May I recommend the 1968 Kubrick with that, sir? FIRE & KNIVES. Issue 13.

As is so often the case, blame David Soul. It was the great playground debate of 1979: Starsky or Hutch. It was Souls Ken Hutchinson whose character I essayed when leaping heroically off the barely spinning roundabout. I never had the hair to be Starsky anyway. My friend Matthew once dived into a pool wearing his mums thick white lambs wool cardigan so as to be Paul Michael Glaser, and nearly drowned under the weight of it. It was all a moot point anyway after ITV showed Star Wars for the first time, and then the only discussion in da yard was who got to be Han Solo.

Thoughts of The Hutch were rekindled about ten years ago when BBC2 dedicated an entire Saturday evening schedule to Starsky & Hutch. The Beeb were briefly into this sort of thing. Monty Python, Jaws and Evel Knieval all had entire nights given over in their honour. In preparation for this slobfest, some friends and I arranged to cook up a platter of 1970s treats to gorge upon while we watched. (Tiny) Wagon Wheels were dunked into Mellow Birds coffee to disappointing effect. None of us had ever actually drank Mellow Birds coffee but we could all recall the smiley-face that was etched into the foil lid duly simulated thence. The same eerie group-recollection resulted in several bars of Frys Turkish Delight appearing, in tribute to the advert where an Arabian prince uses an executioners down-swing to gently dissect a bar of the stuff with an enormous scimitar.

Circles of gently toasted milk loaf with Shippams meat paste were handed around like canaps. Birds Eye potato waffles (which of course were waffly versatile) were

served under curried beans Windsor Davies style. My own contribution, butterscotch Angel Delight, was complemented with my first Arctic Roll since 1984. Not a home made version based on a witty modern reinterpretation by Thomas Keller, but the standard ghastly chest-freezer version: a log of tasteless ice cream painted with a translucent layer of jam and wrapped in carpet underlay.

It was all barely edible, naturally but a decade later I remember it as one of the great meals of my life. Not a doctored memory, sweetened and edited by my own censorious, self-protecting brain. At the time, I vividly remember the combination of the food and the television show created some sort of magical third ingredient: the mould that makes stilton suddenly taste extra sensational when a glass of port is tipped back.

This got me thinking, in the same way that Sarah Jessica Parker got herself thinking ten minutes into every Sex & The City episode. Can food and movies complement one and other in the same way as food and wine? Can certain movies, when enjoyed with certain foods, create unique exploding Catherine Wheels of rapture?

Take one example: A Good Year, Ridley Scotts 2006 adaptation of Peter Mayles autobiographical bestseller starring Russell Crowe. I was so angry when I saw this film at the cinema that I nearly punched the spotty kid waiting to pick up everyones empty cups. Theyd screwed up the book. It wasnt funny. It was incredibly contrived. More than anything it presented in Crowes Max Skinner, a lead character of such eye-popping vulgarity and smugness that I felt denied by the absence of a hysterically violent death scene. Driving past a group of French cyclists and shouting

Lance Armstrong! with an extended middle-finger salute (the middle finger!) does not a cherishable character make. Nor does a posh, off-kilter, quasi-English accent help lines like, I know, find a poodle and punch it off the balcony? to acquire a wry charm. I wanted him dead. I certainly didnt want him to end up with Marion Cotillard.

With a heave of resignation, I sat down with my wife to suffer it once more on TV. However, this time I had the warm remains of a cherry clafoutis in front of me plus a bottle of Sauternes. By the time wed pulled over a plate of Chaumes and opened the Pinot Noir, Ridley Scott had me in the palm of his hands. Skinner was still an idiot, but the soft circle of his character arc from dick to slightly less of a dick now seemed well judged and appropriate. Instead of death, I now wished upon himmild inconvenience, and I now watch the film on average three times a year.

An obvious choice perhaps? Theres no magic in merely replicating the food on the screen for a scratch and sniff effect. Indeed, the best of luck to you if you try to recreate the menus of Big Night or Babettes Feast for a group entertainment. However, Id imagine a respected leather-bound tome on the art of pairing cinema with the dinner table might contain entries similar to the following:

From Russia With Love (1963) Period crockery from the 1960s can only aid the immersive effect here. Take yourself into the opening act by enjoying Bonds breakfast request for Figs and coffee; very black. Turkish figs are best and try to locate a can of Mehmet Efendi coffee. The combination of the sweet fruit and the rich coffee introduces a spicy Arabian climate

to the olfactory that engages the flighty nature of ones inner spy. A peppery, preprepared goulash (as marvellous to say as to eat) best complements the later stages of the film. If entirely successful, the diner will feel as though seated around a trestle table watching a vicious catfight between two beautiful, raven-haired gypsy girls. Aficionados might wish to try pairing red wine with Sole Meunire so as to feel like a remorseless, psychotic villain. Bring yourself back to the side of righteousness with a shot of suitably chilled Stolichnaya vodka.

A Man For All Seasons (1966) Roast a free-range chicken (or if in season, a pair of quail) and bake a custard tart (using Marcus Wareings Jubilee recipe) whilst listening to a CD of harpsichord ballads. Then, either dispose of or deliberately burn the delicious custard tart. Enjoy the film whilst tearing the flesh from the roast birds in the manner of a Tudor monarch. Follow with a bunch of organic grapes, lowered occasionally into the mouth from a mild height. When Sir Thomas More is visited in jail by his wife and treated to one of her Superlative Custards, the sudden, shocking absence of your own dessert will surely accord you some of the feelings of doubt, desperation and heartache that Sir Thomas must have felt during his internment.

Master & Commander: The Far Side of The World (2003) Far-sighted diners will have allowed enough time for a family of weevils to make a home in their biscuit tin full of oat cakes, so as to provide him or herself with an authentic 18th century naval cheese course. The bottle of Lambs Navy Rum which one would assume an obligatory addition, must be sampled judiciously so as not to overpower the subtler nuances of Peter Weirs masterful yarn. For a below decks

option, simply enjoy a well-cooked brisket of beef with eight times the recommended dose of salt added during the roasting. Gourmands with more time on their hands might wish to rustle up some soused hogs face to complement their personal screening (cf. Fire & Knives No. 10).

Of course, one could always try contrasting the flavours of their film / food package, as one might bravely accompany Brandade de Morue with a Gewurtztraminer. A stodgy steak and kidney pie with a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, for example may reveal unknown layers within Scorseses Kundon. Conversely, Marco Pierre Whites lobster ravioli, fastidiously recreated from his White Heat recipe collection, may even provide a means of excavating the deeply buried pleasures of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (it wont - nothing will).

More likely, the combinations of film and food that have planted memory daisies in your head came about by complete accident. I have a perverse fondness for The Saint with Val Kilmer. It is a ghastly film that I happened to see with a beautiful friend on a sunny May weekend in 1997, on the day I tried a Dime bar for the first time since childhood. Fifteen years later, every time I see a Dime (or Daim!) bar I want to watch The Saint, and every time I see The Saint listed in the schedules I want to eat a Dime bar and in both scenarios I am still 22 years old.

I feel that its a subject ripe for investigation. After all, the links between taste and memory have bewitched everyone from Marcel Proust in A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, to the grandfather from the Werthers Original commercials. Im sure that David Soul, whose anthem Dont Give Up On Us Baby was clearly a study of the

restorative effects of wistful reminiscence upon a dying relationship, would be the first to provide a thesis.