Fictional Food, and You

[Taomist]

Have you ever had a fictional food...one you've read about/seen in a movie/seen in an artwork/heard in a song...actually impact your life in any way, however minor?

This afternoon, while I was adding honey and pepper to my carrots and butter, I remembered how I developed a fondness for pepper and honey in the first place.

A long time ago...I was around 10, I think...I was reading some book where a white man described kissing a black woman as tasting of "honey and pepper". So the next time I made popcorn, I added honey and pepper to the melting butter, and holy cow yum!

Now I use the combination on all kinds of things, and love it. Maybe it was just that we had plain but hearty fare growing up; I wasn't exposed to much spicy food, much the less sweet+ spicy.


So, have you ever run across a fictional food that made you change how you viewed it?

Besides chianti and fava beans... :p

[AClockworkMelon]

I was reading some book where a white man described kissing a black woman as tasting of "honey and pepper"Didn't you know? That's how all black women taste. :rolleyes:

Have you ever had a fictional food...one you've read about/seen in a movie/seen in an artwork/heard in a song...actually impact your life in any way, however minor?Fictional food? You mean food that's mentioned in fiction? Because honey and pepper both exist in the real world. :p I'm not sure if this counts, but when I was a little tyke I remember refusing to drink milk one night because I'd seen The Simpsons episode where Springfield Elementary has its milk supplied by rats. :D

[silenus]

I've made all of these (http://www.acole.com/novels/sten/recipe.html).

Great food from a pretty good sci-fi series.

[Taomist]

Didn't you know? That's how all black women taste. :rolleyes:

Fictional food? You mean food that's mentioned in fiction? Because honey and pepper both exist in the real world. :p I'm not sure if this counts, but when I was a little tyke I remember refusing to drink milk one night because I'd seen The Simpsons episode where Springfield Elementary has its milk supplied by rats. :D


Yep, that's the kind of thing I mean; I did word it poorly, huh...:smack:

I remember spending weeks coming up with the recipe for a Pangalactic Gargleblaster. All I recall is that it ended up very, very green...

[Taomist]

I've made all of these (http://www.acole.com/novels/sten/recipe.html).

Great food from a pretty good sci-fi series.

Wow! Ok, that is dang cool! I can't tell what series that is from, though. :p

[Cub Mistress]

I read about lasagna in a cheap romance novel long before I ever tasted it. I was prepared to love it even though all I knew about it was that it contained noodles.

I was inspired to try a gin and tonic after I read the Hitchhiker series. That wasn't as successful an experiment. Fairy Cake, from the same source, was much yummier.

[AClockworkMelon]

I remember spending weeks coming up with the recipe for a Pangalactic Gargleblaster. All I recall is that it ended up very, very green...

Here you go. (http://www.galactic-guide.com/articles/1S1.html)

1 oz. Everclear
4 oz. Bombay Sapphire
4 oz. Cold Wild Turkey
2 oz. Herredura Tequila
1 Mezcal worm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezcal)
2 oz. Gatorade

[needscoffee]

Well, I was always sad as a kid that I couldn't have manna, which I envisioned as fluffy white Sugar Pops drifting down from the sky. I was afraid to taste collard greens until I was an adult because of a Beverly Hillbillies episode where the smell of Granny's collards cooking was practically taking out the whole neighborhood. I was shocked to find out they didn't smell bad at all.

[silenus]

Wow! Ok, that is dang cool! I can't tell what series that is from, though. :p

The Sten Series (http://www.acole.com/novels/sten/sten.html).

Pretty good books. Actually one big novel, broken up into 7 books. :D (Just in case someone thinks you were serious.)

Angelo Stew is clotting AWESOME!

[Taomist]

The Sten Series (http://www.acole.com/novels/sten/sten.html).

Pretty good books. Actually one big novel, broken up into 7 books. :D (Just in case someone thinks you were serious.)

Angelo Stew is clotting AWESOME!


