->'''Actor:''' Just remember this: Theatre is an illusion. Bourbon is Tea. Champagne is Ginger ale. Everything is something else. Now, when it comes to food, there's just one rule: everything on stage is ''bananas''. Mashed potatoes are bananas mushed up. Even steak is bananas pushed together.
->'''Prop Boy:''' But steak is brown.
->'''Actor:''' You leave bananas out, they get brown.
-->-- Creator/FrankLangella, ''Those Lips, Those Eyes''

Food seen in commercials has often been improved for the purpose of shooting the commercial. Lettuce will always be crisp, hamburger buns perfect and full, cake light and fluffy. Ice cream is never melting, unless that was the point. As good as the food may be made to ''look,'' however, actually ''eating'' that specific example is probably hazardous to your health.

For starters, the food may have been coated in shellac to ensure that it stays looking good no matter how many takes are done. This is somewhat reasonable, as heat from any lamps being used can cause things to wilt.

If the food comes in standard proportions, they may have to keep those proportions due to Truth in Advertising laws... but they can still engage in trickery. Arrange the items on the plate so that (at the angle chosen for the shot), where the view is blocked by other food, there's nothing behind it --but people won't realise that! Cut a wedge out of the hamburger patty, so you can spread it out a bit, making it look wider (this one's almost universal in fast food advertisements). Use camera angles and zooms that make it look larger than it actually is-- essentially, the HitlerCam as applied to food. And you can always just put those standard proportions on a really small plate.

For a good example of the last of those tricks, watch a Dairy Queen ad for their ''Peanut Buster Parfait'' and compare how large it appears with what you actually get in the restaurant. You will notice that you rarely see an actor's hands in the picture to give you a sense of scale.

The items used for photo layouts and "beauty shots" are often not even edible. Ice cream sundaes are often constructed of scoops of lard or mashed potato covered in motor oil, or other toxic-yet-pretty trickery. Likewise, "steam" rising from "hot" food is often smoke from a hidden cigarette, and ice cubes will really be deftly sculpted chunks of acrylic.

Note that, in general, truth in advertising laws require that the product being advertised should be the same as the one shown (though some of the tricks described above are still applicable), so, for example in a commercial for chocolate syrup, the syrup will be real, but the ice cream onto which it is poured is just as likely to be made of plasticine.[[note]]In the director's defense though - YOU try keeping ice cream from melting for several takes under hot studio lights.[[/note]] The cereal shown in the bowl is, indeed, the product, but the pouring stream of milk is almost always watered-down glue. Fast food that is seen in commercials is usually sprayed with a sealant and painted so that it appears more perfect than it would when you order it in person.

