Tampopo: World's Foodiest Film?

A classic comedy from 1985: Tampopo by Juzo Itami.
Not available for streaming anywhere, which is too bad.

Tampopo has one central story, a woman's quest to make the world's best ramen noodles at her little ramen restaurant. It may be the most food-centric film I've ever seen. In addition to the quest, by the woman named Tampopo and a truck driver who volunteers to help her succeed, Juzo Itami's film intersperses numerous short scenes unrelated to the main plot except that they are all about food and how people relate to food, use food as a symbol, use food to relate to others, and more. That sounds pretty heavy but in fact all is comic, in fact some of the funniest food scenes ever. Further, many of the scenes throughout the film are very apt parodies of a variety of film genres: mostly westerns, but sometimes romantic comedy, samurai films and even porn.

At the very beginning a wise Sensei -- teacher -- is instructing a young man how to eat ramen. His advice echoes the
wisdom of the ages: the Japanese way to approach whatever you do. It was undoubtedly funny in 1985, but now its
even more hilarious because it makes a direct hit on the Marie Kondo cleanup philosophy (which is classic Japanese...)

The truck driver who helps with the quest for noodle perfection looks like a cowboy, and many scenes are a direct
visual parody of cowboy movies. But wait! It's a parody of spaghetti westerns by auteurs like Sergio Leone. Where
did Leone get his inspiration (in fact whom did he copy)? He directly imitated the Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Deep!

At one point the Clint Eastwood character has to do battle with some bad
guys. Are they from Kurosawa? Sergio Leone? Hollywood? 

The cowboy recruits some experts to help invent the world's best ramen.

They go to great lengths, spying on other ramen chefs, flattering them, and even going through their garbage cans.

A fight with a bad guy.

Finally: the all-new redecorated shop opens and it's a great success. The cowboy drives his truck into the sunset (or somewhere).

Some of the unrelated vignettes are also very funny. For example, this
little boy was wearing a sign saying he only ate natural food.
Of course someone gives him this ice cream.

A vignette that I remembered vividly for all the years since I first saw Tampopo:
A group of refined young ladies are learning to eat Italian pasta the Western
way: they aren't allowed to make a sound. However a huge Italian man nearby
is slurping outrageously! Suddenly so are all the young ladies.