History Main / AlienLunch

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!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16640754970.98788900 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.
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->''"I'd just like them to kill my food before they serve it to me. Y'know I do an honest day's work; I want already dead food. Is that too much for a fellah to ask?"''
-->-- '''Cale Tucker''', ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE''

A character vocally enjoying a meal — often provided for free — has [[BizarreTasteInFood the unusual (to them) ingredients]] mentioned and is thoroughly disgusted. In other cases, the character [[ShrugTake momentarily pauses and then resumes eating]], or through the course of the episode is obliged to eat it, then makes a habit of it. May feature the one pragmatic character (sometimes a BigEater or even an ExtremeOmnivore) who has no problem eating something they ''know'' to be unusual.

When used amongst actual aliens, another character will not understand the negative reaction and perhaps even call it hypocritical, making a comparison to the contents of a so-called "normal" meal ''they'' find disgusting (such as comparing a lobster's habits to a cockroach).

May be a subtrope of BizarreAlienBiology. Compare with ForeignQueasine, when the strange food is from our own planet, and IAteWhat, when the stuff that went down your gullet isn't food on ''any'' planet. If the unknown dish turns out to be ''Homo sapiens'', then it's ImAHumanitarian instead, except for cases when man is a regular ingredient in the alien cuisine. See also NoBiochemicalBarriers and PaletteSwappedAlienFood.

Sister trope to FarOutForeignersFavoriteFood.

