They say we eat with our eyes, and that’s certainly the case with this tasty line-up of movies and TV shows. Food plays a starring role on the big and small screens, whether as a prop that helps tell the story or as a crucial part of the plot. In some cases, edible screen appearances have showcased delights that many of us had never heard of. In others, they’ve boosted sales in real life. From Reese's Pieces in E.T. and Eggo Waffles in Stranger Things to spaghetti and deep-dish pizza in The Bear, we take a look at the foods that sparked a craze among TV and film fans.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the foods made famous thanks to their starring roles on screen, counting down to the biggest hit of them all.
Disney’s 2009 film The Princess and The Frog made viewers long to visit New Orleans but even more than that, it made us drool for a taste of a particular sweet treat. The main character Princess Tiana, who was inspired by real-life late chef Leah Chase, is a talented cook who dreams of opening her own restaurant – and serving up her delicious beignets. The film had audiences longing to bite into one of the small, pillowy doughnut-like fritters, which are a Louisiana classic and usually served in a mound of powdered sugar. It also inspired countless online recipes.
We defy anyone to watch the 2014 movie Chef and not crave a Cubano – or, in fact, long to hit the road with their own food truck. It’s hard to pinpoint the impact the movie had on sales of the sandwich, made with soft Cuban bread and packed with layers of meat and cheese, but it proved tempting enough to spark many recipes for people to recreate it at home. Even the movie’s writer, director and star Jon Favreau shared his favourite recipe.
Classic food film Big Night, starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as immigrant brothers struggling to keep their New Jersey restaurant afloat, is credited with changing the way Americans view Italian food by revealing a whole world beyond spaghetti and meatballs. The true star of the 1996 movie is arguably the show-stopping timpano. The layered, baked pasta dish, which can take days to make, apparently returned to many restaurant menus as a result of the film.
Owners of Middle Eastern restaurants also reported an increase in people asking for baba ganoush after Adam Sandler movie You Don't Mess With The Zohan came out in 2008. The comedy didn’t exactly receive critical acclaim, but its many scenes featuring hummus and this smoky, aubergine-based dip clearly had some impact with audiences.
This Levantine Arab dish – marinated meat that’s slowly roasted and served in thin slices – doesn’t exactly have a starring role in 2012 movie The Avengers but it only took a mere mention in the hugely popular franchise for it to benefit. Tony Stark (also known as Iron Man) mentions shawarma in the film and there’s also a scene of the assembled superheroes eating the tender meat after the credits (pictured). Lebanese restaurants in Los Angeles, USA, reported up to an 80% spike in sales in its wake.
Specifically, English tea. The pomp and glamour of Downton Abbey created a thirst for all things British, with even China seeing a rise in popularity of afternoon tea. In the UK, a range of Downton Estate teas in tins emblazoned with images of the cast took advantage of the trend, while the English Cream Tea Company reported its sales had risen 500% in the few years since the TV show first aired in 2010. It’s also believed the show’s popularity in the US sparked new trends for tea parties and tea shops.
In American comedy-drama Gilmore Girls, first aired in 2000, mother and daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore became known for their terrifically terrible diet of cheeseburgers, jelly beans and Pop-Tarts, the latter being their lazy breakfast of choice. While there’s no specific data on how the show may have boosted their popularity, Kellogg’s reported US sales of around two billion of the toaster pockets per year in the early 2000s. The latest data suggests Americans ate three billion of them in 2022.
Wensleydale cheese not only features in Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit series – it was saved by the animated shorts. Sales of the mild, crumbly cheese, produced in North Yorkshire, England, had fallen so dramatically by the early 1990s that one of its biggest producers from the region, Wensleydale Creamery, closed. Then, in 1995 film A Close Shave, cheese-loving Wallace proclaimed it his favourite of all – and sales reportedly increased four-fold. The company now employs 200 people and features the series’ characters on one of its labels.
