) is a great example.
“We had water,” she admits.
Image provided by Dan Seeger
The couple gets creative in other ways, though. Dan and Andrea name each of the meal items to contextualize it to the scene its in reference to.
“It’s never just a chicken drumstick,” Andrea explains. “For The Substance (2024), there’s one of the gruesome scenes where she pulls one of her food items out of her bellybutton or back and it happens in the middle of the scene where her character needs five minutes. Dan went ahead and named it Sue Needs Five Minutes Chicken Drumstick.”
Image provided by Dan Seeger
Along with naming the food items creatively, sometimes Dan and Andrea get another opportunity to be creative by combining the foods to make one meal item.
When it came to Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Dan explains, “There’s a scene where she’s [Molly] at the doctor’s office and the doctor asks about her diet. [Leonardo] DiCaprio’s character steps in and says, ‘She’s eating taffy and bacon.'”
“So we tried to make bacon taffy,” says Andrea.
It didn’t turn out the best.
“Flavor-wise it was fine,” Andrea prefaced. “It solidified into this molten mass where it ended up looking like something stuck to a stick in an inappropriate way.”
Image provided by Dan Seeger
But that’s the reality of this tradition and it doesn’t deter either of them from getting in the kitchen year after year.
“What’s fun about this is we try and we enjoy it,” says Andrea.
The 98th Academy Awards will air live on ABC and stream on Hulu at 6 p.m. CDT.
The above quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity and readability. To hear the full conversation, including how the tradition started, what meals Dan and Andrea plan to cook up for this year’s ceremony, and their Best Picture picks, listen below.
This program was made possible through support from the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.