[[noreallife]]
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!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' is a manga about cooking dungeon monsters into meals, so this reaction occurs to almost everyone who gets offered a serving of TeamChef Senshi's latest dish: mandrake and basilisk egg omelette, grilled kelpie, dryad fruit potage, and more. But since Senshi is a SupremeChef who's spent most of his life inside the dungeon honing his cooking skills and learning to identify the best ingredients, anyone who actually tries a bite invariably finds it delicious. This also gets discussed a little: some of the ingredients he uses, such as dried slime and treasure bugs, are considered perfectly normal delicacies in other parts of the world, and one character tentatively trying bicorn brain doria warms up to it after comparing its taste to milt, weirding out another character that she'd happily eat fish testicles but hesitate about brains.
* In ''Anime/GargantiaOnTheVerdurousPlanet'', Ledo, a young soldier who spends all his life in space, is stranded in a planet covered by ocean ([[spoiler:Earth]]). He is squicked out by the idea of consuming animal carcasses when offered a piece of dried fish as a token of goodwill. However, after being informed that it's harmless and people do it all the time, he starts to learn to like it.
%%* ''Manga/HellTeacherNube'': Minki's food. In her defense, Minki is a demon girl ''and'' the food is supposed to be eaten by demons too, not by humans.%%Describe the food.
* ''LightNovel/KyouranKazokuNikki'' has this in the very first episode. When, after being shuffled back and forth on the counter,[[RuleOfFunny and apparently getting sick]], it proclaims "just eat me already!"
%%* ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'': Tohru tries to serve Kobayashi some ''exotic'' meals. Her attempts to serve her own tail are also a RunningGag in the anime.%%Describe the food.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': In chapter 489, the titular character is [[SummonMagic Reverse Summoned]] to the place where the Summoned Toads live while closing his eyes to dig into some ramen, then he starts chowing down on a bowl full of worms before he even realized what happened.
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'': In one episode, Asuna makes a cake for Takamichi. It features amongst other things a sickeningly green coating of cream and squid tentacles.
* ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'': Since the titular character is an alien whose race helped inspire the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, her grocery list includes items like shantak bird eggs, black goat of the woods (a.k.a. Shub-Niggurath) meat or her famous "BLT" sandwich ([[spoiler:Byakhee-Lloigor-Tsathoggua]]). As a result, her LoveInterest Mahiro actually refuses to eat any of her food unless he's absolutely positive it was made with only Earthly ingredients (no, Pterodactyl doesn't count), showing that he's actively trying to [[AvertedTrope avert]] IAteWhat. The issue isn't Nyarko's cooking skills, either; other human characters enjoy her meals, and so has Mahiro on the few occasions when he gave them a shot. However, after she served him a ''bento'' and refused to identify the meat involved, he started "boycotting" her dishes. (Though he might have a valid complaint with the "BLT" -- at least one of the items involved is a sentient being, meaning that even if it doesn't quite qualify as [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism]] it's still extremely {{Squick}}y.) The same holds true for the takoyaki made by their friend Luhy Distone; Mahiro's friends and family love it, but every time he starts to take a bite, he sees the little SuperDeformed Cthulhu on the shop's sign and loses his appetite. Technically speaking, Luhy's cooking might not even be am example of this trope since Mahiro only ''assumes'' it's made with alien ingredients.
* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** In one episode, Misty is cooking while Brock is sick, making a stew that even she finds "unique".
** Later in the series, May is shown making many PokéBlocks and feeds them to all the Pokémon, who all flinch in disgust. James reacts the same way in both instances, but somehow, Jessie gets a taste of these and really likes them.
* ''Manga/SgtFrog'' has the Keronians' "mixed life-form space okonomiyaki". We never find out exactly what goes into it, but it has an alarming tendency to try and escape the frying pan and/or attack the diner.
* ''Anime/ShowByRock'': The Sassasassa farragusa (from Moa's home planet) is a giant alien monster with pointy claws, a desire to kill all melodisians, and purple, rotting meat, but apparently it tastes like candied shrimp.
* ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'': Subverted when Mamiina feeds a delicious meal to the entire crew, and everyone digs in with relish. She does this after having been seen setting mousetraps in the rodent-infested barracks where Chor Tempest has been temporarily stationed. Sure enough, the secret ingredient in the stew turns out to be mouse. They not only don't mind, they giggle over it.
* ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'': In one episode , Lum is asked to cook lunch while on a camping trip; Ataru, knowing her LethalChef skills, turns down the offer to partake. The other campers are turned into [[FireBreathingDiner Fire Breathing Diners]] by their first bite; when they ask what's in the food, Lum reveals that ''everything on the table'' contains chili peppers, curry, or both.
** In at least one story of the manga, Lum's attempts at cooking on Earth open a portal to another dimension, disgorging alien fleets which proceeded to have a battle in the middle of the Moroboshis' kitchen. (Until their owners came to collect them, they were toys).
** To be fair to Lum, her food is this... when consumed by ''humans''. By '''alien''' standards, she's a SupremeChef.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comedy]]
* Creator/GeorgeCarlin, in his "Fussy Eater" routine from ''A Place for My Stuff!'': "'Course, some guys'll eat anything, I know that. Saw those guys in the Service -- 'Whaddaya got to eat? Never mind! Just gimme some!' 'It's rat's asshole, Don!' 'Well, it sure makes a hell of a fondue!'"
* Creator/JeffFoxworthy had a routine where he described Louisiana food as the best in the world "as long as you don't ask too many questions about what you're eating." He also claims to have seen his wife's relatives whack steaming pots with spoons and going "git back in there!"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/AmethystPrincessOfGemworld'': At their first dinner on Gemworld, Amaya is uneasy about eating lizard on a stick, a delicacy on Gemworld.
* ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'':
** Inverted: [[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20080103 This page]] of the "Herodotus Files" has this to say about popsicles:
--->''Then it was revealed that humans froze liquids. No big news there. The concept that electrified the Gallimaufry was that humans stuck a handle into the frozen liquid and ''ate'' it! ''Still frozen!''\\\
Shockwaves of tsunami-like proportion ran through the culinary schools of the galaxy. Entire industries were spawned and fought over, and at least two desert-dwelling races were saved from extinction.\\\
And most important of all, when humanity threw a party with refreshments, ''everybody'' came.''
** Played straight with the "poiled slurgs in wixxel grease" that the Gallimaufrey's security chief loves. (For context, humans use wixxel grease as an oven cleaner.)
* Creator/MarvelComics:
** Crusader (who's actually a Skrull who's gone native) eats a combination of strawberries, kiwi fruit and pickles that resembles a favored Skrull fruit. This turns into a SpotTheImposter when he sees [[spoiler:Hank Pym]] serve himself the same combo.
** ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange'': Years of spellcasting has changed Stephen Strange's internal anatomy so much he can only eat dishes with a lot of tentacles and eyes that may not be native to Earth's plane of existence.
* ''Franchise/MenInBlack'': One comic adaptation has the former coroner Agent Elle express to Jay how impressed she is by headquarter's high-tech morgue. When informed by Jay that the room she's referring to is actually the cafeteria, she quickly runs off to vomit.
* ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'': in ''On the Dark Side'', the Evronians (a race of hostile EmotionEater aliens) invite the Earthling ambassadors (including PK and General Westcock) to lunch, where... unusual dishes are served. Odd-looking or not, they seem to be edible, as Westcock even asks the recipe for one of them (which cannot be replicated, as the planet it came from [[ThrowawayCountry was destroyed]]).
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': The Rykornians' only known form of food is the same seeds from which Rykornians are born if they are planted instead of consumed. Apparently these seeds are tasty as Etta enjoyed them before realizing she was eating baby Rykornians.
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': There are lizard like things with blue flesh on Hope's End that are palatable raw for humans, khunds and several of the other species who've had members interred on the hellish planet but the human characters do not care for them much and are mostly eating them out of necessity and desperation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Inverted several times.
** In one strip, Calvin's mom can only get Calvin to eat a stuffed pepper by convincing him that it is actually monkey heads -- and then his dad refuses to touch it.
** Another has Calvin's mother telling him that the grains of rice in his soup are really maggots, and another time she claims they're having spider pie for dinner.
** A reversal: Calvin asks his mother if hamburger meat is made out of people from Hamburg. She says it's ground beef, and when Calvin realizes he's eating a cow, he tosses the burger away with a disgusted "I don't think I can finish this."
** Calvin's dad once had to tell him he was eating toxic waste and it would give him mutant powers before Calvin ate. This upset and disgusted Calvin's mom (though it may have been that Calvin went straight into JabbaTableManners in his eagerness to gulp the stuff down).
** Also played straight sometimes. In one strip, Calvin's mom offers him a jelly doughnut, to which he says he doesn't like them because they're like eating giant bugs. You bite into one end, and all the guts squirt out the other. Neither one can stomach them after that, and Calvin's mom remarks that other women ask how she stays so thin.
* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': One comic has a chicken taking off a dog suit while approaching a horrified typical suburban family pausing in the middle of dinner during a thunderstorm, saying "No, I'm not Fluffy, I'm the chicken you thought you cooked for dinner! Guess where Fluffy is!"
* ''ComicStrip/FootrotFlats'': When Wal is scoffing down the lunch Cooch made him in the back country, he remarks that he loves freshwater crayfish only for Cooch to remark "Yeah, but how do you feel about them [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_weta cave wetas?"]]
* A Creator/GahanWilson cartoon shows a tourist in Scotland peering over a hill watching a group of peanut-shaped bipedal creatures with antlers running across the landscape. Scottish guide: "Och, sir, you're a lucky man! 'Tis a rare stranger who gets to view the wild haggis romp!"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/TheCalvinverse'': Downplayed. [[HarmlessVillain Rupert and Earl's crew]] have peanut-butter milkshakes as their favorite food -- edible, sure, but not something many wouldn't want to try. Peanut butter milkshakes are actually common in UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}}. Bear in mind that peanut butter is considered by many from outside the United States to be an acquired taste.
* ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'': Nutrient paste, which is what the Psyches eat due to their distaste of anything that has flavor, appears in the series. One story likens it to being porridge made with a bag of cement.
* ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone'': In ''The Soft World'', poor George and Ringo get thoroughly grossed out by one of the specialty pizzas served at the Cloud Horn party on Tipaan -- it's covered with air worms (large translucent worms) curled around whole margs (songbirds, including beaks and claws).
* ''Fanfic/MassesToMasses'': Ian accidentally eats a varren sandwich at one point. He is horrified upon discovering the sandwich's true contents from Garrus, as it was sold to him as bacon.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In fanfics which occur on Earth, this tends to be a common reaction to ponies encountering meat for the first time:
** ''Fanfic/{{Anthropology}}'': Lyra originally dismisses the idea that humans eat meat as baseless nonsense. After she moves to Earth, she is very unpleasantly surprised to be proven wrong while eating a hamburger.
** ''Fanfic/{{Ponyfall}}'': Equestrians tend to react negatively, however briefly, to humans eating meat.
** ''Fanfic/StarlightOverDetrot'': This is Swift's reaction when he is introduced to meat.
** ''Fanfic/ATwilightLanding'': Twilight (who has been transformed into a human and deposited on Earth) finds the sausage patty Jo gave her early on delicious -- that is, until she learns what was in it.
%%* ''Fanfic/TheOtherSideOfTomorrow'': April's delicacy, tek nok shii-len.
* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'': Parodied when Captain Janeway turns down Nee'Lix's offer of becoming their cook because FutureFoodIsArtificial and she's grossed out at the thought of eating natural meat and vegetables all the time.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' features a bizarre lunch with even more bizarre utensils. Everyone's squicked by things like the live "noodles" except for the doctor, who thinks it was strange that no one else was eating.
* ''Animation/ClubOfTheDiscarded'' has mannequins (animated by pixilation) sitting down to a bizarre meal at a makeshift table. Their food seems to be crumpled newspaper covered in red paint.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheReluctantWerewolf'', Shaggy and Scooby, having been kidnapped by Dracula, are clearly grossed out by the foods Dracula is serving at the pre-race party, such as bat burgers, frog fudge, spider-web spaghetti and plasma pizza, all of which is enough to make Scooby go GreenAroundTheGills ThroughAFaceFullOfFur.
* ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'': The Earth is destroyed, so humans make do with alien food, and the aliens that Cale works with like their grub alive. At best -- Gune licks his hand and among the comments he makes on it is the phrase "who ate it before you did?"
* In ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryBlastOffToMars'' Jerry doesn't like any of the food at the Martian buffet on Mars.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', Captain Nemo's guests are shocked to learn that their banquet is composed of 100% seafood (including seaweed as well as once-living creatures), however, in this case, it's more the ''idea'' of eating seafood other than fish that puts them off. This specific situation is hilariously parodied in Author/DanielPinkwater's novella ''Yobgorgle'', where the submarine's captain tells them everything is made of fish, expecting them to be surprised, but everything tastes like fish -- even the cereal and milk.
* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': A deleted scene has Jake eating in the Na'Vi village.
-->'''Jake:''' These rock! What are they?\\
'''Neytiri:''' Teylu. Your people know them as beetle larvae.\\
'''Jake:''' (''{{beat}}'') Those are pretty good teylu. Reminds me of my grandma's food.
* ''Film/BadTaste'': The yummy alien stew, made from vomit.
-->'''Alien leader:''' Oooh, aren't I lucky? I got a chunky bit!
* ''Film/BetterOffDead'': Not an actual alien, although the character is enough of a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} at times that she might as well be. Lane's mother Jenny is shown on-screen cooking a meal where tentacles and claws wave from the pot; in another scene she serves the family a gelatinous green goo that flees Lane's plate when he pokes it with a fork.
-->'''Jenny:''' It's got raisins in it. You ''like'' raisins.