The Wallace and Gromit effect struck again a decade later. Only, this time, the maker of small-production Stinking Bishop cheese wasn't as pleased. The 2005 feature-length movie The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which mentions the washed-rind cheese, sparked such a spike in demand that the maker, Charles Martell and Son, struggled to meet orders from their dairy in Gloucestershire, England. There were reports of people buying the empty wooden boxes and the cheeses being sold on eBay for up to £60 ($75).
This retro-classic ice cream was pretty much unheard of outside the UK when Shaun of the Dead hit cinemas in 2004. And Cornettos only made it into the movie, written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, because they were Wright’s favourite hangover cure. The ice creams, in chocolate-dipped sugar cones, appear in two other films in what’s jokingly become known as 'the Cornetto Trilogy', which also includes Hot Fuzz and World’s End. Wall’s was apparently 'very pleased' with the namecheck.
Pixar’s 2007 movie Ratatouille had audiences rooting for a rat let loose in a Paris kitchen – and made us crave a simple, often underrated peasant dish. The classic tomato-based stew features beyond the animated film’s name when the talented chef (who happens to be a rat) Remy serves his own twist on it to a snobbish food critic. The moment Anton Ego takes a bite – and is transported back to his childhood – encapsulates a reaction all chefs must surely dream of.
What food do they serve in heaven? According to The Good Place, the answer is frozen yogurt. Fro-yo features prominently in the US TV series, which premiered in 2016 and stars Kristen Bell as a self-confessed sinner who appears to be mistakenly admitted into the 'good' afterlife. Where, obviously, there’s a frozen yogurt shop serving an infinite number of flavour combinations from raspberry sorbet to Maine lobster.
Anyone who’s ever watched a Popeye cartoon or seen one of the many movie versions must know one thing: he’s 'strong to the finish' cause he eats his spinach. The vegetable did feature in the original comic strip, but it was the animated shorts produced by Fleischer Studios from 1933 that really made the sailor man and his cohorts household names. According to some theories, they also helped to save the spinach industry during the Great Depression – growers credited Popeye with increasing spinach consumption by 33% in the 1930s.
Those Golden Girls loved a slice of cheesecake. According to IMDb, the feisty foursome scoffed more than 100 of them during the US TV show’s run from 1985 to 1992. It’s not known whether seeing the ladies huddle over plates of plain, chocolate or double-fudge cheesecake had any direct influence on sales or eating habits, but the Cheesecake Factory’s dessert sales rose dramatically over the same period.
Kronk was the foodie of 2000 Disney animated movie The Emperor's New Groove and we reckon it’s the tasty treats he served up that earned him a starring role in the 2005 sequel, Kronk’s New Groove. In particular, these spinach puffs which he nearly burns in one scene and is generally quite precious about. We can see why – the combination of tender spinach and cream cheese encased in buttery puff pastry sounds pretty delicious. There are numerous recipes inspired by them online.
If there were ever any doubts about how committed fans of The Twilight Saga are, the film series’ impact on mushroom ravioli should dispel them. Bella orders the dish on her first date with Edward at Bella Italia in the first movie, Twilight, released in 2008. People then flocked to the restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington, USA, to recreate that fateful date. According to reports, fans ordered around 4,500 bowls of ravioli in the year following the film’s release. The restaurant also released a ready-meal version.
How many foods get to star in their very own movie? Feel-good flick Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café weaves its characters’ stories through food – specifically, a side dish of unripe tomatoes coated with cornmeal and fried. For viewers outside the US, the 1991 movie was perhaps the first time they’d heard of fried green tomatoes. It’s even been claimed the movie was responsible for turning the dish into the Southern classic it’s considered today.
The Godfather trilogy might be better known for a different, more macabre and far less appetising red 'sauce', but there is one scene that really had audiences drooling – and longing for a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. In the first movie, Peter Clemenza reels off what’s pretty much a full recipe for Italian red sauce or 'Sunday gravy'. His top tip? Add 'a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar' to the bubbling pot of tomato-rich sauce. People are still talking about it – and following his advice – today.
