If you are a cannabis consumer you are likely going to spend a lot of time pairing that activity with couch surfing, movie watching and satisfying various food cravings. Of course, “This is the Way”. But when you pair movie watching, cannabis and food cravings you might occasionally come across some food that you may not be able to easily access. Especially if you are watching movies from a different region. In which case you may find yourself craving a food that you may not be able to get any time soon. This here is the story of one such mystery food craving that took me two decades to resolve. That is until I found out that they make THC infused versions of it.
Growing up as a kid in Europe I spent a lot of time watching foreign movies. Most of them were from Hollywood. But while US culture and European culture are overall quite similar in many ways, food culture is very different. As a kid it was easy to relate to the US films, but every once in a while you’d watch the characters of the movies eat some food and go like : “Woah what is that? How does that taste? Oh, I wanna try that.”
The most memorable food craving was one that lasted for two decades. It was spawned by a scene from the original “Ghostbusters” movie. In it Egon Spengler, played by the late Harold Ramis, describes the scope of “psychokinetic energy” flowing through New York City by using the size of a “Twinkie” for scale.
It looks—tasty? I must have it!
As an adult, I recognize the scene as obvious product placement. The Ghostbusters even repeatedly bring up the product name. But “child-me” didn’t care. I had never seen this food, but knew I needed to know what it tasted like. That product placement definitely worked! In my mind I was imagining something along the lines of corn bread. But as a snack by itself? I knew I was probably wrong, but I had no frame of reference.
“What the hell is a Twinkie?!”
At the time, Twinkies didn’t exist in Germany. Even today, they are an imported oddity that can be hard to find. The Twinkie, is just one of a series of foods that will appear run of the mill to Americans, but that weren’t really available in Europe during the 80s and 90s. Corn Dogs, Peanutbutter, American Pancakes, Donuts, Bagels, Kool-Aid, Rootbeer. Those are all foods I was wondering about as a kid, that I got to experience for the first time when I moved to the US in the early 2000s. But nothing captured my imagination quite like the Twinkie from Ghostbusters. 20 years later, I finally got to try the twinkie. Now a scientist, my food craving was fulfilled at last!
In the end the Twinkie wasn’t what I expected. It was way sweeter and much more sticky than anticipated. It wasn’t terrible, but I could feel the life draining from me as I consumed it. I figured it didn’t make it to Europe, because the European FDA equivalent agencies would not have approved this deep-fried LEGO brick of sugar. Hey at least I fullfilled that craving eventually, although I recently discovered that THC infused Twinkies which I am yet to try.
Another memorable moment was my first time sitting at an IHOP and consuming american pancakes. Up until that point I just assumed that the white stuff they served on top of the pancakes was ice-cream. Imagine my horror when I popped a big bite of butter in my mouth instead. Of course, nowadays I have eaten my way through pretty much all “fast”-american-movie-foods” and none of those childhood cravings are a mystery anymore. Gagging after my bite of butter at IHOP remains a distant memory and I have since graduated to cooking movie based meals curated by the excellent "Binging with Babish" Youtube-channel and companion cookbook.
Obviously, my story is that of a European moving to the US and discovering the food there, but I suspect there are similar movie food cravings you may have experienced while watching international films from across the globe. Maybe some Japanese Anime food? Like from those Studio Ghibli movies? What kind of food has eluded you so far?