Super fun list compiled by Gastro Obscura. I mean, who among us hasn’t yearned to sample Klingon Bloodwine?
SURE, YOU CAN BUY A Wonka Bar at any candy store. You can drink a sugary Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction in Orlando. And you can find a recipe for Lembas Bread on about a million Lord of the Rings fan sites. But none of these initially fictional foods could ever live up to how we imagined they would taste when we first saw or read about them. Fictional dishes invite us to open our mental palates to the possibility of new flavors and experiences. And because they are the product of imagination, they often also carry an emotional weight that real food, no matter how exotic, can rarely bring.
Recently, we asked Atlas Obscura readers to tell us which fictional food had sparked their imaginations more than any other. The results were delicious. You told us about your love for make-believe foods from books, television shows, films, and more. Most importantly, you got super specific about what you think these foods must taste like, including an alien dish that reminds one of you of “raw horse meat or sashimi with a kind of hot spice.”
We’ve collected our favorite responses below. Next time you encounter a mouth-watering food that doesn’t exist, try and decide for yourself what incredible, impossible flavors it might actually have.