* ''Film/DefendingYourLife'': Most of the meals in Judgement City made for the newly-dead souls are out-and-out FoodPorn, but the Residents have "grown beyond" conventional senses of taste, so what they eat is downright strange. At one point, Daniel (newly-dead) is having lunch with his advocate, Bob (a Resident) and asks what he's having. Bob doesn't say exactly, but he does mention that Daniel would not like it. Daniel is still curious, however, so Bob offers him a small bite - which Daniel spits out immediately, groans and starts wiping his tongue with his napkin.[[note]]The actor playing Bob, Rip Torn, was actually eating meatloaf with gravy, cut into strange shapes.[[/note]]
-->'''Bob:''' (laughing) Tastes kinda like horseshit, doesn't it?
* In ''Film/EnemyMine'', Jeriba has Davidge tied up; Davidge is ravenous and yells at the alien to give him some food. Jeriba comes over with a large grub impaled on a stick. After hesitating for a moment in disgust, Davidge leans forward and bites the thing in half, still showing disgust while he's chewing. Later in the film, after the two of them have become friends, Davidge offers Jeriba a bite of roasted grub; Jeriba shivers in disgust and Davidge counters, "Don't forget, you helped me acquire the taste."
* In ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', the cast of the fictional TV shows alien hosts prepare what they think to be the favourite food of the characters they play. One who played a human gets a steak. The one who played a RubberForeheadAlien gets a rather different meal.
-->'''Quellek:''' Are you enjoying your Kep-mok blood ticks, Dr. Lazarus?\\
'''Alexander "Dr. Lazarus" Dane:''' [[SarcasmMode Just like mother used to make]].
* ''Film/MastersOfTheUniverse'': Reversed when the alien Eternians eat some pilfered barbecue, only to discover with revulsion that it's meat. Man-at-Arms just digs in.
-->'''Teela:''' I wonder why they put the food on these little white sticks?\\
'''Man-at-Arms:''' Those are rib bones.\\
'''Teela:''' (''stops chewing'') You mean this used to be an ''animal''...?\\
'''Man-at-Arms:''' Uh-huh.\\
'''Teela:''' Ugh! What a barbaric world...
* In ''Film/MeetDave'', Gina hands Dave a bottle of ketchup while preparing a meal, and Dave proceeds to drink about half of it.
* ''Film/MyStepmotherIsAnAlien'': The alien relies on sucking the insides of batteries for energy.
* ''Film/PlanetOfTheDinosaurs'': "I was just wondering how many other things we're going to have to get used to. Things like eating dinosaurs."
* In ''Film/PrincessOfMars'', John Carter is less than impressed with Thark cuisine, which consists mainly of bugs, or to learn that the liquid he has been drinking has been vomited up by a giant grub.
* In ''Film/ReturnToOz'', the AffablyEvil Nome King offers the heroes limestone pie and molten silver, which, oddly, Dorothy finds perfectly edible.
* ''Film/{{Stargate}}'': Daniel Jackson does this while eating a giant iguana creature. He comments that it TastesLikeChicken. He doesn't know their language yet, so to express his opinion about the taste of the creature, he acts sort of like a chicken. The boys who herd the beasts of burden, including Skaara, respond by doing his chicken act when they finally recognize the man that Col. O'Neil is trying to describe by gestures and imitation. This later becomes a plot point when Daniel goes missing and O'Neil and company, who still don't know the local language, need to ask the locals for help finding him without using words.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gamebooks]]
* The ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'' book, ''Literature/EscapeFromCampRunForYourLife'', have the titular camp serving ''blue'' eggs. Turns out those eggs are used to make human campers become susceptible to mind-control, so that the aliens running the camp can have the brainwashed human campers sold to their overlords.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Ami, the boy of the Stars'': Inverted. A human boy befriends an [[HumanAliens nice alien named Ami]] (diminutive of "Amigo") and expresses his disgust at the fact that the humans eat "corpses" (he refers to a steak that is the dinner of the human child). Later, in Ami's spacecraft, the human child eats what appear to be large translucent nuts, which he finds delicious.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': In book 4, ''Literature/TheSilverChair'', the three protagonists discover that the venison they are eating is actually that of a talking stag. For Jill, who's only been in Narnia a few days, it's distressing. For Eustace, who was in Narnia for quite some time in an earlier book and had several talking animal friends, it's like watching a murder happen. For Puddleglum, the born-and-raised Narnian, it's described as if one suddenly discovered one is eating a baby.
* Creator/{{Colette}}, in a memoir of her youth, remembers one of her brothers insisting on cooking one of the family dogs after it died in an accident. Although when the dish actually arrives on the table, everyone claims to have lost their appetite, and it is hinted to have been fed to one of the other dogs.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'', Granny Weatherwax, complaining about foreign names for food, mentions the meal they had yesterday was nice "but they called it Cwuissses dee Grenolly, and who knows what ''that'' means?" Nanny Ogg gives the translation (frogs' legs) without thinking, then hastily adds that it's a joke name, like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad-in-the-hole toad-in-the-hole]].
** Dwarfs, being underground dwellers, enjoy rat in great quantities. [[note]]"Enjoy" may not be ''exactly'' the right word; ''Literature/MenAtArms'' says the ketchup costs as much as the rat because no dwarf would want a rat ''without'' ketchup, and ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' takes this further, saying "dwarfs are not stupid, and only an idiot would eat rat without something to take away the taste".[[/note]] In ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', a group of dwarfs brings a food safety complaint to The Watch on finding out they've been served chicken instead.
** Troll food is entirely inedible to organic life, being rocks, but according to ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' most trolls who invite humans to dinner know this, and will provide animal and plant matter. If you're lucky, they'll know they're supposed to cook it. If you're ''very'' lucky, they'll know it's supposed to be certain ''kinds'' of animal and plant matter, and how to recognize the right ones.
* ''Literature/DragonsGate'': The main character Otter (a young Chinese immigrant) is introduced to a plate of gingerbread cookies, which he thought were disgusting because they looked like dung, but found to be delicious.
* ''Literature/FutureBoston'': This trope is the whole point of one of the stories, an administrative document describing the dietary habits of some of the alien races which the Interstellar Port of Boston accommodates. Three races' tastes in Alien Lunch include: consuming rotting meat from whale-sized carcasses decayed to the brink of spontaneous combustion; nibbling tick-like parasites off live jumping rodents, then setting the rodents free to scamper around the dining area and grow a fresh coating of parasites; and eating ordinary meats and vegetables, but flavored with radioactive and/or toxic condiments. The document is an administrator's warning ''not'' to integrate the [=IPoB=]'s dining facilities, and ends with said administrator noting that she'll henceforth be eating in her office.
* ''Literature/GroomOfTheTyrannosaurQueen'' talks about the foods available to people living in the late Cretaceous. Palm starch is pretty tasty, but not so much ginkgo fruit.
* ''Literature/{{Mallworld}}'': An alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled to find out that the "animal" is actually a child-stage member of the ambassador's own species. (Turns out the aliens aren't sapient until adulthood, breed '''very''' quickly and in copious numbers, and generally consider their own children vermin; any that manage to survive to adulthood are taught how to be civilized beings, but until they they are hunted and eaten by their own parents.)
* ''Literature/MyTeacherIsAnAlien'': The kids are served something called "fimflits", which Peter, the viewpoint character, notes is ''extremely'' delicious. The aliens explain that fimflits are a type of fungus, which isn't so bad. Then they reveal what it is they ''grow on''. The reader isn't told, but fellow character Duncan [[IAteWhat no longer wants to eat them]]. (No word on the reactions of Peter or Susan.) Peter also learns how to get spaceship food from a machine that loosely bases the food's appearance and taste on what he's familiar with. Key word: loosely. He does note that most of the food doesn't taste that awful, except for something that looks like French fries but tastes like rotten blueberries.
* ''Literature/MythAdventures'':
** In ''Myth Directions'', Skeeve finds himself always hungry while visiting dimensions with food too weird or disgusting for him to eat. Seeing Tananda casually eating said disgusting food doesn't help matters.
** Earlier in ''Myth Conceptions'' he visits what is obviously a [=McDonald=]'s and finds everything to be horribly disgusting, especially the strawberry shake which looks like some kind of pink sludge to him.
* "One of the Boys", a story by Creator/LawrenceWattEvans, involves at one point a woman tracking down the secret identity of her superhero idol, with amorous intentions. His explanation that being a "strange visitor from another planet" means being genuinely alien culminates in a polite invitation to stay for dinner. When she realizes that he plans to ''eat'' the stinking, unnamed mass festering on the windowsill, she passes out in horror.
* ''Literature/TheOccupationSaga'':
** Due to their larger size requiring more calories, the Shil'vati diet tends to be much higher in fats and sugars. Jason, a human who gets [[TradingBarsForStripes conscripted into the Shil'vati Imperial Marines in lieu of jail time]], tends to order at restaurants by figuring out which menu options use the Shil'vati word for "fried" the fewest times.
** {{Inverted}} in ''Between Worlds Two''. A Shil'vati trader takes Jason as her plus-one to a party thrown by a local noblewoman who thinks she can make a killing by importing honey from Earth. Her would-be customers are ''thoroughly'' grossed out when Jason explains that [[IAteWhat honey is technically bee vomit]]. This turns out to be [[BatmanGambit the intended outcome]] for the trader: she is able to buy up the honey cheaply and make a tidy profit from less squeamish customers.
* ''Literature/PrinceRoger'': Zig-zagged. The titular prince and his party, stuck on an alien world, are forced to eat the local wildlife they kill. Thanks to the prince's valet Kostas and his culinary talents, the meals always turn out great both to humans and the locals, but the locals are always grossed out due to said animals nearly always being insanely dangerous [=and/or=] predatory. One character compares Kostas' meals to getting a stew recipe that begins with "take one ''T. rex''..."
* ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'': Louis Wu encounters hominids whose diets are nearly always more specialized than those of Earth's humans: herbivores, carnivores, scavengers, etc. This effectively inverts the trope, as there's bound to be something ''we'' eat that would squick out each and every Ringworld native. Even the omnivores call him out for eating cheese ("decayed food!").
** And ''every'' hominid finds the ghouls' (scavengers who specialize in hominid corpses) and vampires' (self-explanatory) diets disturbing. The ghouls are highly intelligent, very respectful, and serve an important purpose (which makes them politically powerful... burial isn't really a viable option on the Ringworld, and would ''you'' want to live surrounded by the thousands of rotting corpses that would pile up if the ghouls decided to boycott your species?), so the other hominids at least tolerate them though they ''really'' don't like watching them eat or even thinking about it. The vampires are nearly mindless predators, and most hominids will happily kill vampires whenever they can for self-defense if for no other reason.
** An inversion in the first book, Speaker to Animals can't eat with the humans, because their food "smelled like burnt garbage". Kzinti are hypercarnivores who consume their meat raw, and besides a general distaste for eating prey food (i.e., plants), they tend to be repulsed by humans consuming what is essentially partially burnt meat.
* ''Literature/RodAllbrightAlienAdventures'': Rod is briefly disgusted when told that the aliens he's working with raise worms for food. One of the [[CantArgueWithElves aliens haughtily replies]] that his species doesn't believe in eating creatures as intelligent as the ones ''humans'' raise for food.
* ''Literature/SectorGeneral'': The cafeteria in the titular giant hospital station serves all the innumerable oxygen-breathing species. One is strongly advised to keep one's eyes on one's own plate. Made worse if you have the misfortune to be carrying other-species tapes in which case you'll probably be reduced to looking vaguely upward or keeping your optical organs tightly shut.
* ''Literature/SpaceCadet'': Subverted. The protagonists are being fed by their Venusian captives, and the commander refuses to explain what they're eating because it will get in the way of their eating it. It's nutritious and that's what counts.
* ''Literature/{{Spaceforce}}'': This is seen from the aliens' point of view in the second book of the series, when a royal delegation are served typical Earth food at a banquet given in their honour. "Soup", a drink you eat? Frozen flavoured animal milk? Urgh.
* In ''Literature/TheSparrow'' the group sent to the alien planet start out by testing each alien food on their own as they're out in the woods; for the most part it's edible. A few of them become ill temporarily, but one of them actually (and suddenly) dies.
** What actually killed that character was never revealed, but it probably wasn't the aliens' food, as several of the other human characters were eating the same diet.
** A second character suffers a lengthy and fatal illness later in the story, and they never find out what this is, either.
** In a darker instance of this trope, later on after a violent suppressed rebellion Emilio and Marc are offered only meat to eat by their (carnivorous) captors. Marc refuses to eat altogether; Emilio partakes, not knowing that they are offering him the flesh of their gentler host-species' offspring. When he finds out, [[spoiler:he still eats it, despairing.]]
* ''Literature/{{Spellsinger}}'': Subverted. When Jon-Tom, newly arrived in the Warmlands from our world, goes out to dinner with Mudge the otter, the entrée is a large roast cut from a python. Rather than shy away or even comment, Jon-Tom tucks in immediately, as he's far more hungry than squeamish.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': ''No Man's Land'' uses this trope when the human crew dine with the Iudka, enjoying Carmor Soup despite slight misgivings when it's revealed the primary ingredient is Carmor testicles.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
** In ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'', while en route to Gall, Lando makes Luke and Leia some Giju stew. No one wants it; Luke compares it to [[ItTastesLikeFeet old boot plastic and fertilizer drenched in pond scum]]. Annoyed, Lando takes some to show them what they're missing; "the expression on his face went from irritated to amazed, slid to horror, then right into disgust". He decides that it was overspiced, and they're just going to open a packet of beans for dinner.
** ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'':
*** A cruise starship is evacuated except for our heroes and Dash Rendar. They find a restaurant where a Mon Calamari party had been celebrating something, and Zak decides to snag one of the abandoned pastries.
---->His smile vanished as dozens of small, wiggly legs squirmed out from behind his teeth and scrambled across his lips. Zak gagged and wiped the wriggling things off his face. Looking down at his hand, he saw six or seven tiny crabs scurrying up his forearm. He sent them flying with a flick of his wrist, then spat out the pastry.\\
Dash watched the little crabs run under a table. "The Mon Calamari live on a water-covered world. One of their favorite desserts is crab-stuffed creampuffs. With live crabs."
