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[[File:slienpig.jpg|frame|Alien pigs might have eight legs and a [[Palette-Swapped Alien Food|limey skin]] but for some reason it still [[Tastes Like Chicken]].]]
{{quote|''"I'd just like them to kill my food before I eat it. Is that too much to ask?"''
|'''Cale'''|''[[Titan A.E.]]''}}
A character vocally enjoying a meal—often provided for free—has the unusual (to them) ingredients mentioned and is thoroughly disgusted. In other cases, the character [[Shrug Take|momentarily pauses and then resumes eating]], or through the course of the episode is obliged to eat it, then makes a habit of it. May feature the one pragmatic character (sometimes a [[Big Eater]] or even an [[Extreme Omnivore]]) who has no problem eating something they ''know'' to be unusual. ▼
▲{{quote|''"I'd just like them to kill my food before I eat it. Is that too much to ask?"''|'''Cale''', ''[[Titan A.E.]]''}}
When used among actual aliens, another character will not understand the negative reaction and perhaps even call it hypocritical, making a comparison to the contents of a so-called "normal" meal ''they'' find disgusting (such as comparing a lobster's habits to a cockroach). Unfortunately, anyone who eats such things also tends to be the type who is more than willing to share. ▼
▲A character vocally enjoying a meal—often provided for free—has the unusual (to them) ingredients mentioned and is thoroughly disgusted. In other cases, the character [[Shrug Take|momentarily pauses and then resumes eating]], or through the course of the episode is obliged to eat it, then makes a habit of it. May feature the one pragmatic character (sometimes a [[Big Eater]] or even an [[Extreme Omnivore]]) who has no problem eating something they ''know'' to be unusual.
▲When used among actual aliens, another character will not understand the negative reaction and perhaps even call it hypocritical, making a comparison to the contents of a so-called "normal" meal ''they'' find disgusting (such as comparing a lobster's habits to a cockroach).
May be a subtrope of [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]. Compare with [[Foreign Queasine]], when the strange food is from our own planet, and [[I Ate What?]], when the stuff that went down your gullet isn't food on ''any'' planet. If the unknown dish turns out to be ''homo sapiens'', then it's [[I'm a Humanitarian]] instead, except for cases when man is a regular ingredient in the alien cuisine.
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{{examples}}
== Anime
* Subverted in ''[[Simoun]]'', when Mamiina feeds a delicious meal to the entire crew, and everyone digs in with relish. She does this after having been seen setting mousetraps in the rodent-infested barracks where Chor Tempest has been temporarily stationed. Sure enough, the secret ingredient in the stew turns out to be mouse. They not only don't mind, they giggle over it in a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].
* In one episode of ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'', Lum is asked to cook lunch while on a camping trip; Ataru, knowing her [[Lethal Chef]] skills, turns down the offer to partake. The other campers are turned into [[Fire-Breathing Diner|Fire Breathing Diners]] by their first bite; when they ask what's in the food, Lum reveals that ''everything on the table'' contains chili peppers, curry, or both.
** In at least one story of the manga, Lum's attempts at cooking on earth open a portal to another dimension, disgorging alien fleets which proceeded to have a battle in the middle of the Moroboshis' kitchen. (Until their owners came to collect them, they were toys).
* Once in the ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' anime Asuna makes a cake for Takamichi. It features
* Minki's food in ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]''. In her defense, Minki is a demon girl ''and'' the food is supposed to be eaten by demons too, not by humans.
* The [[Mysterious Waif]] in ''[[Zoids]]: Chaotic Century'' enjoys salt in her tea.
** Salty tea is [http://www.ellenskitchen.com/faqs/chaikash.html more Earthly than you might think.]
* In chapter 489 of ''[[Naruto]]'', the titular character is [[Summon Magic|Reverse Summoned]] to the place where the Summoned Toads live while closing his eyes to dig into some ramen, then he starts chowing down on a bowl full of worms before he even realized what happened.
* ''[[Franken Fran]]'' once attended the birthday party of a wealthy socialite girl that included a large buffet of various meats; it soon became clear that {{spoiler|the guests were eating the evidence of her murder}}.
