Why do Cartoons taste so good?

Long...long ago, when I was still 4ft high from the ground, I was travelling with my family to my relative's house in a city. I heard stories of the countless foods available there. Foods that I could only imagine in my wildest dreams or see in advertisements like.....CHEESE. I hear the response to their question on the phone, "Okay, I will get some cheese for you!". I rush there excitedly and sit at the dinner table at night, waiting for my boon to be granted...only to find a bland, formless, and funky-smelling paste plopped onto my plate beside two rotis.

"What's this?" I ask.

"It's cheese...". They respond.

"Isn't it supposed to be golden, wedge-shaped, and full of holes?" I respond innocently. "I guess they add turmeric to it...

and it is only that way in cartoons."

And that's where my disappointment with life started.

Food in cartoons has forever ruined food in real life for me. I blame all the wonderful and amazing creators, artists, and sound guys for my astronomical expectations that I was supposed to leave at an early age. For a kid who relied on animated television for his breakthrough into foreign lands, I can't blame myself either. I guess I have to deal with the fact that cheese will never bounce, french fries are not gonna be perfectly identical, and cake cannot be swallowed in one swoop.

"Where does reality end and imagination begin?" Isn't it supposed to be the opposite? Our imagination of how food is supposed to taste has been built on the solid bedrock of our nostalgic animated entertainment. I remember seeing a character (can't remember who) slicing a pizza and separating the slice from its home to showcase an epic cheese pull that I still look for in pizzas to date. But, one of my first-ever pizza experiences consisted of a small thick flatbread ("breadrock" should I say) smothered with ketchup and some of that white paste I told you about earlier. It wasn't until I made it myself many years later, was I a little bit satisfied.

If I was ever held hostage and was told to draw the "picture-perfect" American breakfast, I would be walking out of there a free man, and let me inform you I can't draw to save my life. Eggs, bacon, and orange juice. This is what 10 years of Cartoon Network has taught me. A traditional American family eats two sunny-side-up eggs with fried bacon and a glass of orange juice. I still haven't tasted bacon and am waiting for my expectations to be ruined.

One time in English class, my teacher was reading a short story and he blurted out, "...and then he brought bacon home. I guess bacon is some sort of bread students." then I said very meekly from the back of my class, "It's meat, sir..." "What?" "Bacon is meat." "Oh, okay..." And then everyone looked at me either thinking "How dare he offend our beloved English teacher!" or "Oh, he knows something more than our English teacher?!" It was weird and new to know something that your teacher didn't and gave me a false sense of power....for one day.

Have you ever seen "Mr Bean" "Tom and Jerry" or "Ben 10", and compared them side by side based on their cultures in their shows? Mr Bean is a British character and he eats British foods like fish and chips, which he makes in one episode and eats on his sofa. Ben Tennyson from Ben 10 is a typical American boy who enjoys eating fast food and his favourite meal is the famous "Chilli Fries" which has been recreated many times on the Internet and of course by yours truly. (I don't have pictures though...sad times...)

But, Tom and Jerry is a different show. It runs around the globe and in different periods. In the "Two Mouseketeers" episode, the characters perform their shenanigans on a dining table that has an elaborate feast of classical French food. In some episodes, Tom's owner is a Southern woman who cooks up Southern delicacies and puts them on the table like delicate pies, jiggly jello, and a magnificent roast chicken. This is the second most popular dish after the famous Swiss cheese in Tom and Jerry. It is only that I have recently re-visited these cartoons for professional purposes that I was able to put two and two together, and to think that I had information about world cuisine all this time in my mind!

I think a huge part of catching the attention of the 'little people' includes drawing out and animating some PRETTY good delicacies. After all, what does a child do in the 90s other than eat, sleep, and play? That's exactly what they showed us to make it more relatable, unlike cartoons in modern times which I can't get my mind around. All in all, I still watch back these shows from time to time and just chuckle at how I used to feel a sense of mystery around how something would taste. Maybe that's what brought me here to this article in front of you.

That's it for this time! See you next week.