Top 10 Movie/TV Snacks

Hello, dear reader!

My Aunt Donna recently requested this topic for my blog. Of course, me being me, I didn't settle for merely listing the universally greatest movie snacks, from popcorn and candy to soda and ice cream. I decided to make things more interesting by looking at specific snacks that go with specific movies or TV shows, as a way of making the viewing experience more thematically coherent. Therefore, here's my list of the Top 10 Snacks that go with specific movies or TV shows!

10. Plain Cheese Pizza with Home Alone (1990)

As a little kid, there weren't many treats that I liked more than a plain cheese pizza - looking back on it, I think it was simply because of the prolonged phase where I tried my best to base my identity on Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin). Say what you will on children choosing questionable idols, I'm standing my ground in the comforting knowledge that our house would've been delightfully full of booby traps if any burglars had tried something funny while my parents were away.

Anyways, I do like a well-made cheese pizza to this day, even if I more often choose one with toppings. A plain cheese goes especially well with this specific movie as well as its only sequel whose existence I recognize, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). The protagonist's love for such pizzas is on full display in both movies, so eating one will definitely enhance the viewing experience and help you relate to the main character.

9. Key Lime Pie with Dexter (2006-2013)

Basically, any Florida treat is an acceptable snack for watching the series that not only takes place in Florida, but is very much the Florida of TV shows, with its absolutely unique and chaotic mixture of tragedy, comedy, colorful characters, creative and gruesome crimes, good food, serial killers and alligators. The best possible snack for watching Dexter would have to be Key Lime Pie, for two good reasons.

Reason #1: It's my personal favorite Florida-themed snack, as our family trip to the Sunshine State in 2016 included an immense amount of these ridiculously good delicacies. Reason #2: while multiple Dexter episodes feature key lime imagery, there is one episode in particular (season 3's seventh episode Easy As Pie) that incorporates key lime pies into the story as a crucial plot element in a way that only the Florida of television shows can accomplish. I can very much recommend eating key lime pie while watching that particular episode, although I sincerely hope that the recipe you try out isn't the final one that Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) gives to Camilla (Margo Martindale).

8. A Tasty Burger with Pulp Fiction (1994)

The movie with the greatest overall dialogue in cinema history features conversations on many great topics, from smuggling gold watches in one's butt through World War II all the way to just how okay it is to give foot massages to your boss's wife. Amidst these universal everyday topics, Quentin Tarantino's untouched masterpiece also features more than one memorable conversation about tasty burgers - first, you have Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) discussing what they call Quarter Pounders in France, and second, you have Jules remarking on his tasty Kahuna burger while he interrogates poor Brett (Frank Whaley).

Couple these iconic bits of dialogue with the film's multiple scenes that take place in traditional American diners, and you'll get why this films begs to be watched while munching a greasy, tasty hamburger.

7. Iceberg Lettuce with Titanic (1997)

I feel like I don't have to really explain this one. And if you think this is a bit on the nose, just wait for the rest of the list - one could say that this selection is just the tip of the iceberg.

A nice added touch is only putting one leaf of iceberg lettuce on your plate and throwing the other one away, even though there would be room on it for both!

6. Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Luncheon, Dinner and Supper with a Middle-Earth Marathon

My brother and I actually accomplished the unthinkable back in 2015, as we watched all The Hobbit (2012-2014) movies and all Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) movies in one day. Of course, from the 05:00 A.M. wake-up to the end credits of Return of the King rolling late at night, this journey takes a whole lot of time - so you need to stock up on food in order to get through it.

Lembas Bread may or may not be available, but luckily Pippin (Billy Boyd) lays out the perfect snacking schedule for such an ordeal in The Fellowship of the Ring, when he goes through all of his favorite meals as a reaction to Aragorn's (Viggo Mortensen) insane notion of just having one breakfast. Can't get through this six-movie saga without remembering your elevenses!

5. Tea with Doctor Who or any other British thing

Just how British of a show is Doctor Who (1963-1989; 2005-Present), you ask? While there are many anecdotes that could answer that question, including "This dude can go ANYWHERE IN TIME AND SPACE, yet 83% of his adventures take place in London", I think that the best one can be found from the 2005 Christmas episode The Christmas Invasion. The Doctor (David Tennant) has spent most of the episode in a coma-like state, with multiple efforts to help him snap out of it that all failed, until finally it's the smell of tea that brings him back to his senses. Bloody hell.

