In this article, we picked out five iconic foods from popular TV and movies and made them to review. There were great successes and catastrophic failures—Shoutout to Binging With Babish, who makes videos and recipes for this exact sort of thing. We used four of his recipes to create (or attempt) these foods. Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Big Kahuna Burger – Pulp Fiction
What’s not to like about a nice big burger? This one got topped with some homemade teriyaki sauce, a big ol’ pineapple ring, and caramelized onions. 10/10. We made big, juicy burgers and cooked them to perfection. The unique sweet tastes of the onions, pineapple, and sauce made for a unique flavor palette that was truly delicious. I truly felt like I was in the Tarantino cinematic universe, sitting down at a Big Kahuna Burger and enjoying a Big Kahuna burger. Good shit.
White Castle Sliders – Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
This was the dish that by far took the most work. From hand-shaping the patties into the iconic white castle square slider to cooking them on a bed of steamed onions, there were numerous steps it took to complete this dish. We set the bar high by starting out with the Big Kahuna Burger and had relatively high expectations going into this dish only to be let down. They weren’t bad by any means and we’re sure Harold and Kumar would have devoured them but the labor-to-product ratio was absolutely horrendous. We had made the patties a little too small which left the bun begging for more meat. Everything was cooked quite nicely but since professional amateur chefs made them, the ratios of everything were a little off. 6.5/10.
Breakfast Pasta – Elf
This was genuinely awful. It wasn’t projectile-vomit-inducing awful but more like a sickeningly sweet insulin shot requiring awful. Do not make this, we can not stress this enough. Pasta topped with candy, marshmallows, caramel sauce, fudge sauce, and a fudge pop tart is only something the sugar high of an elf could produce. There were too many different textures competing for the spotlight and none of them complimented another one. If this is all Buddy the elf ate in the North Pole, it explains a lot of his actions during the rest of the movie.
Meth – Breaking Bad
No, no, we did not actually make meth (but wouldn’t that have been cool?). What we attempted to make was a candy that looks like meth. Really it was just a ton of sugar. Unfortunately, we had a lab meltdown during the cook, and things went more south than Albuquerque. Molten sugar escaped from the pot all over the countertops, floor, stove, and sink. The chemical purity of the meth was compromised during the blast and hazmat crew clean-up, and it, unfortunately, was destroyed. Who knew cooking meth was dangerous? It looked so easy when Walter White did it, but somehow we ended up making an even bigger mess of our meth than he made of his marriage… and friendships… and life… damn that show was even sadder than our meth.
Shaggy & Scooby’s Sandwich – Scooby Doo
After the meth meltdown fiasco we were feeling a bit discouraged, not to mention lacking hunger due to the quantity of burgers we had just created and consumed, so this sandwich never actually saw the light of day. To give you an idea of where we were going with it, the plan was to use an entire loaf of bread, put turkey, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes between each slice, and maybe some sauces in there too. Regardless it was going to be impossible to actually eat, as we cannot unhinge our jaws and devour ungodly amounts of food like the mystery gang goofballs, but we would have attempted it. Had we done that, I would probably have said something like “The sandwich sure was a mouthful” or whatever. Anyway, you get the idea. Since the sandwich was never constructed, I guess it stayed more split up than the mystery gang after Fred hatches a plan.
Parting Thoughts
If you have never seen any of these movies or TV shows, we highly recommend them. The only food we could recommend in good faith to try yourself would be the Big Kahuna Burger as all of the other ones either ended in disaster or just weren’t that great. Most of these foods should have never left the screen they debuted on but as men of science, we became the brave souls who labored to bring these creations to life and review them for you.