I was serious, since you said it was from a sci-fi series; I didn't even consider a book series, for some reason. :p

Will have to check that out...and the recipes, too. :p

[LurkMeister]

I have a copy of the Nero Wolfe Cookbook, and I have tried some of the recipes. I wouldn't say that any of them have changed my life, except possibly by introducing me to something resembling "gourmet" cooking.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I also have a copy of the Nero Wolfe Cookbook. Some of the recipes are pretty good, but I can't say that I've made more than a small fraction of the entries.

[Cisco]

My wife recently made a cake from a recipe that her mom got out of a novel. It was preposterous. It had candy bars and such in it. Two or 3 bites were AWESOME and then it was just so sweet and rich that I couldn't take any more. I'll ask her tomorrow what it was called.

[ZipperJJ]

I bought some bottles of Romulan Ale at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas. Not for me, but for my brother and his friend. One of them (I forget which) opened and drank the bottle I gave him, and he said it gave him the shits. The other one decided to leave his unopened :)

[Miss Woodhouse]

Cisco, that sounds like a "better than sex cake." The name is quite infamous and covers several different versions of a spruced up a box cake recipe. They are pretty good, but I do still feel sorry for the person who originally came up with the name.

I wonder if the recipe your MIL got came from one of those mystery books with recipes. I've tried a few and find them almost universally disappointing. I may be reading the wrong mystery books, however.

To stay on topic, I haven't really had my life impacted from food appearing in fiction. I've tried a few things here and there, but nothing has really stuck or been all that memorable.

[Cisco]

Cisco, that sounds like a "better than sex cake." The name is quite infamous and covers several different versions of a spruced up a box cake recipe. They are pretty good, but I do still feel sorry for the person who originally came up with the name.
That might be it, but I actually don't think so. I've heard of a "better than sex cake" and I think this one was called something else.
I wonder if the recipe your MIL got came from one of those mystery books with recipes. I've tried a few and find them almost universally disappointing. I may be reading the wrong mystery books, however.
I don't know what a mystery book with recipes is (is this a genre?) but it sounds exactly like something she'd read, so you're almost certainly correct.

Like I said . . . this thing was heaven for a couple bites, but then just overwhelming. I'd have to say, on the whole, it was a loser.

[Kyla]

I think I'm one of many, many people who was greatly disappointed by Turkish Delight. It sounded so amazing in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, too!

I can report, however, that I have now had freshly-made Turkish Delight (lokum) in Turkey, and it was surprisingly delicious.

[LurkMeister]

That might be it, but I actually don't think so. I've heard of a "better than sex cake" and I think this one was called something else.

I don't know what a mystery book with recipes is (is this a genre?) but it sounds exactly like something she'd read, so you're almost certainly correct.

Like I said . . . this thing was heaven for a couple bites, but then just overwhelming. I'd have to say, on the whole, it was a loser.

The first thing I thought of when I saw "mystery book with recipes" is Diane Mott Davidson (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/diane-mott-davidson/), who writes books about a caterer who solves mysteries and includes recipes for most of the dishes mentioned in it.

[aruvqan]

Have you ever had a fictional food...one you've read about/seen in a movie/seen in an artwork/heard in a song...actually impact your life in any way, however minor?

This afternoon, while I was adding honey and pepper to my carrots and butter, I remembered how I developed a fondness for pepper and honey in the first place.

A long time ago...I was around 10, I think...I was reading some book where a white man described kissing a black woman as tasting of "honey and pepper". So the next time I made popcorn, I added honey and pepper to the melting butter, and holy cow yum!

Now I use the combination on all kinds of things, and love it. Maybe it was just that we had plain but hearty fare growing up; I wasn't exposed to much spicy food, much the less sweet+ spicy.


So, have you ever run across a fictional food that made you change how you viewed it?