I always like to drink a cup of tea when watching Doctor Who, especially a variety like Earl Grey or English Breakfast, as it helps me get into the extremely English state of mind that the series is built on. I've noticed that the same works for the Monty Python movies, ultra-British films like Love Actually (2003) and Hot Fuzz (2007), as well as the gallery of under-the-radar oddball British sitcoms that various girls named Emma have brought into my life (you should really check out Miranda (2009-2015) and The Vicar of Dibley (1994-2020)). I've never watched Downton Abbey (2010-2015), but from what I've gathered from its pop culture reputation, that series sounds especially tea-prone, and I'll be sure to boil a full pot if I ever get around to watching it.

4. Just a whole bunch of everything with Gilmore Girls

Pretty much every other episode of the wonderful comedy-drama Gilmore Girls (2000-2007; 2016) features the titular Gilmore Girls Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) spending the evening by watching a movie and eating everything imaginable. The delightfully and deliciously over-the-top snack selections seen in the series will make the viewer quite jealous - unless they come as prepared as the characters in the show.

A few select times I've watched multiple consecutive episodes of Gilmore Girls in the best possible way: with a good friend, while indulging ourselves in combinations of pizza, chips and dip, chocolate, wine, ice cream and of course, loads of coffee. With this particular series, having the proper snacks really enhances the viewing experience.

3. All the made-up shit from Harry Potter with Harry Potter

Say what you will about J.K. Rowling's controversial views, no one can come up with delicious fictional foods and beverages quite like her. And, since real-life versions of all these magical products have been made, why not stock up on those before your next Harry Potter re-watch? Just imagine gorging on some Chocolate Frogs and washing it down with a nice glass of Butterbeer or Pumpkin Juice while enjoying The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). You can even throw some Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans into the mix - just hope that you don't catch a classic like Earth Worm or Soap at the wrong moment!

2. Coffee and cherry pie with Twin Peaks

There is no other movie or television series (when excluding the ones that are literally about food), where the foods and drinks consumed are such a large part of the atmosphere and personality of the show, as they are in Twin Peaks (1990-1991; 2017). To this day, the taste of cherry pie immediately takes me to the quirky and mysterious town of Twin Peaks, Washington, with Angelo Badalamenti's sense-tingling score playing in my head and Dale Cooper's (Kyle MacLachlan) various words of wisdom coming to mind. The only snack to contribute even more to the delicate atmosphere of my all-time favorite series is, naturally, black coffee. These things are consumed and talked about so incredibly much during the course of the series, that coffee and cherry pie are an essential part of the show's fabric.

Therefore, it feels extremely right to consume cherry pie and black coffee when watching Twin Peaks (donuts don't hurt either). A fitting anecdote to describe just how fitting these snacks are for the series: when I watched the finale of the show's original run for the first time, I enjoyed black coffee with it in order to fully get into the Twin Peaks mood, even though it was around 10:00 p.m. - usually, if I drank coffee that late in the evening, it would screw up my stomach and keep me up until better citizens start to wake up for work.

But, that particular night, even though the series ends on a massive mind-fuck of a cliffhanger that should leave the viewer's brain reeling, and I had enjoyed a big cup of strong, black coffee, I fell asleep like a baby around midnight. I should consult my health expert mother about this, but off the top of my head, I can't think of a better explanation to this baffling occurrence than the fact that Twin Peaks and coffee go so well together that the effects of the caffeine and the disturbing cliffhanger canceled each other out in an act of Lynchian magic, thus putting my mind at ease.

1. The Food from Studio Ghibli movies while watching Studio Ghibli movies

Okay. You might have cool friends. You might think you have the coolest friends. But ask yourself this: do you have friends who plan an excruciatingly elaborate movie night of watching two Studio Ghibli movies, so that the viewing party eats and drinks everything that the characters in the films eat and drink, at the exact time that those things are consumed?

Because I do.

Yep, me and five fellow movie buffs (two of which were the masterminds behind this project and have earned my utmost respect) sat down to watch Spirited Away (2001) and Porco Rosso (1992), with the concept of eating and drinking everything that the characters in these films do. The preparation for this was insane: our hosts had watched the films in advance in order to write down everything they need to buy and cook, as well as marking down the exact time stamps of when each food/drink item appears so that we could stay on track.

They actually made dumplings, yam tempura, sushi and a whole bunch of other delicacies, and delicious vegan versions of it all. This made for an extremely cool viewing experience, which was intoxicating in a "really diving into the magical world of the films" sense but also in a more literal sense (fun fact: wine is consumed a lot in Porco Rosso). Definitely one of the most memorable movie-watching experiences of my life, and an absolute gold standard for the culture of movie snacks.

Thank you for reading! As we've now hit the most wonderful month of the year, I shall begin my slow descent into Christmas-themed lists in the following weeks. This begins with the vaguely season-appropriate behemoth that I'm finally publishing next Thursday: after reading through the entire Bible as a fun little leisure project, I've ranked all 66 of its Books, and will be sharing my thoughts and ponderings with my dear readers.