*** Later in the series, Zak smells the stew being cooked by the Children and really wants some, but is dragged away before he can so much as put a finger in the pot. When he gets back there he's given a bowl, but stops before he can take a bite. [[spoiler: [[ImAHumanitarian There's a ring in the bowl]].]]
** ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'': Early in ''I, Jedi'', Corran and Iella meet up and strategize over dinner. She orders the [[https://www.starwars.com/databank/mynock mynock]], a kind of [[SiliconBasedLife silicon-based lifeform]] that lives in space and interacts with spaceships like ticks do with cows.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': The planet that the series takes place on is primarily inhabited by crustaceans and other shell-covered animals to survive the harsh and constant storms. The most common crop is tallew -- a powdery, unpleasant-tasting grain that has to be grown in large polyp-like plants. The Horneaters, a people living on tall mountains, also eat crabs and other carapace-covered animals without shelling them, which is impossible for other peoples on the planet because they lack the extremely strong throat-teeth of Horneaters.
* ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'': Richard is encouraged by the Mud People to eat the flesh of his enemies, despite becoming a vegetarian (because that's the only thing wrong with that). It even gives him psychic visions. Similarly, the people of the Midlands believe all red fruit to be poisonous (a spell was cast which made that so, but Richard's homeland was unaffected), and are [[ForeignQueasine shocked when Richard eats an apple]].
* ''Literature/{{Triplanetary}}'': Our heroes have been captured by the [[FishPeople Nevians]], and manage to indicate that they'd like to be fed. Their captors produce a FancyDinner served with [[ManOfWealthAndTaste intricate glassware and cutlery]] of greenish slime and raw fish garnished with seaweed. Given the story was first written in the 1930's, it never occurred to Creator/EEDocSmith that his American readers might one day be enjoying sushi.
* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': In ''Literature/ACivilCampaign'', Miles samples bug butter, the product of his brother Mark's latest investment, and finds it a bit bland but otherwise edible. Then, Mark shows Miles a Butter Bug, which is described as resembling a cross between a cockroach and a pustule, and Miles abruptly loses interest in eating any more bug butter.
* The ''Literature/{{Wayfarers}}'' series: For the most part, the various species that make up the Galactic Commons are fairly open-minded towards each other's cuisine. The one thing ''everybody'' who's not Human is thoroughly squicked out by is... cheese.
-->[Humans] take the milk, they add some ingredients - don't ask me, I have no idea what - and then pour the mess into a... a thing. I don't know. A container. And then... They leave it out until bacteria colonise it to the point of solidifying. (...) Oh no, I - stars, I forgot the worst part. They don't make cheese with their own milk. They make it from other animals.
* ''Literature/TheWickedYears'': Characters that eat meat frequently worry that and/or are upset to find that their meat comes from a sapient, talking Animal.
* ''[[Literature/{{Retief}} The Yillian Way]]'': Subverted. A human diplomat negotiating a peace settlement is fully prepared to eat the disgusting slop served up to him, but his aide realizes it's a SecretTestOfCharacter. [[FlippingTheTable He knocks over the table]], marches up to where the big shots are eating and insists on being served good human food. As the alien society is based on alpha male domination, he successfully asserts his authority in their eyes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/AlienNation'': Tenctonese cooking often heads into this.
** George Francisco's interesting meals. He loves a good squirt of mustard in his coffee in the morning, then winds down after a hard day with a cocktail of spoiled milk.
** Tenctonese cuisine is at its best when mimicking Earth food. Peanut butter and jellyfish anyone?
** Tenctonese like their meat raw, as they can't metabolize cooked meat.
* ''Series/Babylon5'':
** It's mentioned frequently that consuming even small amounts of alcohol sends Minbari into homicidal rages. On the flip side, there's a Minbari ceremonial drink called Sha'neyat that's deadly poison to humans.
** At one point, G'Kar is having dinner with the captain of one of the few Narn battleships to survive the war against the Centauri. The captain expresses amazement that G'Kar somehow managed to get "breen" imported from their homeworld despite the Centauri occupation, but G'Kar explains that despite the smell, taste, and texture being identical, it's actually Swedish meatballs from Earth. He goes on to claim that every known sentient race in the galaxy has their own food identical to Swedish meatballs, and describes it as a mystery that would either never be solved, or that "would drive you mad if you ever knew the truth."
** Centauri ambassador Londo Mollari's aide Vir mentions that he'd been eating at a human fast food restaurant called [[BlandNameProduct McBari's]]. Londo chastises him for it, saying Centauri aren't biologically capable of digesting human junk food. Vir replies, "I know, but it tastes soooo good going down. Coming back up? Not so much."
** Spoo (farmed, according to the series creator, from the ugliest herd animal in the known universe) is an alien food that Narns, Centauri, and Humans all eat, though there is wide disagreement on how it should be served. It even became a plot point, several seasons in, when G'kar realised that only a Narn prisoner would be getting ''fresh'' Spoo to eat in the Centauri royal palace.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E5TheGreenDeath "The Green Death"]]: The Brigadier enjoys his steak until he's told it's a specially bred fungus.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E4TheGreatestShowInTheGalaxy "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy"]]: All the food we see on Segonax, from the burgers to the fruit pulp to the [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage chips/crisps]], the Doctor and/or Ace find unpalatable.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree "World War Three"]]: {{Discussed}} at the end, when Jackie asks Rose if the Doctor would be interested in coming over for dinner, she wonders if he eats normal food or "grass and safety pins".
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]]: Upon receiving new taste buds, the freshly-regenerated Doctor goes through a wide variety of the contents of Amelia's fridge before settling on fish fingers dipped in custard.
* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', John adapts to the new food fairly quickly by necessity, and alien lunches of all kinds are shown in later episodes. In one episode where the crew of Moya [[ItMakesSenseInContext end up on Earth in the 80's]], Rygel hails chocolate as the greatest food of all time, and becomes addicted to the stuff.
** On the other hand, it's been subverted in an episode or two which featured "dry food squares" or something like that; ordinary crackers.
** One semi-subversion has John incredulous that anyone would eat a certain animal; not because it's a {{Squick}}, but because it's too "cute" to eat.
** When the ship runs short on food, John attempts to fry up some dentics, the worm-like critters the crew uses for dental hygiene. His shipmates are skeptical, but he reasons that you can eat anything that's fried. He's wrong.
** Inverted in at least one case; John is in the middle of talking about all the stuff from Earth he misses, and prompts this response thanks to the not-always-perfect TranslatorMicrobes:
--->'''Rigel:''' What the devil is "iziz green"?\\
'''John:''' Not "iziz green", ''ice, cream''!
* ''Series/FlightOfTheConchords'': In "Bret Gives Up the Dream", Bret brings home a bag of much-needed food. After Jermaine bites into a sandwich, Bret admits that he found the food on the street. Disgusted, Jermaine runs to the sink to spit the bite out, then decides to just eat it.
* ''Series/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1981'':
** Subverted. When Ford (non-human) and Arthur (human) encounter some strange blue food on a Vogon ship, Ford insists that Arthur will find it delicious. Arthur reluctantly tries some, only to find it awful. Convinced that Arthur isn't giving it a fair chance, he eats some and appears to enjoy it, before conceding that, yes, it actually is terrible. Turns out the (non-Vogon) chefs ''really'' hate the Vogons.
** At the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur is badly {{squick}}ed by a genetically-engineered sapient meat animal, whose psychological make-up includes the wish to die that others might eat him. (Which they then do.)
* ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'': Subverted. When Howard meets a group of snow people, their leader suggests they have lunch, at which point one of them spits ([[{{Squick}} let's just say it's spit for now]]) onto a plate, at which point Howard thinks he has to eat the delicacy or he would offend them. After trying the "spit", he mumbles some fake compliments, at which point the real lunch arrives: ordinary sandwiches.
* ''Series/MorkAndMindy'':
** In one episode, Mork accidentally serves a native Orkan food called Flek. For humans, eating means you start acting as silly as Mork. Now, imagine Creator/JonathanWinters' character eating...
** In another episode, Mork is fixing an authentic Orkan meal for Mindy: Stewed Narconium. When Fred says it sounds like some sort of chemical, Mork says that it is. Humans load up their food with chemicals; Orkans just eliminate the food.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** In "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIITikkaToRide Tikka to Ride]]", Kryten is told to find food after having his morality chip removed, and finds the body of a man who had been trampled to death. He reasons "If humans eat chicken, then they obviously eat their own species, otherwise they'd just be picking on the chickens!" and thinks it'd be a pity to waste the body when it'd barbecue so nicely...
** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVILegion Legion]]" has Kryten serving Lister a nasty-looking bit of vermin called a space weevil, which Kryten tries to "hide" with a carrot garnish. Lister is angry... about the garnish, because he hates fresh vegetables. He discards it, scoops up the weevil with his bare hand, and chows down, assuming it to be a king prawn.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': Spoofed with the Coneheads sketches, where they refer to common Earth foods in terms of their composition, making them ''sound'' unearthly. (Hamburger, for example, is "fried ground bovine flesh".)
* ''Franchise/StargateVerse'':
** In ''Series/StargateSG1'', while Major Carter is spending some time with the Asgard helping them deal with the Replicators, Thor offers her some food, which, as it turns out, is not exactly suited for human consumption. (Apparently the prop food was really as disgusting as the actress's reaction suggests.)
--->'''Thor:''' I like the yellow ones.
*** He learns from this incident, as in a later episode Thor makes sure to beam up some human food from the SGC before "borrowing" SG-1 to help with the Replicators yet again. This leads to General Hammond being told that the base's entire food supply has vanished, and the team spending the trip to Ida pigging out on ice cream since there's no freezer and they don't want to waste it.
** Inverted in one episode where Stargate Command hosts a gluttonous Goa'uld who is hoping to work with them against a common enemy. The Goa'uld is given from his perspective, an alien lunch. He becomes enamoured with the "Earth delicacy" known as "Chicken".
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' had a variation where Todd hosted a meeting with the team about negotiating an alliance behind the backs of the other Wraith. Upon entering the room, Sheppard immediately commented on the fruit bowl Todd added to the table in order to make the talks more comfortable for the humans (since the Wraith digestion system goes dormant after puberty). Todd [[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor quips]] that he hopes they prove to be [[ToServeMan as delicious as the farmers who grew them]]. Cue everyone [[YourNormalIsOurTaboo looking away in disgust]]. While the Wraith cannot metabolize food or drink, this doesn't stop some of them from enjoying the sensations of eating and drinking.
** In another episode of ''Atlantis'', Teyla and Dr. Keller are cut off from the Stargate and on the run from raiders. Teyla catches some kind of burrowing land squid for dinner. While she says it tastes absolutely ''horrible'', it is non-toxic and will keep them on their feet.
* ''Series/{{Starstuff}}'': In one "Edge of Space" puppet segment, the aliens are curious about human food. [[RobotBuddy Giz]] prepares clams -- still in their shells -- covered with dessert toppings. Zornad can't bring himself to sample it.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
*** The series has Klingon dishes that seem to be based on the bodily parts of some animal or other, like "Bregit Lung", "Rokeg Blood Pie", and "Heart of Targ". Humans eat things like haggis, liver, black pudding, tripe, kidneys, ox heart, sheep's brains... And, if Worf's brother is to be believed, they don't like to cook it much either. [[note]]Their bodies, like most carnivores, naturally put their food through a process to unlock nutrients that humans have to cook it to achieve.[[/note]]
*** "A Matter of Honor" has Riker eating some Klingon dishes in preparation for a cultural exchange. When he finally does spend time on a Klingon ship, a {{Squick}} moment is set up when he is finally in the mess hall with the Klingons and learns they prefer their ''gagh'' still alive and wriggling. Riker embraces the moment completely and wolfs down the gagh with gusto. Amusingly, humans actually find ''gagh'' '''more''' palatable than Klingons: they hate the taste, but love the feeling of their bodies killing and conquering the living animal inside of them.
*** In "Sins of the Father", Worf's Klingon brother Kurn tells the crew "I shall try some of your burned replicated bird meat." Klingons are a species that PrefersRawMeat.
*** Invoked in "Chain of Command: Part II" by Gul Madred, Picard's [[TortureTechnician Cardassian torturer]], who serves raw taspar eggs in an attempt to degrade him. Although initially disgusted, Picard, starving after many days of torture, eats it. Ironically, taspar eggs are considered a delicacy on Cardassia. Although since another Cardassian talked about eating raw taspar eggs while homeless implies that the delicacy version is prepared or cooked in some way. Raw taspar eggs are considered to be very nutritious, but absolutely disgusting even to Cardassians.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** There's a Klingon cafe open on the Promenade, which the characters visit a few times. You get bonus cool points with the proprietor for getting aggressive about the quality of your meal: "There's nothing worse than half-dead ''racht''" after all.
*** Jake enjoys a meal with Nog (cooked by his dad), until he learns that the sauce is made from Ferengi tube grubs. Of course, he would be even more disgusted after learning that Ferengi mothers are expected to pre-chew the grubs before serving them to her children. Also, the meal they happen to eating with the sauce is squid, which Nog mentions is his favorite human food.
*** Tube grubs get another mention while Nog is attending Starfleet Academy. He dines regularly at Sisko's Creole Kitchen in New Orleans, run by Jake's grandfather Joseph Sisko, since they're able to get live tube grubs for him. Joseph mentions he's considering adding them to the menu for his regular customers, albeit cooked instead of live.
---->'''Joseph:''' I've been thinking of adding them to our menu. Of course I'll have to cook them for my human customers, serve them with a nice [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remoulade remoulade.]]\\
'''Nog:''' Cook them? What good are tube grubs if they don't wriggle on the way down?
