I tried Vegemite in college because of “Down Under.” My friend and I were obsessed with Men at Work (my first-ever concert was one of theirs) and when Vegemite turned up in our college cafeteria one morning for breakfast, we both put a little on our toast and gave it a shot.
Verdict: The most vile substance ever inflicted on humankind. It was like pure salt suspended in brown stuff. Ugh!
Thus ended our experiment with Vegemite. We still liked Men at Work, though
Well, I got mine at the high-end confectionary stand in Harrods, so don’t think I was slumming. And while there were variations like you described, they had the simple jelly ones too. Not impressed.
Not in the movie Fearless (someone is deathly allergic to them and nearly dies after trying to eat one).
I always thought Turkish Delight was just made up by Lewis. I imagined it to be a really heavy, chewy, sticky kind of taffy/toffee/caramel/whatever you call it, and it kind of dopes you while you’re working it around in your mouth, making you more docile and suggestible.
I love turkish delight! It isn’t always flavored with rose water, though I have no problem with it being. A few months ago, someone brought some ginger flavored turkish delight to a party, and everyone seemed to like it. And of course, Aplets and Cotlets are really just fruit flavored turkish delight. Does anyone NOT like those?(Actually, that reminds me that they have traditional flavored turkish delight in their catalog, including rose-and-pistachio, and I’ve never tried it. I should order some!)
Admittedly, the first time I tried turkish delight as a child, it was for the same reason as everyone else, and I had the same reaction. It didn’t take me long to develop a taste for it, though. Most of the stuff you buy in the store in the UK (like Fry’s) is pretty much rubbish, I have to say.
Other foods I’ve tried because of some fiction…Do Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans count?
Also fried green tomatoes.
Oh, and Bill Gannon’s garlic-nut-butter sandwich (from Dragnet) is actually delicious! Haven’t had one of those in ages! I’m sure I’ll think of more…
Another vote here for TD, except that when I finally had it as an adult, I didn’t find it disgusting so much as kinda meh - rather like dried out marzipan with chewy fruit bits reminiscent of jelly beans. As I kid I never pictured it as a confection-in-cubed-pieces either. Based on the illustration of Edmund being presented some by a Dwarf on a silver dome-covered platter I thought it was more cake-like. Basically I imagined what a Napoleon (mille-feuille) actually is, except that I’d never seen or had a Napoleon yet.
That was more a lifelong (well, up until the age of 38) curiosity about Turkish Delight though; I wasn’t moved to seek out the food to try it out based on reading about it. In fact I can’t think of any examples of that offhand. What I can give instead is an example of a food I was predisposed to AVOID because of a cartoon: a Woody Woodpecker one where he throws a cake (meant as bait) back in someone’s face with the retort, “I… Don’t… Like… CHEESECAKE!!”
And so until I was 12 or so I refused to try cheesecake. “I don’t like… CHEESECAKE!” Then my mom insisted I try a Baby Watson cheesecake from the supermarket. I loved it.
Actually that DOES remind me of a food I wanted to try because of on-screen exposure: “flapjacks”, due to a Chilly Willy cartoon where he’s constantly trying to sng some freebies from the big Swedish walrus who ran a restaurant in a logging camp. I was born and raised in NYC but as the only child of Chinese parents, such a food never crossed my table. It wasn’t until I was about 9 years old on a long weekend camping trip with my Cub Scout troop that I got a chance to actually eat them, at an IHOP in upstate New York. I initially found them inedibly sweet - I had always pictured them as a savory food, since it was usually shown as served with bacon and eggs and butter (that is also how they were described in books like Little House on the Prairie or Jack London books I’d read), and I was expecting something more like egg-and-scallion pancakes.
I’ve been wanting to try Calpis spotted in the movie Tokyo Zombie. There’s a Japanese grocery near here that carries the renamed American version, Calpico. (I s’pose a drink that sounds too much like Cowpiss doesn’t sell very well.) If sweetie wasn’t milk-intolerant I’d have picked some up already.
I tried a variety of Doritos that I probably wouldn’t have ever thought about because Stephen Colbert was doing some kind of Doritos-oriented joke on his show. They weren’t terrible, but I’ve never felt the need to try them again.
A Dorothy Sayers’ novel led me to try a “jolly old arsenical omelet,” leaving out the arsenic. It was a “sweet” dessert omelet with a little sugar mixed into the eggs and a hot jam filling. The jam, however, melts to a liquid state and runs all over the place.
Pocari Sweat (which I saw for the first time in Hawaii) after reading a thriller set in Japan called “Tokyo Zero.” I really liked it, and wish they had it around here!
I was inspired to try potted meat, which is a favorite of the mentally retarded protagonist in “Sling Blade.” Absolutely terrible, looks and smells just like cat food.