The Scene That’s Haunting Movie-Goers
Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation of The Odyssey (Universal Studios) is filled with striking imagery. But if that imagery is haunting your dreams, you’re not alone—as of July 31, 2026, the eerie depiction of Circe’s feast has sparked intense online reactions, with many movie-goers gagging during the nearly three-hour film.
Here’s some context if you haven’t yet braved Nolan’s epic: Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men are attempting to return to Ithaca from the Trojan War aboard their ship. One of their many stops is the island of Aeaea, where, starving, the men stumble upon a woman living alone: Circe the sorceress. The crew asks her for food, and she obliges—serving them, in this film version, some kind of disgustingly stringy stew. The men slurp. They chew vigorously. Wide-eyed, they shovel the unappetizing concoction into their mouths. As translator Emily Wilson succinctly put it: “All the food looks horrible.”
What Did Circe Actually Serve? Ancient Text vs. Nolan’s Vision
In Samuel Butler’s translation of The Odyssey, Circe is said to make a feast of “cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine.” In Nolan’s film, the stew’s exact ingredients are unclear, but it looks protein-heavy—like strips of intestine or long slices of meat.
The Real Ancient Greek Diet
According to food historian Cathy Kaufman, assistant professor in The New School’s department of food studies and chair emerita of the Culinary Historians of New York, ancient island-dwelling Greeks probably weren’t eating entrail stew with any regularity. They’d more likely be roasting goat and sheep, eating lots of fish, and accompanying everything with a dense, barley-based bread.
A Surprising Twist: Stewing Was Historically Accurate
Greek culinary historian Mariana Kavroulaki notes that characters in The Odyssey mostly spit-roast their proteins—though that’s something of an anachronism in the text. While spit-roasting meat was a poetic nod to masculinity and hunting rituals in the source material, Greeks at the time the epic takes place were indeed stewing meats. That suggests Nolan’s film may be a tad more accurate than it gets credit for.
The Stew as a Mirror: Avarice and Transformation
The film’s depiction of a millennia-old mythology isn’t meant to be historically accurate—though the accuracy doesn’t hurt. Circe’s big scene is no different: viewers are meant to see the men consuming their stew greedily in order to note their avarice. The stew is deliberately revolting—a reflection of the men and their crude taste.
This is all part of Circe’s spell, which eventually turns them into the pigs they truly are. (Spoiler alert, given that it’s a centuries-old epic: Circe turns the men into pigs—or perhaps the men already were pigs and she simply revealed their true nature.)
Empathy Over Indulgence: Odysseus’s Choice
Fittingly, at least in the film, it’s not until Odysseus meets Circe’s trickery with compassion—refusing the stew—that she transforms his men back into humans. A lesson in empathy, if there ever was one.