* ''[[Kyouran Kazoku Nikki]]'' has this in the very first episode. When, after being shuffled back and forth on the counter,[[Rule of Funny|and apparently getting sick]], it proclaims "just eat me already!"
* ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' has the Keronians' "mixed life-form space okonomiyaki". We never find out exactly what goes into it, but it has an alarming tendency to try and escape the frying pan and/or attack the diner.
* An ongoing [[Running Gag]] in ''[[
== Comic Books ==
* Inverted by Phil Foglio in the ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire]]'' comic. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131030051914/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20080103 This page] of the "Herodotus Files" has this to say about popsicles:▼
* Inverted in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' several times. In one strip Calvin's mom can only get Calvin to eat a stuffed pepper by convincing him that it is actually monkey brains - and then his dad refuses to touch it.▼
{{quote|Then it was revealed that humans froze liquids. No big news there. The concept that electrified the Gallimaufry was that Humans stuck a handle into the frozen liquid and ''ate'' it! ''Still frozen!''
** Another has Calvin's mother telling him that the grains of rice in his soup are really maggots, and another time she claimed they were having spider pie for dinner.▼
** A reversal: Calvin asks his mother if hamburger meat is made out of "people from Hamburg." She says it's ground beef, and when Calvin realizes he's eating a cow, he tosses the burger away with a disgusted "I don't think I can finish this."▼
** Calvin's Dad once had to tell him he was eating toxic waste and it would give him mutant powers before Calvin ate. This, of course, upset and disgusted Calvin's Mom.▼
** Also played straight sometimes. In one strip, Calvin's mom offers him a jelly doughnut, to which he says he doesn't like them because they're like eating giant bugs. You bite into one end, and all the guts squirt out the other. Neither one can stomach them after that, and Calvin's mom remarks that other women ask how she stays so thin.▼
* One ''[[The Far Side]]'' comic has a chicken taking off a dog suit while approaching a horrified typical suburban family pausing in the middle of dinner during a thunderstorm saying "No, I'm not Fluffy, I'm the chicken you thought you cooked for dinner! Guess where Fluffy is!"▼
* A [[Gahan Wilson]] cartoon shows a tourist in Scotland peering over a hill watching a group of peanut-shaped bipedal creatures with antlers running across the landscape. Scottish guide: "Och, sir, you're a lucky man! 'Tis a rare stranger who gets to view the wild haggis romp!"▼
▲* Inverted by Phil Foglio in the ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire]]'' comic. [http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20080103 This page] of the "Herodotus Files" has this to say about popsicles:
▲{{quote|Then it was revealed that humans froze liquids. No big news there. The concept that electrified the Gallimaufry was that Humans stuck a handle into the frozen liquid and ''ate'' it! ''Still frozen!''}}
▲{{quote|Shockwaves of tsunami-like proportion ran through the culinary schools of the galaxy. Entire industries were spawned and fought over, and at least two desert dwelling races were saved from extinction.}}
▲{{quote|And most important of all, when Humanity threw a party with refreshments, ''everybody'' came.}}
* Happens in ''[[Footrot Flats]]'' as Wal is scoffing down the lunch Cooch made him in the back country. Wal remarks that he loves freshwater crayfish only for Cooc to remark "Yeah, but how do you feel about them [[wikipedia:Cave weta|cave wetas?"]]
== Fan Works ==
* In the Crystal Tokyo era of ''[[Sailor Moon Expanded]]'' (a massive [[Fan Verse]] from the 1990s which extended and expanded on the original anime version of ''[[Sailor Moon]]''), humanoid youma Titanite (aka "Sailor Polaris") runs a restaurant that specializes in the cuisine of the Dark Kingdom. (Which is based around various alien fungi and arthropods, ''very'' heavily [[Fire-Breathing Diner|spiced]].) While originally intended as a "home cooking" place for the few other survivors of the Dark Kingdom, it unexpectedly becomes popular with humans, mainly because of the [[Bragging Rights Award|bragging rights]] earned from eating food even Klingons might hesitate to consume.