Besides chianti and fava beans... :p
Honey and pepper was a roman combination [there is a custardy omelet sort of dish that is eggs cooked in olive oil and flavored with honey and pepper. I think it is in the patina class. I don't have access to my Flowers De Re Coquinaria right now, I am posting in bed as I got attacked with a bit of insomnia right now.]

To be honest, i love food descriptions, and occasionally I have actually gotten to eat or drink something and the 'classic' recipe for it just does not live up to expectations. I would say an example of this is alcoholic drinks. I like sweet/tart and fruity drinks, and something like a singapore sling or mai tai sounds great, but almost inevitably fails. It is generally made with cheap sour mix, and is cloyingly sweet, or puckeringly sour, and artificially marascinoey [if this makes sense]

I think what I need to do is sit there and experiment with fruit juices and sugar and booze and make my perfect drink. Tall, the perfect blend of sweet and tart, from actual fruit juices and not chemical blends ... and I think rum will be the booze in it. I like rum, a nice flavorful black rum.

[AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet]

I think I'm one of many, many people who was greatly disappointed by Turkish Delight. It sounded so amazing in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, too!
But it makes a good candy bar!

[tumbleddown]

The first thing I thought of when I saw "mystery book with recipes" is Diane Mott Davidson (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/diane-mott-davidson/), who writes books about a caterer who solves mysteries and includes recipes for most of the dishes mentioned in it.
This is a trope that's been picked up by Tamar Myers (http://www.tamarmyers.com/) in her Pennsylvania Dutch stories, which feature all sorts of recipes, not just Amish specialities, as well as the Hannah Swenson mysteries (http://www.murdershebaked.com/) by Joanne Fluke. I've never tried any of Myers's recipes, but I've made several of the cookies from Fluke's books, and they've all been winners, especially the Cherry Winks.

[Cisco]

Looks like it was called "Our Lady of Sorrow Cake," but my wife doesn't know what book it was from and the goog isn't helping.

[The Hamster King]

I really want a Krabby Patty.

[RealityChuck]

I was reading an Ellery Queen mystery once where Queen described how tuna salad was made. I tried the recipe and it became my favorite.

Though I did change it slightly -- I left out the poison.

[Cisco]

I really want a Krabby Patty.

Oh hell yeah.

And I just remembered another . . .

In The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, there's a recipe for spaghetti that is basically just noodles, a raw egg, salt, pepper, and butter, IIRC. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds good.

[aceplace57]

Rex Stout described a lot of great food in the Nero Wolfe books.

Sometimes Wolfe would eagerly wait for something to come into season. Archie would pick it up, and Wolfe and Fritz would spend the whole day cooking.

I tried a few of the dishes at fancy restaurants. Found out gourmet food isn't my thing.

[Lucky 13]

My daughter bugged me to make her spaghetti tacos (basically, spaghetti put in a taco shell) after seeing them on an episode of iCarly. I finally made them for her a couple of weeks ago. They were OK.

When my niece was a baby, I took care of her a couple of days a week after my sis went back to work. We watched Teletubbies, and she started asking for Tubby Custard as soon as she could talk. I made vanilla pudding with a couple drops of red food coloring to color it pink, and she was satisfied with it. She's 12 now and still remembers it.

[Beware of Doug]

Just once I would like to sample a Durpee Dooner Honey Onion, as described in McCloskey's Centerburg Tales.

[mbh]

My mother rarely cooked Italian food, so the first time I ever heard of lasagna was in the Garfield comic strip.

Oscar the Grouch, on Sesame Street, introduced me to the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. (If you use sweet pickles, it's actually pretty good.)

[Baker]

Food got mentioned on Babylon 5 a lot, and I once hosted a dinner party based on food mentioned on the show. I made breen(aka Swedish meatballs), bagna cauda, fruit(oranges, plums and grapes), fried tubeworns(mini doughnuts), and so on. I became very fond of the bagna cauda, and could see why Garibaldi liked it so much, but the flavor of the garlic and the anchovies is so strong that it could be an acquired taste.

