Who among us has not fantasized about getting our buttered popcorn-covered paws on Houdini’s magical movie ticket from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1993 satire Last Action Hero? This magician’s relic transports the holder into any movie they desire, allowing them to live a silver-screen experience with all its wonders and possibilities. I’ve often thought of what I’d do with something this powerful, and one idea I keep coming back to is using it to gorge myself on all the delicious food I’ve seen on film!
Before you say that’s a waste of its otherworldly magic, please keep in mind this is only one option. I’d guard that ticket with my life and use it for other things, too. Still, for this article, I want to focus on the food I’d love to try if I could hop in and out of movies I adore, gorging myself on the delicious meals and culinary oddities therein. So, strap on a bib, don’t load up on bread, and loosen your belt before we dine on some of the most tantalizing food in cinema!
5) Dehydrated Pizza Hut Pizza (Back to the Future Part II) / Instant Roast Chicken (The Fifth Element)
Before we begin, understand that both of these are more of a curiosity than something to plan an entire meal around. There’s so much cool future tech on display in Back to the Future Part II, but the simplicity of inserting a mini-disc-sized Pizza Hut Pizza into a Black & Decker Hydrator stands out among the crowd. Arguably, the pizza doesn’t look like anything more special than a slice of cafeteria-style Ellio’s or a Red Baron pie from the supermarket. Still, I’ll be damned if I don’t want to dig into the steaming dish Lorraine McFly serves up in that iconic scene.
Much like the auto-nail-polish applier in Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall, the technology behind Leeloo’s instant roast chicken in The Fifth Element is amazing. In the classic sci-fi comedy, Milla Jovovich’s character inserts a pill-sized pellet into a food replicator that acts like a high-tech microwave. When she pulls the dish out of the device, she’s ready to chow down on a full-course meal complete with protein and vegetables! I could save so much time with a machine like that! Plus, unlike the pizza, that chicken looks delicious!
4) Chef Slowik’s Cheeseburger from The Menu
I’m easy to please when it comes to food. I welcome effort being put into a meal, but as soon as you start adding a bunch of nonsense to the presentation in the spirit of making it unnecessarily fancy, I lose my appetite. Out of everything Chef Slowik serves in The Menu, it’s the cheeseburger Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) orders that strikes me as the most mouth-watering dish of the evening.
Prepared with 6 oz of ground beef, one yellow onion sliced paper-thin, 2 to 4 slices of American cheese, a sesame seed bun, and pickle chips seasoned with salt and black pepper, Slowik’s cheeseburger is nostalgia served medium with cheese that doesn’t split. It’s simple, divine, and as Margot puts it, not some “fancy deconstructed avant bullshit.” I want a cheeseburger that tastes like fond memories. A burger that, when you bite into it, reminds you of fireworks in July and how you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you.
3) The Imaginary Buffet from Steven Spielberg’s Hook
Watching a feral pack of lost boys launch into an all-out, lawless food war that looks like a neon paint factory exploded over a golden roast turkey should be a total nightmare. It is pure, chaotic anarchy, with prepubescent giggle-boxes flinging fistfuls of mystery slush across the table like weaponized play-dough. Yet, I would gladly take a pie to the face just to earn a seat at the table during the imaginary feast in 1991’s Hook.
This iconic scene never gets old, and the Never-food always looks absurdly mouth-watering, even when the portions are heaped upon one another, mixing salty with sweet in a chaotic mashup of Thanksgiving leftovers and cavity-causing glop. Is that bright-blue whipped cream or glowing mashed potatoes? Who cares? Pile that multi-colored slop onto my plate, toss table manners out the window, and let the high-stakes name-calling contest commence. Bangarang!
2) The Giant Pancake from Uncle Buck
Everyone has their favorite food in the world; mine is pancakes. I make a killer stack from scratch, and my wife’s recipe is even better. Every time I see the giant pancake in John Hughes’ 1989 comedy, Uncle Buck, I want to leap into my screen, slice a generous portion off the plate, and wolf it down like it’s my last meal on earth.
Truth be told, I tried making the giant pancake once. It did not go well. My friend Frank and I used an industrial griddle to cook it, then a wooden pizza peel to flip it over. Evidently, we didn’t cook it long enough, because the middle was soupy, and the sides splattered when we heaved it onto its opposite side. His stepmom was pissed.
There are no lengths I wouldn’t go to spend a morning at the Russell family home on the day Uncle Buck makes giant pancakes. I’d apply salted butter to them with a trowel, pour a bucket of syrup on top, then carve into that pillowy goodness with a machete before stuffing my face until I couldn’t see straight.
1) Literally Any Food From a Studio Ghibli Movie
Have you ever wondered why you’re so hungry after watching a Studio Ghibli production? It’s likely due to every meal in those films looking so delectable that you can’t help but clutch your stomach at the thought of devouring every last morsel until you burst. Nearly every Studio Ghibli film features an assortment of amazing meals. Still, the first to enter my mind is the bathhouse buffet (which No-Face devours) and the “Parents’ Feast,” which turns Chihiro’s parents into pigs after they fill themselves with a forbidden banquet in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.
I won’t eat seafood in real life, but I’d destroy a plate of butter-battered fish and glazed crustaceans from a Studio Ghibli movie. I’d juggle with steamed buns before taking a bite of each, then wash it all down with a goblet of blackberry wine, the spirits sloshing in my cup, staining my skin with sweet nectar. Just thinking about the rice bowls, sugar-dusted pastries, and wobbling puddings of the Studio Ghibli universe is enough to make me want to die and come back as a food critic in Miyazaki’s imagined worlds.
What are some of your favorite movie foods? Which dishes are you dying to try? Which restaurants do you want to visit? Let us know in the comments section below!
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