*** There's a RunningGag about the inedibility of Cardassian Yamok sauce, no other species in the galaxy will touch it. Cardassian beverages are no picnic either. Like the famously syrupy liquor known as Kanar and their version of coffee. Which is described by one man as "Hot fish juice".
*** Another RunningGag has Quark insult Rom by offering him root beer. Also, Nog has learnt to enjoy root beer in Jake's company
*** Inverted when Rom orders corned beef hash and bacon for breakfast one morning, much to his brother's bafflement. Rom soon explains he's doing this to emulate Chief O'Brien. Later in the same episode, he ordered buttered pancakes with pineapple topping. Considering Ferengi cuisine is composed primarily of insects and other invertebrates, these were very strange breakfast orders. Rom gets a stomach ache both times.
*** PlayedWith every time [[ChefOfIron Sisko]] experiments with combining human and alien cuisine, such as a Bajoran stew over spinach linguine.
** The theme restaurant outside ''Franchise/StarTrek: The Experience'' in Las Vegas served an ice-cream-and-gummy-worm dish that was allegedly based on Klingon cuisine.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
*** A RunningGag has [[LethalChef Neelix]] try cooking human dishes with alien ingredients, usually the nutritious but foul-tasting leola root.
*** One episode had Kim complaining about "Why didn't you make Chakotay ''drink'' that?"; to which Neelix "Chakotay's vegetarian".
*** When Annorax makes a meal for newly-captured prisoners Chakotay and Paris. They seem to enjoy the food immensely [[IAteWhat until they find out where the food came from]]. This makes them pause, but I believe that they continue eating it. The reason the trope is played with is that they are not horrified by the ''substance'' of the food (which was very much edible and safe), but by the implications of '''eating it'''. [[spoiler: Each dish of food that Annorax has had prepared is the last remnants of a civilization he has completely removed from history with his temporal weapon. There are about 20 different items on the table, showing the scale of what he as done.]] This scene shows just how amoral Annorax has become at this point.
** According to Worf in "Up the Long Ladder", Klingon tea is deadly to humans. Dr. Pulaski comments it's not that good for Klingons, takes an antidote, and drinks it. She then asks Worf to [[TastesLikeFriendship recite her]] [[ShipTease some Klingon love poetry.]]
** Ironic given that ''raktajino'' (Klingon coffee) [[MustHaveCaffeine becomes quite popular]] among the human command staff of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995''. In [[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S1E14QualityOfMercy "Quality of Mercy"]], a male and female soldier have been taken prisoner by the alien race they're fighting. The alien guard throws in a couple of bug-like creatures, to the disgust of the man, but the woman has been held captive longer so she just rips off a bug's head and eats it. She says it took her days to figure out they were food, and longer before she could bring herself to eat them. [[spoiler:However it's actually foreshadowing for TheReveal that she's an alien spy.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* In ''Podcast/{{Jemjammer}}'', [=Æ=]lfgifu goes to a space station pub for lunch and orders the chowder. It looks at her funny.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Print Media]]
* Several questions in a row in the "Would You Make a Fit [Series/DoctorWho] Companion?" quiz in the October 1983 issue of ''Fantasy Empire'' were food-related. In order: "Are you willing to eat absolutely anything?" "Do you ask what it is first?" "Would the answer dissuade you?"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': The blood of cave fishers -- giant arthropods that live BeneathTheEarth -- can be distilled into liquor and is a popular ingredient in dwarven spirits; some even drink its straight. Their meat is also edible, and tastes like crab cooked in wine.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AeroFighters 3'' has the Martian "snow eel" dish that Spanky samples in his ending.
-->"This is disgusting! Yucchhh!"
* In ''VideoGame/BetrayalInAntara'', you meet a mole-man NPC who likes raw lizard guts. When the PC expresses disgust, the NPC counters that he finds unfertilized bird embryos (eggs) equally disgusting.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'': Not an alien example, ''per se'', but still a valid one. The game features a sequence in which the characters have to eat various dishes made by a frog chef. Obviously, they include ingredients a frog would eat (bugs and the like) and it causes the character to vomit.
* In ''VideoGame/DragonsCrown'', a cooking minigame is initiated every few stages, if the player plays stages consecutively. Some of the ingredients players can cook up are taken from bosses from previous stages, and can be used to make such delectable entrees as Sauteed Demon's Heart, KillerRabbit Stew, Kraken Calamari, and Red Dragon Steaks (all of which provide stats bonuses for the following stages and extra points).
* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', it is not unusual for dwarves to butcher and cook anything they can sink their weapons/tools/[[NoodleImplements upper left premolar]] into, up to and including [[EldritchAbomination Forgotten Beasts and Titans]] with poisonous blood or deadly dust. If it has flesh and lacks the SAPIENT tags, it's on the menu. Elves go one farther, and will eat even sapients -- though [[BlueAndOrangeMorality only if they were slain in battle]].
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** The [[OurElvesAreDifferent Bosmer (Wood Elves)]] are bound to some unusual dietary restrictions due to the Green Pact, a deal they made with their patron deity to never harm the plant life in the forests of their homeland, Valenwood. Because they cannot harm the plant life in any way, they live on an almost strictly carnivorous diet (though it also includes honey, dairy, and mushrooms which do not count as plants), essentially [[InvertedTrope Inverting]] {{Veganopia}}. In order to get around these restrictions, they are also known to eat a variety of ''insects''. Thunderbugs in particular are used along with rotten meat to create the alcoholic beverage "[[GargleBlaster Rotmeth]]." Additionally, they are known to ''smoke'' insects in their bone pipes instead of the usual plant matter smoked by most races. These restrictions are significantly relaxed for Bosmer living outside of Valenwood.
** The Sload, a race of "slugmen" native to the Coral Kingdoms of Thras to the west of Tamriel, are said to serve various molds and fungi as meals. One account even mentions Sload consuming a regurgitated substance from one of their elders.
** A staple food source for the Dunmer (Dark Elves) in Morrowind are a species of social subterranean insects known as the kwama, whose eggs are "mined" and used in a number of dishes. The kwama eggs are very nutritious but apparently have a very sharp and sour taste and gummy texture, which can make them revolting to human tongues, but the Dunmer have developed recipes to make them much more palatable. They also hunt scribs, which are a late larval form of kwama, and are harvested for their meat and jelly, the latter of which has a very sour taste and unpleasant texture without proper preparation.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':
** In the Bethesda games, you can take meat from practically any animal you kill, including [[RodentOfUnusualSize cat-sized mole-rats]], feral dogs, two-headed cows, mutated bears, and giant roaches, scorpions and flies. ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' take this even further with the survival skill (in the first) and cooking stations (in the second) which let you cook actual meals out of these irradiated animals, like "Bloatfly Slider", "Roasted Bloodworm" and "Fire Ant Fricassee", making you a CordonBleughChef. ''Fallout 4'' lets you make omelettes out of the eggs of mutant scorpions the size of a person, and ''New Vegas'' lets you make casserole out of their ''poison glands''.
--->'''Ruby Nash:''' It's perfectly safe, long as you don't have sores in your mouth for the venom to find your blood. 'Cause that'll kill you dead.
** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': In the DLC pack ''[[JustForFun/InSpace Mothership Zeta]]'', which is set on an alien starship, trays of alien food are available. One variant is an enormous green segment of a lumpy tentacle, and the other is a whole squid-like creature [[{{Squick}} affixed to the tray by its bodily fluids]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV: Shadowbringers'' has TheHero partake in local cuisine from the Mord during a trip to the MerchantCity of Mord Souq in The First. The player's choice for what to try out include "mushloaf" (cactus-filled pastries), "everburning bounty" ([[FireBreathingDiner extremely spicy lizard steaks]]), "chewy skewers" (frogs on sticks), and "glazed wigglers" (candied worms). Every single choice will leave your character doubled over in disgust, and you will be given a choice of whether to finish your meal out of respect for the vender, or offer to share the suffering with others around you.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hiveswap}}'' reveals that lowbloods tend to eat various insects and worms. Said bugs are the default pizza/[[CallARabbitASmeerp flavor disc]] topping for the lower castes; those higher up on the [[FantasticCasteSystem hemospectrum]] are granted the ability to order normal toppings, such as pepperoni.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': Downplayed. Monster guts, fangs and horns can be used to cook meals; this won't make ''good'' food, ''per se'' -- using them will always result in Dubious Food -- but the result will always be edible. Kilton the monster shop owner seems to have perfected this technique, and sells bottles of purple "monster extract" that can be used to cook much more nutritious monster-based meals, although their descriptions note how these aren't for everyone and you'll either love or hate the taste.
* ''VideoGame/LittleBigAdventure'': In the second game, the PlayerCharacter is offered a slice of tart (which is an item you'll need later), and after eating some is casually informed by the housekeeper that it's made of fireflies -- enemies you encounter a lot in the Under-Gas. He then passes out.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Some biospheres and their native species are biologically incompatible with others because of MirrorChemistry, and ingesting foods (or, ''ahem'', [[InterspeciesRomance other substances]]) of the wrong chirality can cause severe allergic reactions, illness, and even death[[note]]in real life, there are quite a few edible dextrochemicals. One is dextrose, the mirror form of glucose. Some can be toxic due to their chirality, but many simply pass without being absorbed.[[/note]]. Among the major races, turians and quarians utilize dextro-amino acids, while humans and the majority of the galaxy have levo-amino acids.
** That doesn't mean the compatible species always have compatible tastes either; in the sequel you have the option of buying a krogan drink that goes through you like ground up glass, "literally", and the krogan Grunt will react in abject disgust at the simple ramen shop on the Citadel, despite his expressing hunger at the sight of things like ''[[ToServeMan burning corpses]]''. Grunt's disgust at noodles mostly stems from them "looking like worms". When he tries them in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''[='=]s ''Citadel'' DLC, he is quite fond of them.
** Between species of the same chirality, there seems to be quite a bit of culinary exchange. Tali comments on turian cheeses and chocolate, and your various non-human levo-amino-acidic crew members seem to have no problems with the human cuisine served in the Normandy's mess.
** According to Javik, [[{{Precursor}} Prothean]] cuisine contained, among other ingredients, [[ToServeMan salarian, asari, quarian, krogan, and turian]] (a pretty neat trick, considering the biochemistries involved...). He ''was'' pretty drunk, though, and one of the few pleasures in his post-[[HumanPopsicle Alien Popsicle]] life is making up outlandish stories about "his cycle" and [[{{Troll}} seeing what the "ignorant primitives" will believe]]. That being said, he did mention in passing while he was sober that salarian livers were a delicacy (salarians being the one modern species he was downright ''shocked'' became an advanced race).
** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'': Peebee mentions at one point having tried roasted spitbug, spitbugs being fauna local to the Heleus Cluster which are exactly what they sound like -- large bugs that spit acid at prey, and tend to explode in a gooey mess. Apparently angara cook this meal by simmering it, and the Spitbug provides the cooking juices. Yummy.
* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'': Steaks can come from sources like [[ReducedToRatburgers giant rats]] and ''minotaurs''. Cave goblin cuisine consists largely of cave fauna like bats, frogs, slimes, and wall-beasts (and there's a minigame about selling [[InvertedTrope exotic aboveground foods]] to goblin gourmets). Gnomes also use frogs in their cooking, and "king" earthworms, but are [[ImpossiblyDeliciousFood considered to be some of the finest chefs in Gielinor]], with everybody from elves to humans to the aforementioned cave goblin gourmets buying their fare.
* ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'': Most of the grub dropped by enemies tends to be rather appetizing (like cakes, ice creams of spaghetti)... and then there are the spider rolls, fried cobra, barbecued scorpions and '''mummy jerkies'''. There are also litterally alien grubs like space food and alien gummies.
* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'': Fleshes are horribly mutated pigs that roam The Zone and one of the clearest examples of how the second Chernobyl disaster affected the local fauna. Even with their warped and repulsive look, the Fleshes are still biologically pigs and therefore are safe for consumption (radiation poisoning notwithstanding). You'll frequently see stalkers roasting one over a fire in encampments.
* ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'': You're stranded on a hostile alien planet, so most of your food is purely alien (exceptions include Chinese Potatoes and rations, brought by previous expeditions). Fish in particular have exceptionally large eyes, and some of them EXPLODE. Most of it tastes good and the endangered fruits are particularly amazing, but if you overeat anything your body suddenly bleeds seriously (large damage to hunger and thirst, though no health damage) from all the toxins that humans are unaccustomed to, even if the amount you ate is relatively small.
* ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'': Every time you decide to eat one of the monsters you've killed at zee tends to qualify for this trope. The most normal stuff you can catch is glowing crab-flesh that came from a crustacean as big as your starter ship, and things only get stranger from there. Improperly cooked zee-monster tends to cause poisonings both fatal and non-fatal and visions both horrific and inspiring, and in one particular case drives a crew member to [[DrivenToSuicide jump into the ship's boiler]] from how ''spectacularly awful'' that particular bit tasted. Properly cooked, however, these hellish beasts can taste heavenly, and you can eat for weeks with just one. The [[SupremeChef Bandaged Poissonier]] specializes in this, but even he screws up sometimes.
* ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'' continues the tradition, now with skybeasts. There's even modules for your locomotive dedicated to both butchery and canning for the sake of getting extra supplies from them. As usual, some of them are tastier than others; while the harsh meat of the perpetually angry Cantankeri is barely edible, the writhing eels you occasionally find among the clouds are apparently delicious.
* ''VideoGame/UltimaUnderworld'': In the first game, you can make rotworm stew, a Goblin dish consisting of [[BigCreepyCrawlies rotworm flesh]], a hallucinogenic mushroom, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a bottle of port]]. Unexpectedly, it turns out to be very tasty.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': If you level your cooking, parts of wolves, reptiles, big cats, worms, and giant spiders ''will'' be involved. There's also the ever-popular "Mystery Meat", which is often obtained from vultures, giant scorpions, and hyenas.
** ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' cooking has ''interesting'' ingredients as well. Eating smoked Wood Elf, for example, gives you a temporary bonus to agility, and the&& less said about what goes into a Hero Sandwich, the better...
** The Duskwood quest to create Dusky Crab Cakes. All you needed to bring the inn's cook was a few ''gooey spider legs.''
* ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'':
