The various on-screen incarnations of Spider-Man have varied wildly in terms of quality, with some Spider-Man movies being some of the best examples we have of the comic book movie genre and others best left to the ash heap of history. Certain scenes have perfectly captured what makes Spider-Man arguably the world’s most beloved superhero while other moments have destroyed the spirit of the character entirely (looking at you, Emo Peter Parker). Debates still rage today about the best iteration of Spidey and likely always will. Actor-director pairings Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi, Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb, and Tom Holland and Jon Watts have all put distinct spins on the character and the feel of the world he inhabits.
Yet there’s one thing that has been a common denominator in multiple on-screen incarnations of Spider-Man, an unwavering throughline that has threaded throughout his stories regardless of medium. It’s a major building block of Peter Parker’s foundation, one of the few elements to always carry over from the comic books to the movies along with his suit and his powers and his nerdy intelligence, yet it has always been overlooked: I’m talking about food. Specifically, the role that food plays in Spider-Man’s life and how it has always tied Peter Parker to New York City and New York City to Peter Parker.
It’s hard to overstate how integral food has always been to the character of Spider-Man, how it has been what makes him, more than any other Marvel character, so fundamentally, profoundly a New Yorker. Plenty of Marvel characters can call NYC their birthplace or consider it their home base, but few have made being a New Yorker part of their very fabric the way Spider-Man has. As our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he can’t exhibit the trademark brusqueness and chippy attitude we so often associate with New Yorkers. Nor can you hear a Queens accent in a comic book panel. But Peter Parker is a New Yorker through and through, so it’s established with food.
In the comics, he’s constantly eating. Constantly. He is to comic books what Brad Pitt is to movies. But, very specifically, he’s constantly eating street food, the kind that’s most closely associated with New York: pizza, Chinese take-out, hot dogs with mustard – if it’s part of NYC culture, Peter Parker revels in it. Part of this is the need to continually fuel his insanely high metabolism, but Spidey’s a downright foodie when it comes to NYC street fare and takeout.
This essential New Yorker-ness of him as told through the symbolic shorthand of food has been depicted over and over again in the movies, too. Consider the opening scene of Spider-Man 2, a movie many consider to be the best of the Spider-Man live-action movies, if not one of the best comic book movies of all time. We’re reintroduced to Peter Parker, now settled into his post-high school life and living on his own. We don’t meet him in a soaring, heroic scene as Spider-Man, however, but in a scene of his everyday life delivering pizzas in Manhattan.
Everything about the scene, from the fact Peter is one of Manhattan’s ubiquitous bike delivery guys to the stack of grease-spotted white pizza boxes he carries, establishes Peter in the daily warp and weave of the city. You can practically smell the melted cheese, taste the hand-tossed pizza dough that is so distinct to the mom-and-pop pizzerias of NYC, the kind of places where you can pop in at 3am and buy greasy pizza by the slice.
New York street food also features in another key character-building scene in Spider-Man 2. Throughout his career as a crimefighter, especially early on, Peter Parker struggled mightily with balancing holding down a job and maintaining relationships as Peter Parker with the weight of responsibility of being Spider-Man. At one point in the movie, he makes the decision to give up being Spider-Man and to just be Peter Parker, photographer and college student. In a montage of that rare moment of freedom for Peter, released from the weight of responsibilities, he makes a point to do the things he’s rarely been able to do as Spider-Man, to allow himself the small pleasures he’s too often had to sacrifice. The small pleasure he chooses to indulge in is a hot dog from one of NYC’s famed hot dog carts. It’s a tiny, inconsequential thing but the significance it holds for Peter, finally able to be a “normal” New Yorker again, is enormous.
The food-based moments in the Amazing Spider-Man movies weren’t as prolific or NYC-specific as in the original Raimi trilogy, but the few moments that revolved around food outside an awkward family dinner counted. No scene better speaks to the symbiotic and symbolic relationship between Peter Parker and New York than in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 when Gwen Stacy asks Peter to meet her at a dim sum restaurant. Chinese food abounds in NYC, but while most immediately think of the iconic white boxes of Chinese takeout, dim sum is just as much a part of the Asian culture of New York. Nom Wah, the restaurant they meet at, is significant, not only for being located in New York’s historical Chinatown, but for being the first dim sum restaurant ever opened in Chinatown in 1920. Like Spider-Man himself, Nom Wah and its dim sum are a mainstay and staple of New York City life.
As for those iconic Chinese takeout boxes, you can look to the Spider-Man PS4 video game for that. In the opening cinematic scene, the camera pans across Peter Parker’s room and builds a perfect image of who he is, full of the things that make him him: A late notice on a bill. His rumpled bed. A laptop running a program he wrote. Sketches of a new bit of Spider-gear. Wrappers from protein bars. And, of course, empty boxes of Chinese takeout.
Marvel has continued to build on this gastronomic theme of Peter’s life in the MCU movies, as well. The MCU’s world-building incorporates quintessential New York street grub as much as possible. As with TASM, Spider-Man: Homecoming also embraces New York’s Asian food culture, not with Chinese food, but with Thai food. In a sweet and memorable scene, Aunt May and Peter hit up Prachya Thai, a fictional food joint in their neighborhood, and share a meal of Thai larb. It’s a moment that helps paint a picture of the newer, younger version of Spider-Man. It’s a scene that says Peter Parker still has a love affair with the food of New York City, but the food of New York City is more than just pizza or hot dogs or even fried rice. It’s also more adventurous, and more diverse than we imagine – just like the people in this Peter Parker’s world.
Two other scenes in a row in Spider-Man: Homecoming tie Peter to food. First, he buys a made-to-order sandwich in his favorite neighborhood bodega, one of the hundreds dotted around the city. His camaraderie with the owner and his familiarity with the menu implies that Peter is a regular customer and has been coming there since he was a kid. It’s his bodega, his place, complete with the obligatory bodega cat he knows and loves. Few things are more New York than a corner bodega with homemade sandwiches and a lazy cat.
After a montage, it cuts to a scene of him in a classic Spider-Man pose from the comics: Sat up high on a building, mask in his trademark half-up position from the comics, chowing down on a churro a “nice Dominican lady” bought him from a cart.
It’s a line that elicits a laugh, but only a laugh from those who don’t understand just how important it is. Moments like that are what keep him going. The young, just-starting-out Spider-Man of the MCU may not yet appreciate the small things like a warm churro from a nice lady, but comic book readers and longtime fans of Spider-Man know how much Peter Parker will come to cherish those rare moments of respite in the years to come.
It’s Peter Parker in his own version of church: Spider-Man perched up high, looking out over the city he loves and keeps safe. Spidey doesn’t often get those as the main protector of his beloved New York. But those pauses between the swings and the crimefighting, the ones in which he takes a breather and has a quick bite, are some of the most profoundly “Spider-Man” in the comics and movies. Peter Parker’s life is fraught with sacrifice, loss, guilt, and the weight of responsibility of being Spider-Man. Being a hero who never reveals his identity is often isolating and lonely for Peter. It’s those quiet, food-filled moments between the heroic beats that he’s reminded of why he fights, why he sacrifices so much. The street food of New York ties him to the streets themselves, to the beating heart of the city, no matter how far away it seems or removed he feels. Food is his connection to New York and his lifeline, both tithe and reward. No hero gives more to New York City than Spider-Man, and it’s through food that the city gives itself back to its greatest hero.