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or
'''The Crowd''': Meat Loaf ''again''? }}
** The joke being, [[Don't Explain the Joke|of course]], that [[Meat Loaf]] was
* Pretty much the entire point in the movie ''[[Soylent Green]]''. In the book it was [[Future Food Is Artificial|soy and lentils]]. Thus the name. [[I'm a Humanitarian|Not so much in]] [[It Was His Sled|the movie]].
** Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow are the original recipe. However, nobody likes them--the populace will happily knock over and trample entire tables full of Red loaves and Yellow buns in protest against the absence of Green crackers.
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* In ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'', the cast of the fictional TV shows alien hosts prepare what they think to be the favourite food of the characters they play. One who played a human gets a steak. The one who played a [[Rubber Forehead Alien]] got a rather different meal. But how do we know what that steak was from?
* ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]'', anyone? Chilled Monkey brains and eyeball tomato soup. Yum yum.
* Disney's ''[[Atlantis: The
* Daniel Jackson does this in the ''[[Stargate (film)|Stargate]]'' movie, while eating a giant iguana creature. He comments that it [[Tastes Like Chicken]].
** It gets better. He doesn't know their language yet, so to express his opinion about the taste of the creature, he acts sort of like a chicken. The boys who herd the beasts of burden, including Skaara, respond by doing his chicken act when they finally recognize the man that Col. O'Neil is trying to describe by gestures and imitation.
* Also employed in ''[[Fried Green Tomatoes]]''.
* [[The Silence of the Lambs|Hannibal Lecter]]: the scary thing about him is that he appears to be a very good cook...
** The trope is lampshaded near the beginning of ''[[Red Dragon]]'', during a lovely dinner party hosted by Dr. Lecter. When complimented on the delicious food and asked what was in it, he replies only, "If I told you, you wouldn't even try it." A newspaper montage during the title credits implies [[I'm a Humanitarian|she has since found out]].
* In ''[[Meet Dave]]'', Gina hands Dave a bottle of ketchup while preparing a meal, and Dave proceeds to drink about half of it.
* The alien in ''[[My Stepmother Is An Alien]]'' relied on sucking the insides of batteries for energy.
* ''[[The Cook, the Thief, His Wife
* ''[[Bad Taste]]'': The yummy alien stew.
* ''[[Planet of the Dinosaurs]]'': "I was just wondering how many other things we're going to have to get used to. Things like eating dinosaurs."
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* In [[Bruce Coville]]'s ''[[Aliens Ate My Homework]]'' series, Rod is briefly disgusted when told that the aliens he's working with raise worms for food. One of the [[Can't Argue with Elves|aliens haughtily replies]] that his species doesn't believe in eating creatures as intelligent as the ones ''humans'' raise for food.
** In his ''My Teacher is an Alien'' series, the kids are served something called "Pleskits", which are purple, crusty, and extremely delicious. The aliens explain that Pleskits are a type of fungus, which isn't so bad. Then they reveal what it is they ''grow on''. The reader isn't told, but the kids no longer want to eat them.
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In the
** Discworld also had an inversion in ''[[
** Subverted in ''[[
*** Then they give him "lamb and rice, just like mother," which Vimes ''still'' thinks looks a shade questionable, although he eats it anyway.
*** He then asks what an AM sausage would be called, "A loaf, your grace, or possibly a log". He also references "little bits of green you can only hope are herb", or something to that nature.
** Rincewind consistently finds himself
*** In [[The Last Continent|his trip to XXXX]] he eats various (poisonous) grubs, beer-soup (vegemite), a meat pie in pea soup, the same again but ''gourmet'', and jam sandwiches found in the desert after finding a talking kangaroo.
**** Eats? He '''invents''' beer soup.
*** He also drinks funnelweb beer. That's not the name of the beer, it's the
*** Also, he's eaten exploded whale meat chunks.
**** To clarify, meat chunks of a whale that was left on the shore to '''explode by itself.'''
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* In the ''[[Ringworld]]'' novels, Louis Wu encounters hominids whose diets are nearly always more specialized than those of Earth's humans: herbivores, carnivores, scavengers, etc. This effectively inverts the trope, as there's bound to be something ''we'' eat that would squick out each and every Ringworld native. Even the omnivores call him out for eating cheese ("decayed food!").
