The best fictional foods – from Studio Ghibli ramen to Kung Fu Panda’s dumplings

The Cheesecake from Friends

Rachel and Chandler *really* liked this cheesecake (Credit: HBO)

Tubby Toast and Tubby Custard from Teletubbies

Tubby custard was one of our first cravings (Credit: BBC)

Teletubbies may be responsible for our first craving, like, ever. The way they made tubby toast and tubby custard look like a gift from god will never cease to amaze us.

Adorned in their bibs, the Teletubbies would often be seen drinking the pastel pink custard down like it’s water – and that’s the sort of energy we can get behind.

They also loved themselves a bitta’ Tubby Toast (circular toast in the shape of a smiley face) which actually looks more like pancakes, to be honest.

Unfortunately, whilst the food on screen looked nice, the custard was actually made of mashed potato with a splash of red and yellow acrylic paint, and the Tubby Toast was made from foam.

Still, we can dream, right?!

The Scooby Sandwich from Scooby Doo

Scooby Doo’s sandwiches will be forever unrivalled (Credit: Hanna-Barbera)

There’s a reason that Shaggy is so obsessed with his sandwiches in Scooby Doo, and we still crave this bad boy pretty much whenever we’ve got a hangover.

We mean, look at it.

The Scooby Sandwich is basically layers and layers of bread packed with cheese, tomato, lettuce, ham and lashings of mayo.

It’s a BLT on heat, and like Scooby, we can’t stop drooling over it.

The Dumplings from Kung Fu Panda

Po really loved those dumplings, didn’t he? (Credit: Dreamworks)

Disney damn well know how to make food look good. Just look at Kung Fu Panda. 

There are few of us who have watched Po licking his lips at the baozi (or bao) and not wondered what kind of dumpling it was, so we could order one ourselves.

Apparently the dumplings are stuffed with pork, and steamed. We’ll be the first to admit we wouldn’t mind stuffing 38 in our mouths like Po.

The fictional feast from Hook 

Hook had us craving imaginary food like never before (Credit: Amblin Entertainment)

We crave fictional food all the time, but to make a viewer crave imaginary food? That really is something.

Believe it or not, that’s what Steven Spielberg achieved in Hook. A smorgasbord of delicious and totally unidentifiable grub, Peter Pan (Robin Williams) is asked to conjure up a meal – and that he does.

Fans of the film will remember we see a red and blue imagination pie taking centre stage alongside brightly coloured dips and what might well be fruit and veg.

I basically live to one day have the imaginary food from Hook. After I succeed in this quest, put a fork in me… pic.twitter.com/7KGpdWFWmU

— Jonathan Lee Foster is TALL (@TALL4ALL) January 19, 2021

“I remember at first [the food] was brownish grey, and Steven [Spielberg] didn’t like that, so they just started making it colorful, all these different colors on the side,” Rufio actor, Dante Basco, told GameSpot, explaining how the table came to be.

Apparently, it cost a whopping $50,000 to stock up on food for this scene, and it had to be filmed twice.

Considering we have no idea what it’s meant to taste like, it’s amazing how often we’ve marvelled at this scene. Money well spent, if you ask us.

Ramen from Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo

We don’t care that it’s a cartoon. We crave this ramen daily (Credit: Studio Ghibli)

This might well be the crème de la crème of movie food (and that’s truly saying something).

Studio Ghibli always manage to make food look mouthwatering, so it’s no wonder their Ponyo‘s ramen got a callout.

Served by Sosuke’s mum in the film, the ramen looks like a hug in a bowl, served steaming hot, with a garnishing of ham, an egg and spring onion.

The best part is it’s one of the few movie foods we probably can recreate, because Sozuke’s mum makes it with packet noodles.

Just check out this clip of the moment Ponyo gets served it:

We think about this daily. Now, you can, too.

Of course, the fictional food fantasies didn’t stop there. We could have gone on and listed countless more examples that were mentioned under the Twitter thread, and we got *very* hungry reading everyone’s suggestions.

You can check out some more of the responses here. 

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to work out how to recreate Hook’s Imagination Pie…