Pairing Food with Zodiac
Era-Appropriate Retro Delights
October is here and I'm anxious to get my horror movie marathon going. (Honestly, I'm always up for a horror movie marathon, but I can do it in October without people thinking I'm a complete weirdo.) I took a highly scientific survey within a community of experts, (as in, I asked my friends about this on Facebook,) and asked what combination of food and the film Zodiac would be, uh hem, to die for. The results were interesting.
When I think about food and horror movies, I tend to be more drawn to the decade than the content of the film. Let's be real: most of the stuff that happens in horror films and shows is not appetizing by definition. Hannibal might be an exception to this since it's all food porn. Actually, okay, when we think about what's really in that food, no it's not an exception. Let's forget that.
I did a little research to find out what was good in the late 60s in the United States. A few online searches made a few things clear: my mother never really got past the 60s in her cuisine, not eating must have been the way to diet, and eating with your eyes first must not have been a thing, or we had a totally different sense of aesthetics.
I'll start with some items that didn't make the cut for me:
- Watergate Salad aka "Green Goop." Yes. People ate this. I guess people still eat it and it might be delightful, but I don't think I can get past the visual.
- Anything containing Jello. While completely era appropriate, I'm not a huge fan of Jello on its own and when it has stuff suspended in it, I get more creeped-out than anything else. Maybe that's what you want from your food while you're watching a movie about a notorious serial killer, but I want to fear the plot, not my plate.
- Chicken à la king. I almost opted to make this. To be truly authentic though, I guess that at the time, it was popular to buy it as a boil-in-bag entree or in cans.
- Fondue. I actually love fondue, but I no longer own a fondue pot and I just felt like it would have been too high maintenance for tonight.
- Pigs in a blanket appetizers. They're fine. I just wasn't in the mood.
- Gibson martinis. I just don't like them.
- Ring Around the Tuna: this represents everything that could be wrong with food.
The menu I went with:
- Appetizer: Shrimp cocktail
- Cocktail: Seabreeze
- Entree: Beef Bourguinon
- Dessert: Pillsbury Tunnel of Fudge Cake
Character Appropriate
As one of my friends pointed-out, another possible option is to go with what Detective Tosky and Robert Graysmith would eat: sandwiches, chips, soda, and lots of hard liquor.
After re-watching the movie, I realized that all of us totally forgot about Animal Crackers.
Another possibility
Plot Appropriate
Easy answer: pancakes! If you've seen the movie, you know why.