* An inversion in the first book, Speaker to Animals can't eat with the humans, because their food "smelled like burnt garbage."
* In Somtow Sucharitkul's ''Mallworld'', an alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled...
* In ''[[Myth Adventures|Myth Directions]]'', Skeeve finds himself always hungry while visiting dimensions with food too weird or disgusting for him to eat. Seeing Tananda casually eating said disgusting food doesn't help matters.
* The cafeteria on ''[[Sector General]]'' (a giant hospital station resembling a misshapen Christmas tree) serves ALL the innumerable oxygen breathing species. One is strongly advised to keep one's eyes on one's own plate.
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== Live
* In the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Tikka to Ride", Kryten is told to find food after having his morality chip removed, and finds the body of a man who had been trampled to death. He reasons "If humans eat chicken, then they obviously eat their own species, otherwise they'd just be picking on the chickens!" and thinks it'd be a pity to waste the body when it'd barbecue so nicely...
* ''[[Sanford and Son|Sanford & Son]]'', where Fred misunderstands that Sangria is only ''named'' after blood.
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** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' also has the [[Running Gag]] about the inedibility of Cardassian Yamok sauce, no other species in the galaxy will touch it.
** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' also has another [[Running Gag]] where Quark would insult Rom by offering him root beer. Also, Nog has learnt to enjoy root beer in Jake's company
** The theme restaurant outside the now-gone ''[[Star Trek]]: The Experience'' in Las Vegas served an ice-cream-and-gummy-worm dish that was allegedly based on Klingon cuisine.
** An episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' had somebody complaining about "Why didn't you make Chakotay ''drink'' that?"; "Chakotay's vegetarian".
** According to Worf in one episode, Klingon tea is deadly to humans. Dr. Pulaski comments it's not that good for Klingons, takes an antidote, and drinks it.
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John: Not "iziz green," ''ice, cream''! }}
* Subverted in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''. When Ford (non-human) and Arthur (human) encounter some strange blue food on a Vogon ship, Ford insists that Arthur will find it delicious. Arthur reluctantly tries some, only to find it awful. Convinced that Arthur isn't giving it a fair chance, he eats some and appears to enjoy it, before conceding that, yes, it actually is terrible. (Although in this case, it was deliberately made to taste horrible because the makers ''really'' hate Vogons.)
** At Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur is badly [[squick]]ed by a genetically-engineered sentient meat animal, whose psychological make-up includes the wish to die that others might eat him. (Which they then do.)
* ''[[Kenan and Kel]]: Two Heads Are Better Than None'', played for comedy.
* Reality TV shows build big ratings out of feeding their contestants various substances which are expected to [[Squick]] them out. And yet nothing that's served is ever actually harmful; most times, it's something that is actually considered normal food, if not a delicacy, in another part of the world.
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** Subverted in the second episode of "The Daleks," with the TARDIS' food machine. Basically, Ian asks for "bacon and eggs," and the Doctor punches in some letters and numbers. The food machine produces a small, white, Mars Bar-shaped thing. Ian looks at it in disgust, but takes a bite anyway. It ''is'' bacon and eggs.
* An episode of ''[[Perfect Strangers]]'' had Larry give praise to a meal Balki prepared for them. Just as Balki opens his mouth, Larry interrupts him with "Please don't ruin it by telling me what it was."
== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* Inverted in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' several times. In one strip Calvin's mom can only get Calvin to eat a stuffed pepper by convincing him that it is actually monkey brains - and then his dad refuses to touch it.
▲** Another has Calvin's mother telling him that the grains of rice in his soup are really maggots, and another time she claimed they were having spider pie for dinner.
▲** A reversal: Calvin asks his mother if hamburger meat is made out of "people from Hamburg." She says it's ground beef, and when Calvin realizes he's eating a cow, he tosses the burger away with a disgusted "I don't think I can finish this."