Compare GourmetPetFood, when pet food is advertised as fancy while, in reality, it's very plain-looking.
----
!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* Played with in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teoFL2b2xoA this Dutch PSA.]] The items look like food- but they're poisonous.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime And Manga]]
* In the ''[[Manga/AhMyGoddess Oh My Goddess: Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses]]'' manga, one of the strips depicts a certain voice actress as having a fetish for touching fake food samples and gets {{Squick}}ed if they turn out to be real. (This is based on Belldandy's voice actress' real life tendency for such a habit.)
* Subverted in ''Manga/GlassMask''. Maya is playing a character that's supposed to eat manju on stage. Some of the other actors, who aren't happy to be performing with her, switch the real manju with mud balls. Which Maya then eats anyway, since to do otherwise [[TheShowMustGoOn would disrupt the play]].
* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', cyborgs who do not need to eat can still eat food that looks real but isn't. It's still edible and nutritious, but tastes awful, at least to normal humans and to the Major, who finds the fake sandwiches (made from gluten and amino-acid-based micromachines) disgusting, while Batou chomps them down several at a time. It's mentioned earlier in the series that, because of their Cyber-Brains, full-prosthetic cyborgs can alter their brains' perception of how the "fake food" tastes, allowing it to register in their augmented brain as having the same taste as the real thing, which is presumably what Batou is doing. He also mentions in ''2nd Gig'' that cyborgs sometimes miss the experience of eating, and that's why they make novelty food specifically for people who are cyberized.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* One ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' story had Jughead, who normally drools over food commercials and mute the actual shows in-between, take a job at an advertising agency that films said food commercials. When asked to dispose of some food props, he learns the hard way that the props used are most certainly ''not'' food. Next he spots a delicious-looking pizza and leaves it alone thinking it's a prop, but it was actually lunch and by the time he gets near it it's all been eaten. He walks out on the job right then and there, and then can't even bring himself to look at those commercials anymore because of the "horrific" things they do to perfectly good food.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* There's a scene in ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' where Marty [=McFly=] is supposed to do a SpitTake while drinking gin in the car with Lorraine - in reality, the flask was filled with water. Amusingly, production decided to play a prank on Creator/MichaelJFox during one take, replacing the water with ''real'' gin. Fox, a teetotaler, did a spit take for real.
* In ''Film/BigBirdInJapan'', Big Bird picks out what to eat from a restaurant's outside display case. But due to the language barrier, he doesn't understand when the maitre d' tries to tell him the display food is fake and insists on eating it. Or trying to, at least, considering it's inedible.
* ''Film/BigNight'' was set in an Italian restaurant, and all the food was undercooked to look better on screen. The actors would spit it out between takes.
* ''Film/Cadaver2020'': Early in the movie, as the guests are being led through the kitchen, they see chefs cooking meals in a kitchen stocked with piles of vegetables and meat hanging from each hook. When [[TheProtagonist Leonora]] and her husband Jacob go back through it while looking for Alice, they end up knocking a couple pieces of meat off the hooks. When they hit the ground, they make hollow thud sounds, revealing that they're made of plastic. And what's more, all the vegetables are just pictures of vegetables on the walls, make to [[ForcedPerspective look like huge piles of vegetables from a certain angle]].
* Averted in ''Film/AClockworkOrange''. For the scenes in the Korova Milkbar, the dispensers were filled with real milk. They had to be emptied and scrubbed out every hour because the milk curdled quickly under the studio lights.
* As if "D-FENS" wasn't dissatisfied enough in ''Film/FallingDown'', when he asks for lunch ([[AxCrazy with a gun]]) in a fast-food restaurant, his burger looks nothing like the one on the menu board.
** Given the Music/FooFighters video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkcfQtibmU "Walk"]] is AffectionateParody of ''Falling Down'', it also happens there. (only difference is the lack of gun)
** {{Trivia}}: While almost all fake fast food signage shows the pickles hanging out of the sides of burgers, anyone who was paying any attention when they were trained for grill knows the pickle goes hidden in the center so it can be reached by a bite from any direction around the burger.
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''Film/AKingInNewYork'' parodies this, as the king agrees to play in a liquor commercial. The scenes are rehearsed with water in the glass, but the actual commercial broadcasted live is played with the real thing, which is nowhere as mild as the text of commercial would suggest. HilarityEnsues.
* In one notable scene in ''Film/AnimalHouse'', Creator/JohnBelushi's character downs an entire bottle of whiskey; reportedly, the bottle was actually filled with tea.
* On the first ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie, Creator/ChrisColumbus insisted on using all real food for the Great Hall. This did not go well, as they had to replace food whenever it spoiled, essentially forcing them to churn out the Hogwarts feast over and over again. In subsequent films, much of the Great Hall food was cast out of resin.
** Subverted in ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', where the cast was told that the candy, including the Mexican sugar skulls, was lacquer-coated, when it actually wasn't, in order to stop them from eating it between shots and causing continuity errors.
** While this was kept for the Hogwarts feast, in the ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' film, there was at least one instance of one of the Slug Club events (the small party for the inner circle) where the food (namely chocolate cake) was revealed and was replaced with every take.
* In the comedy film ''Film/TheInterview'', Skylark and Rappaport drive by a North Korean supermarket that makes them believe that all they heard about Kim Jong-Un starving his people was a lie. And then Skylark later visits the supermarket and discovers for himself that all the fruits and vegetables inside are made of plastic and plaster, and the food aisles themselves are just wallpaper.