[Push You Down]

The dish they make at the end of "Big Night." It's apparently fictional in that there's no real recipe for it but you can certainly do what they did (egg and pasta quiche kind of thing baked in a dome dish.) but you'd be making up the ingredients and the hows on your own. It loosk declious and is known to haunt foodies' dreams.

[tr0psn4j]

During outdoor activities like hiking and camping, my snack of choice is the Honey and Oats Granola Bar. To make it even sweeter, I pretend it's Lembas bread. :D

I know the two are nothing alike but it's all I have to work with.

Actually, there's recipes for the bread online. I wonder if I should actually try to make it.

[Zsofia]

Well, I was always sad as a kid that I couldn't have manna, which I envisioned as fluffy white Sugar Pops drifting down from the sky. I was afraid to taste collard greens until I was an adult because of a Beverly Hillbillies episode where the smell of Granny's collards cooking was practically taking out the whole neighborhood. I was shocked to find out they didn't smell bad at all.
Then you cooked them wrong. They smell like death. Bad death.

[janis_and_c0]

Does drinking milk and Pepsi from Laverne & Shirley count?

[Chronos]

During outdoor activities like hiking and camping, my snack of choice is the Honey and Oats Granola Bar. To make it even sweeter, I pretend it's Lembas bread.I was on a Boy Scout canoeing-camping trip once, where our lunch was always some sort of canned meat spread on pilot biscuits. Except that we all referred to it as "Cram and cat food", which really was a pretty close approximation.

[Darryl Lict]

Ever since I saw Tampopo (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870911/REVIEWS/709110301/1023), I've been in search of the perfect bowl of noodles. I've probably been to 15 different places in NYC, but only about 4 in Japan. I'm tempted to try to make hand made noodles, but it looks like a pain in the ass.

[BrotherCadfael]

"Fruity Oaty Bars
Make a man out of a mouse
Fruity Oaty Bars
Make you bust out of your blouse
Eat them all the time
They will blow your mind
Blow your little mind..."

[Smapti]

I've never heard of the Sten Chronicles before reading this thread, but Angelo stew sounds tasty to me. (If i'm not mistaken, it's basically a hybrid of beef bourguignon and Texas-style chili.) I'm going to have to try and make a batch.

I once attempted to make a batch of khlav kalash based on a recipe I found online. It came out... tasting better than Homer Simpson described it.

[ryobserver]

"Fruity Oaty Bars
Make a man out of a mouse
Fruity Oaty Bars
Make you bust out of your blouse
Eat them all the time
They will blow your mind
Blow your little mind..."

I bought a Fruity Oaty Bar from a bake sale at an SF con once (Boskone, I think). It was a bit gooey for my taste.

[Peter Morris]

Have you ever had a fictional food...one you've read about/seen in a movie/seen in an artwork/heard in a song...actually impact your life in any way, however minor?

I used to put ketchup on my chips (french fries). After seeing Pulp Fiction, I now use mayonnaise.

Ian Flemming's book Chitty Chitty Bang Band contains a recipe for fudge. I made some once when I was a kid. It was good.

[Drain Bead]

I am kinda sad that the Harry Potter marketing wave included Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (which I've tried...I got one that tasted like fish...bleh) and not Butterbeer. I'd love to try some Butterbeer!

I get hungry every time I read George R. R. Martin. Someone is always feasting, and the food always sounds delicious. It's no surprise that he's a giant fat guy. I just hope he doesn't die of a heart attack before he finishes that damned series. Sadly, nobody has decided to invent his recipes, at least nobody who posts them on the internet that I can see. Maybe I can start a culinary adventure.

[Yllaria]

Don't try the cake recipe from the game, Portal. The cake is a lie.

[Serenata67]

I think I'm one of many, many people who was greatly disappointed by Turkish Delight. It sounded so amazing in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, too!

I can report, however, that I have now had freshly-made Turkish Delight (lokum) in Turkey, and it was surprisingly delicious.