▲** Calvin's Dad once had to tell him he was eating toxic waste and it would give him mutant powers before Calvin ate. This, of course, upset and disgusted Calvin's Mom.
▲** Also played straight sometimes. In one strip, Calvin's mom offers him a jelly doughnut, to which he says he doesn't like them because they're like eating giant bugs. You bite into one end, and all the guts squirt out the other. Neither one can stomach them after that, and Calvin's mom remarks that other women ask how she stays so thin.
▲* One ''[[The Far Side]]'' comic has a chicken taking off a dog suit while approaching a horrified typical suburban family pausing in the middle of dinner during a thunderstorm saying "No, I'm not Fluffy, I'm the chicken you thought you cooked for dinner! Guess where Fluffy is!"
▲* A [[Gahan Wilson]] cartoon shows a tourist in Scotland peering over a hill watching a group of peanut-shaped bipedal creatures with antlers running across the landscape. Scottish guide: "Och, sir, you're a lucky man! 'Tis a rare stranger who gets to view the wild haggis romp!"
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** Or Zoidberg bringing crab legs to a party. As Hermes is eating one, Zoidberg mentions that "I made them myself", as Hermes realizes the possible meanings of that and looks disgusted.
** There's also the episode where the Planet Express discovers a planet that seems to grow a plant that tastes a lot like fried shrimp, and makes a killing turning them into a fast food staple. One small problem: {{spoiler|they're the larval form of the Omicronians}}.
* In one episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
{{quote|'''Troop Leader:''' Man, those are good cookies!}}
* The second episode of the 2nd season of ''[[Star Wars: Clone Wars]]'' shows that [[Extreme Omnivore|Anakin isn't picky when it comes to food]]. Though he might have done it just to Squick out Obi-Wan.
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* ''[[Family Guy]]''. Peter becomes a horse breeder and fills the fridge with horse semen. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF84k1be-Uk Brian & Stewie mistake it for milk].
* One of [[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]] movies inverted it with <s> banana cream pie</s> [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|disgusting Earth goop]], which one alien had such a severe allergic reaction to that it ''[[Your Head Asplode|exploded]]''. Conversely, Carl's reaction to some gross looking alien delicacy bordered on addiction.
* It's probably no surprise that Shaggy and [[Scooby
** Played with elsewhere in the film. [[Jerkass]] minor antagonist Colonel Calloway is already hesitant about the snack he's been offered due to its moldy flavor—discovering he's eating fungus fudge with toadstool tea just pushes him over the edge into true disgust.
* In the ''[[Simpsons]]'' episode "Helter Shelter," the family meets a group of reality show contestants in the wilderness. The group was abandoned there when one of the contestants "[[Eat That|just couldn't eat anymore kangaroo testicles]]." Now, he can't get enough of them.
* An inversion in the ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "Marshmallow Trees." [[Ambadassador|Ambassador]] [[Hobbits|Zozo]], trades his species's invention of [[Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables]] to a human colony. When shown that the colony will trade the Kiwi vegetables for ''hamburger,'' Zozo reacts with disgust. His niece and nephews, though, really like the stuff.
* A mutual version from ''[[Green Lantern: The Animated Series]]'': Kilowogg eats a giant bug (in some kind of glaze, defeating Hal's assertion that he'll eat glazed anything), then inquires as to what "cheese" is (Hal's rations being grilled cheese in a can), and is so disgusted by Aya's explanation he asks Hal to eat in a closet from now on.
* Bird Person from ''[[Rick and Morty]]'' is one of a race of, well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|alien bird-people.]] Their diet seems to favor their bird side; they even have worm-farms.
* In ''[[Amphibia (TV series)|Amphibia]]'', the natives of the eponymous world eat bugs (which makes sense, as they are [[Funny Animal| humanoid frog and toad people]]) which Anne is seriously turned off by. She's okay with some of the other stuff the eat though, like mushrooms. After about half of the first season, she gets used to it, eventually eating the beetle-burgers and fly-topped ice cream with relish.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Bizarre Alien Biology]]
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
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[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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