In the second series of hit TV drama The Bear, diners at upscale restaurant Ever discuss how they haven't had time to try Chicago's famous deep-pan pizza. Richie solves the problem by heading to Pequod’s Pizza in Lincoln Park – regularly listed as serving the best deep dish in Chicago – and bringing them back a pie to try. The chef at the Michelin-starred eatery transforms the pizza into elegant bite-size pieces, complete with herb gel and micro basil. Deep-pan pizza purists may have been appalled at the gourmet transformation, but Perquod's enjoyed a rise in patrons, nonetheless.
Bridgerton celebrates the pomp and passion of the Regency era, and the characters are regularly seen enjoying a lavish afternoon tea complete with scones, the prettiest of pastries and finger sandwiches. Afternoon tea is such a prominent part of the series that Netflix teamed up with the five-star Lanesborough Hotel in London, UK, to create a suitably indulgent spread to be enjoyed by fans, who have also been hosting their own afternoon teas and holding viewing parties of the popular show.
Had anyone even heard of red velvet cupcakes before they were scoffed by Carrie and Miranda in series three of Sex and the City? Perhaps, but it certainly increased the number of people craving one. Magnolia, the New York City bakery where the friends purchase their delicious-looking cakes, reported 'a frenzy' in the episode’s wake and one that hasn’t stopped. It’s even a stop on food tours thanks to its association with the TV show and inspired the launch of UK bakery Hummingbird in 2004.
Netflix series Stranger Things is all about nostalgia and retro references, and perhaps none are so tangible as main character Eleven’s obsession with Eggo Waffles. Played by Millie Bobby Brown, Eleven devours the frozen breakfast waffles by the packet – and sales of the Kellogg’s product rocketed. In October 2017, when series two landed, consumption was up by 14% year-on-year and the product achieved its highest ever number of social media mentions in a single month.
The popularity of these peanut and chocolate treats is inextricably linked with a certain movie about an extraterrestrial just trying to get home. In E.T., Elliott lures the creature into the house with a trail of the colourful candy – the result of a unique cross-promotional deal between Universal Studios and Hershey Chocolate. Sales, which had been falling, increased by 65% in the weeks following the movie’s release in 1982. It could have been a different story: director Steven Spielberg first approached Mars, who apparently passed on the opportunity of having M&M’s featured.
Who hasn’t craved a bite of Turkish delight when watching (or reading) the famous scene with Edmund and the Snow Queen in CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Whether or not we actually like the sweet, slightly soapy cubes of confectionary, typically buried in icing sugar, there’s something about the 'Narnia effect' that gets us every time. It translates to sales too, with reports of surges up to 200% for Fry’s Turkish delight bars in the UK in anticipation of the 2005 movie version.
Let them eat cake? No – let them eat macarons. Specifically, the prettiest, most perfect, pastel-hued macarons produced by legendary French bakery Ladurée. Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie Marie Antoinette was especially notable for its gorgeous aesthetics – and star Kirsten Dunst’s ability to mainline patisserie while barely smudging her make-up. The film about the French Revolution is a legendary example of 'pastry porn' and is credited with making the sweets – and the bakery – globally famous and 'America’s new cupcake'. As Dunst has said: “We made macarons hot again.”
FX series The Bear follows the life of chef Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White), who inherits a sandwich shop after his brother Michael unexpectedly passes away. Spaghetti plays a significant role in the evolution of the show, Carmy’s grief and, ultimately, the season finale, leaving viewers desperate to recreate the dish: a simple recipe with San Marzano tomatoes, basil, olive oil, hot pepper flakes, onion and lots of butter. 'The Bear spaghetti' was among Google's top 10 recipe searches of 2022.
Pie played a starring role in the cult TV show, which first aired in 1990 and was revived for a third series in 2017. Not least, it injected some much-needed lightness into an otherwise dark drama. Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan, pictured in a scene with Sherilyn Fenn) famously falls in love with the cherry pie served at the fictional Double R Diner, which was filmed at real life diner, Twede’s Café (then called the Mar-T Cafe). Since then, the diner in scenic North Bend, Washington, USA, has been visited by cherry pie fans from all over the world.
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Last updated by Dominique Ayling.