That's what I came here to talk about. I've never had fresh Turkish Delight, but one year when I was younger, my mom ordered some for me as a gift. I was so excited about it... and it wasn't that great. Certainly not something I'd sell my siblings to an evil witch for.

[tr0psn4j]

That's what I came here to talk about. I've never had fresh Turkish Delight, but one year when I was younger, my mom ordered some for me as a gift. I was so excited about it... and it wasn't that great. Certainly not something I'd sell my siblings to an evil witch for.

What was wrong with it? It might not be the greatest but it's pretty good.

[Peter Morris]

Especially to a kid in wartime England, where sweets of all types are in short supply and heavily rationed.

[Sigmagirl]

The dish they make at the end of "Big Night." It's apparently fictional in that there's no real recipe for it but you can certainly do what they did (egg and pasta quiche kind of thing baked in a dome dish.) but you'd be making up the ingredients and the hows on your own. It loosk declious and is known to haunt foodies' dreams.

It's not fictional. There are lots (http://www.thegutsygourmet.net/timpano-batali.html) of (http://www.ornellacucinaitaliana.com/pages/articles/timpanorec.html) recipes (http://www.epicportions.com/2009/10/08/the-timpano/). And pictures (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3489/3240991360_79bdbea05b_o.jpg)!

I've never read more than the first chapter of Moby Dick without putting it down to go in search of clam chowder.

[Gagundathar]

Here are a couple of Klingon recipes I stole from McSweeney's.

Cite (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/2/10richardsonbryan.html)


Home-Style Gagh
SERVES 1-2

Find someone who has already prepared some home-style gagh. Kill him/her in honorable combat and take his/her gagh. Serve cold and enjoy.

Heart of Targ
SERVES 1

Retreat to the solitude of the wilderness. Contemplate what it means to be a man and come to terms with your shortcomings as a son, a husband, and/or a father. Play a drum if it helps. Thus centered, you are ready for Step 2. Contemplate the targ until your mind opens and you realize that consuming the heart of a wild animal is nothing more than a romantic metaphor and that the targ's spirit (or "mana") will not transfer to you no matter how succulent its heart may be. Armed with this new awareness, return to the city and order a three-meat pizza to sate your hunger. You, the targ, and the universe are now one.

[Speak to me Maddie!]

I liked the turkish delight (which I asked my Mom to buy after reading LWW), though I haven't had it since childhood. I remember it being like fancy gumdrops.

Another food that I asked Mom to get was sauerkraut, after reading the book Prairie School (http://www.lenski.pagebooks.net/lenski_prairie_school.jpg) by Lois Lenski. I had never heard of it and couldn't even pronounce it at first. I loved it and I still do.

I have always wanted to have a proper bombe glacee, especially a deluxe version like that done by Natasha in Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (http://www.amazon.com/Someone-Killing-Great-Chefs-Europe/dp/0151837600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269365910&sr=8-1). I've had all the other food featured in the book and the movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Is_Killing_the_Great_Chefs_of_Europe%3F). It seems that bombes are somewhat old fashioned for today's gourmet chefs. I think there are a few places that serve them in the area, but I haven't stopped by yet.

[Zsofia]

That's the sort of thing you will certainly find on a cruise ship, along with beef Wellington, chilled soups, and baked Alaska.

[Serenata67]

What was wrong with it? It might not be the greatest but it's pretty good.

It's not that it wasn't tasty. I guess that I built it up in my head as some magical, wonderful treat, the best tasting thing in the world. After I ate it, my response was something along the lines of "I don't like my brother and I still wouldn't sell him to the queen for it." It was okay. But it wasn't magically delicious like I thought it would be. If I wanted that, I should have asked for Lucky Charms.

[cassandrasaurus]

I remember first being pretty influenced by ent draught and lembas bread when I read Lord of the Rings as a kid. Fictional food is sorta my area of expertise:

http://www.geekychef.com