** ''VideoGame/XComUFODefense'': The aliens eat a nutrient-rich soup made from dissolved body parts extracted from [[AliensStealCattle cattle]] and [[ToServeMan humans]]. What's more, you can sell it on the market.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'': The ''War of the Chosen'' expansion introduces the Reapers, a faction of grizzled survivalists who can be convinced to join the XCOM-led resistance against the alien regime. Since the Reapers live outside the ADVENT-controlled cities, and the aliens have worked to depopulate Earth of its native animal life, the Reapers have pragmatically concluded that "aliens are food" - when you first meet the Reapers you can spot a [[BigCreepyCrawlies chryssalid]] head on a spit over a fire, and they're even willing to [[SapientEatSapient eat the sentient species]] among ADVENT's forces.
** ''VideoGame/XCOMChimeraSquad'' is set in a post-war, multi-species city, and shows that the various alien species have some pretty different dietary needs. Commercials that play over the base radio include advertisements for BIG CRUNCH ("The Cereal That Writhes!"), which Sectoids [[NoodleIncident should never, ever eat]], as well as [[ArtificialMeat NotDogs]], which are marketed as edible by all species, but [[RattlingOffLegal come with a long list of warnings]]. Finally, there's Burger Palace, whose "Com-Patty-Bility Guarantee" ensures that if an incompatible species tries to eat one of their burgers, phsyical contact with the "flavor bulb" inside it will ''trigger its flight response''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'': More than one person chows down on an Alien Lunch. The specific comics are Campus Safari, which has three incidents. (One is offscreen, but played for comedy.) And Akaelae, which has only one occurrence.
* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': The StarfishAliens species of Sam Starfall, are scavengers, so he's vocally appreciative of thoroughly aged food. This includes diner leavings that [[EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt are deadly to cockroaches]] and [[ItCameFromTheFridge fridge leftovers]] that nauseate even a professional parasitologist. While he's tolerant of human-standard food, he thinks it's a shame that it gets eaten before it can have a few months to ''really'' develop its flavour.
* ''Webcomic/{{Gaia}}'': Ars makes one out of a variety of [[http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2011/12/16/the-red-hall-023/ bizarre potion ingredients]], which ends in a small explosion.
* ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'': Inverted. The goblin heroes are disgusted by human foods like bread and cheese.
* ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'': Two mutual aliens in the Space theme discuss their lunches [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/29.html in one strip]]. Iki Piki, who likes snacking on cockroaches, is disgusted by Spanners's chopped worm sandwiches. "How can you eat ''dead'' food?"
* ''Webcomic/LifeWithLamarr'': [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] when This One presents Odessa Cubbage with a plate of eggs, informing him that they are actually vortigaunt eggs and that refusing to eat them is punishable by a horrendous death in vortigaunt society. [[spoiler: Turns out he was just fucking with him.]]
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': Belkar has served some pretty dubious fare, including vulture stew or corn chips dished up in a scooped-out kobold head (although that one was just to gross out Roy.) There's also a comic where a goblin takes advantage of a hydra's regenerating heads to open a fast food restaurant.
* ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'': Inverted. Most of the Loroi with Alex are shocked when they learn that humans drink milk from animals. It's mentioned that one of the three main Loroi worlds is limited to meat, eggs, and hides due to its mostly-ocean climate, while another has an artificial, limited biosphere mostly composed of a handful of hyper-efficient crop species and no equivalents to large livestock. The third has a very diverse biosphere and thus a much more varied cuisine, but Loroi outside said world generally think their food is [[ForeignQueasine really gross]].
* ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'': "Today I put JELLY on this hot god"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the [[http://www.burgrr.com/ Burgrr.com Terms and Conditions]] [[http://bogleech.com/burgrr-walkthrough.html ARG]], this is what is served in the titular restaurants, in lots of creative and nauseating variations [[spoiler: and with a [[PuppeteerParasite special]] [[BodyHorror surprise]] [[YourHeadAsplode inside]]!]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-261 SCP-261]] is a vending machine that primarily dispenses these. Items have included inhaled gaseous energy drinks, a windowed box of [[StarfishAliens furry one-eyed three-pawed creatures]] with a BigRedButton that [[LetsMeetTheMeat microwaves them to death]], canned meals "eaten" by listening to the scream that is emitted when the can is opened, and a package of Gummy Bear-like snacks shaped like [[FlippingTheBird hands with extended middle fingers]] and containing lethal doses of cyanide ([[BerserkButton this one dispensed when a counterfeit Japanese coin was inserted]]). It's also not above dispensing food items that are not at all fit for human consumption, including a container of citrus-flavored something that exploded on contact with oxygen, a live frag grenade, and a canister of hydrogen cyanide gas. The alien-ness of the food 261 dispenses is directly proportional to the number of times it's been used in a 24-hour period, as well as the time that has passed since its last use; the more it's used, the weirder and more potentially dangerous the things it spits out, which is why the Foundation established a limit of ten uses per day.
* At one point in ''Roleplay/WeAreOurAvatars'', [[Franchise/StarWars Atton]] has a drink, only to be told what it was by [[Creator/NipponIchi Asagi]]. He was disgusted by that. It's considered cuisine in the Netherworld because this particular blood has Mana in it and Mana is the source of power for Overlords.
-->'''Atton:''' Can I have another bottle?\\
'''Asagi:''' Want "Berry B Positive" or "Orange O Positive"?\\
(Atton ponders the question for a moment)\\
'''Atton:''' I'm not even going to bother asking what each of them are, er...give me an "Orange O".\\
(Asagi hands Atton a can containing blood in it (not that he'll know it until he opens and drinks it)...with the blood having an orangey flavor to it. Atton hurriedly opens the can, taking a sip...before almost immediately spitting it out.)\\
'''Atton:''' What is in this stuff?\\
'''Asagi:''' Blood, durr.\\
'''Atton:''' Blood? Just...I want a beer, I mean I'm hardly expecting Tarisian ale from this place but just...blood, really? Why are you even keeping it around?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': {{Inverted|Trope}} in "Win, Lose or Kaboom", which has the characters competing on an alien game show. During an EatThat challenge, the BigEater Carl finds his disgusting-looking alien dish quite tasty, but the alien contestant who has to eat banana cream pie (a.k.a. "[[HumansThroughAlienEyes disgusting Earth goop]]") finds it so repulsive that ''[[YourHeadAsplode his head explodes]]''.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers'' has an inversion in "Marshmallow Trees". Ambassador Zozo trades his species' invention of FantasticFruitsAndVegetables to a human colony. When shown that the colony will trade the Kiwi vegetables for hamburgers, Zozo reacts with disgust. His niece and nephews, though, really like the stuff.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': Anne is TrappedInAnotherWorld populated by various anthropomorphic amphibians, whose diet naturally consists mostly of bugs and cooked dishes that contain bugs. It takes her about a month to get used to it (though she still draws the line at eating live ones), and realizing she actually ''enjoys'' the food is enough to make her realize she's [[GoingNative Gone Native]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': The Yugopotamians have BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad as part of their biology. To them, things like garbage, manure, and [[StockYuck broccoli]] are delicious, but things like candy and chocolate are deadly poisons. They invade Earth after they observe Halloween and think Earth is stockpiling weapons in order to invade ''them''.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E11MarsUniversity Mars University]]", Amy's father is eating, when Zoidberg informs him that he "took the liberty of fertilizing the caviar". He continues chewing very slowly while the realization sets in. Inverted also in the same episode when, at a barbecue, Fry gladly accepts the thorax, feelers and legs of a giant bug, but is disgusted at the prospect of eating a salad. Also, there are also two sauce dispensers, one squirting out BBQ sauce and the other Pepto-Bismol. Weirdly, Fry goes for the latter.
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E13FryAndTheSlurmFactory Fry and the Slurm Factory]]", Fry finds out where Slurm comes from -- it's secreted by a giant alien slug. He's momentarily disgusted, but he finds that he still can't stop drinking the stuff. Of course, it ''is'' highly addictive (that's even its [[OurSloganIsTerrible slogan]]), but when faced with the possibility of Slurm being discontinued, he decides to lie and cover up the truth.
--->'''Leela:''' ''How can you trick people into drinking something that comes from your behind? That's disgusting!''\\
'''Slurm Queen:''' ''[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Honey comes from a bee's behind! Milk comes from a cow's behind!]]''
*** Note that Leela was completely unfazed about Soylent Cola, which is a soda made from humans.
** In "I, Roommate" Zoidberg brings what appear to be some kind of crab legs to Fry's housewarming. Hermes tries some:
--->'''Hermes''': These are quite tasty mon.
--->'''Zoidberg''': Thank you, I made them myself
--->''Hermes spits out the food immediately begins wiping his tongue with his napkin.''
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E15TheProblemWithPopplers The Problem With Popplers]]", the Planet Express crew discovers a planet that seems to grow a plant that tastes a lot like fried shrimp and makes a killing turning them into a fast-food staple. One small problem: [[spoiler: they're the larval form of the Omicronians]].
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS3E16ALeelaOfHerOwn A Leela of Her Own]]", when the crew visits the pizzeria recently opened by a family of Cygnoid immigrants, they are horrified to find out that they make pizzas with things like asbestos, flaming magnesium, and guano, plus serving wine made out of crushed rats. Later, when they have adapted better to Earth life they now make them with ingredients that, while odd, are now edible and that humans actually enjoy: the secret family recipe for their dough is however live hornets. They also make Leela's Bean Pizza: six kinds of beans plus several things that ''look'' like beans.
** The Niblonians will eat anything that isn't considered sapient and have an apparent fondness for Earth animals, even those that aren't considered food and are much larger than their bodies (though they are capable of swallowing these animals whole). Also, they believe HumansAreSpecial because they are the only race that invented the pizza-bagel even though neither pizza nor bagels are a unique food creation to just Earth.
* ''WesternAnimation/GreenLanternTheAnimatedSeries'':
** A mutual version. Kilowogg eats a giant bug (in some kind of glaze, defeating Hal's assertion that he'll eat glazed anything), then inquires as to what "cheese" is (Hal's rations being grilled cheese in a can), and is so disgusted by Aya's explanation he asks Hal to eat in a closet from now on.
** Averted by the Kilowogg in the previous ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' TV series. He'll eat [[ExtremeOmnivore anything, even VHS tapes.]]
* The titular character of ''WesternAnimation/MuzzyInGondoland'' is an alien whose favorite food is clocks. During the story he also eats parking meters, a typewriter and prison bars. He also finds fruit disgusting.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'', Carrot tends to make many odd Bortronian dishes such as "deep-fried lollipops".
* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': A running gag of the first four seasons is Jack getting confused or outright disgusted by the local food, in order to solidify his FishOutOfTemporalWater status. Starting with episode 2, when he finds a live clam in his drink. By season 5 (fifty years later), he's clearly gotten used to it as he gladly chows down on some shrimp-like thing that temporarily turns his head into a fish, though it grosses out Ashi.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'': The second episode of the 2nd season shows that [[ExtremeOmnivore Anakin isn't picky when it comes to food]]. Though he might have done it just to Squick out Obi-Wan.
-->'''Obi-Wan''': How ''can'' you eat that?\\
'''Anakin''' (mouth full of bugs): But Master, you always taught me to feed off the Living Force.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'':
** Starfire, Cyborg and Robin are sitting at a picnic table.
--->'''Starfire:''' This tangy yellow beverage is truly delightful. \\
'''Cyborg:''' Uh, Starfire?\\
'''Robin:''' That's mustard.\\
'''Starfire:''' Oh... is there more?
** Then there are the "native dishes" she offers the Titans. In "Betrothed", the Titans stay at her home planet, Tamaran, and sit through a meal where the grossness of the food is PlayedForLaughs.
** In an early episode, when Cyborg quits the team (temporarily) she makes "pudding of sadness" because of it. It tastes awful, even to her (Beast Boy compares it to toenails) but that seems to be the point.
** Their [[ItCameFromTheFridge communal fridge]] is also inhabited by a semi-sentient blue goo. Meanwhile, Starfire drinking mustard becomes a running gag.
** In one episode, a comment is made about Starfire making the Titans watch a documentary about hot dogs in the past, to which she promptly responds she's amazed that humans ate so many "pigs... and insects."
** Also played with when Beast Boy, a vegetarian, offers Raven a tofu-dog:
--->'''Raven''': I respect that you don't eat meat. Please respect that I don't eat fake meat.
* ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'': It's probably no surprise that Shaggy and Scooby have pulled the "don't really care" version. In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheGhoulSchool'', the pair discover the pizza they're eating has spider webs, snails, and tadpole tails as toppings. The pair stop briefly to parse this until Scooby declares it delicious and they resume eating.
** Played with elsewhere in the film. {{Jerkass}} minor antagonist Colonel Calloway is already hesitant about the snack he's been offered due to its moldy flavor -- discovering he's eating fungus fudge with toadstool tea just pushes him over the edge into true disgust.
** However in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheReluctantWerewolf'', Shaggy and Scooby are clearly grossed out by the foods {{Dracula}} is serving at the Transylvanian Monster Road Rally pre-race party, such as bat burgers, frog fudge, spider-web spaghetti and plasma pizza, all of which is enough to make Scooby go GreenAroundTheGills ThroughAFaceFullOfFur.
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Main antagonist [[spoiler: Horde Prime]] treats captives Glimmer and Catra to a meal of bizzare foods, mainly as a political show of force. Chief among them is what appears to be a blue jello with a nucleus; in his own words it is incredibly rare, considering the world it comes from [[EarthShatteringKaboom no]] [[OmnicidalManiac longer]] [[ImpliedDeathThreat exists]]!
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'': In the season 3 episode ''Starscream's Ghost'', Octane is rescued by some aliens after a Scuxxoid's planted bomb goes off and destroys his ship. When he climbs aboard, he is sniffing noticeably while there is pink "[[EditorialSynesthesia steam]]" wafting towards him, and making a face. He's offered some of the food, which doesn't look appetizing to the viewer, but he [[OutOfCharacterMoment politely declines.]]
-->Octane: Sheesh, what have you been eating?
* ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'':
** The only food initially available on the castle ship is a strange green goo. Hunk (a human) takes charge of making the meals more edible.
** After getting a cow at the space-mall, Pidge introduces Allura and Coran to milkshakes. After they get hooked on them, she ends up having to tell them what exactly a milkshake is made from, grossing both of them out.
[[/folder]]

** In ''Fanfic/StarlightOverDetrot'', this is Swift's reaction when he is introduced to meat.
** In ''Fanfic/ATwilightLanding'', Twilight (who has been transformed into a human and deposited on Earth) finds the sausage patty Jo gave her early on delicious -- that is, until she learns what was in it.

** Played straight with the "boiled slurgs in wixxel grease" that the Gallimaufrey's security chief loves. (For context, humans use wixxel grease as an oven cleaner.)

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-261 SCP-261]] is a vending machine that primarily dispenses these. Items have included inhaled gaseous energy drinks, a windowed box of [[StarfishAliens furry one-eyed three-pawed creatures]] with a BigRedButton that [[LetsMeetTheMeat microwaves them to death]], canned meals "eaten" by listening to the scream that is emitted when the can is opened, and a package of Gummy Bear-like snacks shaped like [[FlippingTheBird hands with extended middle fingers]] and containing lethal doses of cyanide ([[BerserkButton this one dispensed when a counterfeit Japanese coin was inserted]]). It's also not above dispensing food items that are not at all fit for human consumption, including a container of citrus-flavored something that exploded on contact with oxygen, a live frag grenade, and a canister of hydrogen cyanide gas. The alien-ness of the food 261 dispenses is directly proportional to the number of times it's been used in a 24-hour period, as well as the time that has passed since its last use; the more it's used, the weirder and more potentially dangerous the things it spits out, which is why the Foundation established a limit of ten uses per day.

*** Jake enjoys a meal with Nog (cooked by his dad), until he learns that the sauce is made from Ferengi tube grubs. Of course, he would be even more disgusted after learning that Ferengi mothers are expected to pre-chew the grubs before serving them to her children.

* ''Literature/TheOccupationSaga'':
** Due to their larger size requiring more calories, the Shil'vati diet tends to be much higher in fats and sugars. Jason, a human who gets [[TradingBarsForStripes conscripted into the Shil'vati Imperial Marines in lieu of jail time]], tends to order at restaurants by figuring out which menu options use the Shil'vati word for "fried" the fewest times.
** {{Inverted}} in ''Between Worlds Two''. A Shil'vati trader takes Jason as her plus-one to a party thrown by a local noblewoman who thinks she can make a killing by importing honey from Earth. Her would-be customers are ''thoroughly'' grossed out when Jason explains that [[IAteWhat honey is technically bee vomit]]. This turns out to be [[BatmanGambit the intended outcome]] for the trader: she is able to buy up the honey cheaply and make a tidy profit from less squeamish customers.

* ''[[Literature/TheLongWayToASmallAngryPlanet Wayfarers series]]'': For the most part, the various species that make up the Galactic Commons are fairly open-minded towards each other's cuisine. The one thing ''everybody'' who's not Human is thoroughly squicked out by is... cheese.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995''. In [[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S1E14QualityOfMercy "Quality of Mercy"]], a male and female soldier have been taken prisoner by the alien race they're fighting. The alien guard throws in a couple of bug-like creatures, to the disgust of the man, but the woman has been held captive longer so she just rips off a bug's head and eats it. [[spoiler:It's actually foreshadowing for TheReveal that she's an alien spy.]]

*** A RunningGag has [[LethalChef Neelix]] try cooking human dishes with alien ingredients, usually the nutritious but foul-tasting leola root.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995''. In [[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S1E14QualityOfMercy "Quality of Mercy"]], a male and female soldier have been taken prisoner by the alien race they're fighting. The alien guard throws in a couple of bug-like creatures, to the disgust of the man, but the woman has been held captive longer so she just rips off a bugs head and eats it. [[spoiler:It's actually foreshadowing for TheReveal that she's an alien spy.]]

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[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/slienpig.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:320:Alien pork might have eight legs and a [[PaletteSwappedAlienFood limey]] [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife skin]], but for some reason it still TastesLikeChicken.]]
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* In ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', the only food initially available on the castle ship is a strange green goo. Hunk (a human) takes charge of making the meals more edible.

* "One of the Boys", a story by Lawrence Watt-Evans, involves at one point a woman tracking down the secret identity of her superhero idol, with amorous intentions. His explanation that being a "strange visitor from another planet" means being genuinely alien culminates in a polite invitation to stay for dinner. When she realizes that he plans to ''eat'' the stinking, unnamed mass festering on the windowsill, she passes out in horror.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': In the DLC pack ''[[InSpace Mothership Zeta]]'', which is set on an alien starship, trays of alien food are available. One variant is an enormous green segment of a lumpy tentacle, and the other is a whole squid-like creature [[{{Squick}} affixed to the tray by its bodily fluids]].

* ''Videogame/SunlessSea'': Every time you decide to eat one of the monsters you've killed at zee tends to qualify for this trope. The most normal stuff you can catch is glowing crab-flesh that came from a crustacean as big as your starter ship, and things only get stranger from there. Improperly cooked zee-monster tends to cause poisonings both fatal and non-fatal and visions both horrific and inspiring, and in one particular case drives a crew member to [[DrivenToSuicide jump into the ship's boiler]] from how ''spectacularly awful'' that particular bit tasted. Properly cooked, however, these hellish beasts can taste heavenly, and you can eat for weeks with just one. The [[SupremeChef Bandaged Poissonier]] specializes in this, but even he screws up sometimes.
* ''Videogame/SunlessSkies'' continues the tradition, now with skybeasts. There's even modules for your locomotive dedicated to both butchery and canning for the sake of getting extra supplies from them. As usual, some of them are tastier than others; while the harsh meat of the perpetually angry Cantankeri is barely edible, the writhing eels you occasionally find among the clouds are apparently delicious.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'':

* ''Fanfic/MassesToMasses'': Ian accidentaly eats a varren sandwich at one point. He is horrified upon discovering the sandwich's true contents from Garrus, as it was sold to him as bacon.

* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' features a bizarre lunch with even more bizarre utensils. Everyone's squicked by things like the live "noodles" except for the doctor, who think's it was strange that no one else was eating.

* ''Literature/PrinceRoger'': Zig-zagged. The titular prince and his party, stuck on an alien world, are forced to eat the local wildlife they kill. Thanks to the prince's valet Kostas and his culinary talents, the meals always turn out great both to humans and the locals, but the locals are always grossed out due to said animals nearly always being insanely dangerous [=and/or=] predatorial. One character compares Kostas' meals to getting a stew recipe that begins with "take one ''T. rex''..."

** Inverted in one episode where Stargate Command hosts a gluttonous Goa'uld who is hoping to work with them against a common enemy. The Goa'uld is given from his perspective, an alien lunch. He becomes enamoued with the "Earth delicacy" known as "Chicken".