* This backfired in one of the films of ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''; the prop guys asked the director if he wanted the fake Turkish Delight for filming. The director said fake, meaning this trope. The prop guys handed Skander an ''inedible wire and fiberglass piece of candy''.
* Subverted in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse for Tony Stark by a unique aspect. WordOfGod is that all the nibbles he kept eating and offering to the other people were unscripted, it was just Creator/RobertDowneyJr kept eating on set, so it was more a case of ThrowItIn.
* ''Film/MenInBlack'': When Bug!!Edgar was drinking sugar water, Creator/VincentDOnofrio was actually [[https://twitter.com/vincentdonofrio/status/837836346479771655 just drinking regular water]].
* In ''Film/GunpowderMilkshake'', Samantha's milkshake somehow has perfectly fresh whipped cream on top despite sitting out for ''three hour'' as she waits for her mother. Then both woman start drinking the shake, whose level doesn't move at all until the camera angle changes
* Used for a quick gag in Film/TheMuppetChristmasCarol, BigEater Rizzo the Rat helps himself to fruit on the table at Scrooge's Nephew Fred's Christmas Party. When Gonzo tells him its made of wax, he can only say he was wondering about the texture.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon'', Charlie Gordon is tricked into trying to eat a piece of wax fruit. At this point, he's recently had surgery to boost his intelligence but the effects haven't kicked in yet, so he doesn't know that fake fruit even exists.
* In ''Literature/{{Incompetence}}'', Harry mentions that he once knew someone who photographed food for a living. Among the tricks used to make the food look more appetizing include secreting a ''[[{{Squick}} boiled tampon]]'' on the plate.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV ]]
* Exception: in ''Series/{{Coupling}}'', actor Creator/BenMiles decided that his character Patrick was a Guinness drinker. This may have had something to do with the fact that Guinness is very difficult to fake convincingly, so while his fellow actors were drinking coloured water with foam on top, he was drinking genuine Guinness...
* The giant cup of the "Caf-Pow" soda that ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' lab rat [[PerkyGoth Abby]] [[TrademarkFavoriteFood frequently drinks]] isn't actually any kind of soda. It was originally Hawaiian Punch up until around the fourth season, and then it became sugar-free cranberry juice when her actress Pauley Perrette started abstaining from digesting refined sugars.
* An episode of ''Series/TheGruenTransfer'', a show about advertising, has an advertising executive mention that flowing molten chocolate in television ads is generally substituted with brown paint.
** Another describes in depth the process of making a steak appear appetizing. The final touch is apparently to soak a tampon in water, microwave it, and then put it under the steak to create those lovely wafts of steam.
* In an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'' called ''Window of Opportunity'', O'Neill and Teal'c repeat the same 10-hour period over and over again. The period started with O'Neill eating Fruit Loops, and the start of each period began with the spoonful of Fruit Loops halfway to his mouth. In the DVD commentary, it was revealed that the Fruit Loops were ''glued to the spoon'', to guarantee they'd be in the same place in every shot.
* The recurring "John and Peter" sketches on ''Series/ABitOfFryAndLaurie'' featured the title characters guzzling truly ridiculous quantities of Scotch, generally punctuating their conversations by downing entire tumblerfuls at once. If it wasn't tea, they'd probably have been hurling by the end of a three-minute sketch...
* ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "Success Story", while pretending to be rich and successful, Davy is served rubber food while his grandfather gets the real stuff. Also, the fruit in the center of the table is plastic.
* When he hosted ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', Creator/RonHoward talked about drinking fake beer while filming ''Series/HappyDays'' in his opening monologue. He then pulled out a can, declaring it to be the real thing, then chugging it.
* In episode 10 of Season 17 of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'', teams were sent to a restaurant in Japan's Kappabashi-dori district, and had to pick out the fake food from a buffet table covered with real and fake display-food items. They could only use chopsticks, and if they touched a piece of real food, they had to eat it. The fakes were convincing enough that even close up, many of the Racers had difficulty identifying them; the task took some teams several hours, and a couple of racers picked wrong (real food) so often that they got sick from the amount they had to eat.
* Actors from the classic British television series ''Series/UpstairsDownstairs'' have stated that, while those performers playing servants (the "Downstairs" characters) often had real, good food to eat in meal scenes, those portraying members of the family upstairs had things like "grouse that had gone off" and stuff painted or coated in glycerin and other product to make it look "perfect."
* One episode of the British sitcom ''Series/{{Saxondale}}'' has the titular character and his pest control assistant Raymond encountering a suicidal man who is revealed to be a ''food painter'' - as in, he paints the food that gets photographed for the packages of products to make them look more appealing rather than, for instance, a pastie coming out ''"battleship grey"'', to quote Tommy.
* Usually averted in the Disney Channel Italia sitcom ''Game On!'' Almost all of the food is real, to the point of having actual (if not necessarily hot or well-made) coffee in the totally opaque cups held by extras. Many, many sandwiches were eaten when Guyb's parents provided them in one episode.
* Averted in the production of ''Series/{{Babylon 5}}'', where the food is almost always real because they actually show the actors eating it. Note that, for practical purposes, a lot of shows tend to cut away before the actor can be shown ''swallowing'' what they've just put in their mouths. B5 often didn't use those tricks. You start to understand why most shows do when you read what Creator/JMichaelStraczynski had to say on Usenet about using real food on set:
--> [[http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/057.html "Virtually all food used is real, for health reasons. The liquid drunk by G'Kar and Arthur in "Avalon" is Yoo-Hoo; the mountain of stuff Garibaldi's eating in the Zocalo in first season is piled meatloaf; the spaghetti and bagna cauda was real; the only problem is that no matter what you do, it's going to get cold after 18 takes, even with reheating, and by the 17th take...well, it's an ugly sight."]]
* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in a season 5 episode of ''Series/BreakingBad'' during a very awkward dinner between Walt, Jesse and Skyler.
-->'''Jesse Pinkman''': I eat a lot of frozen stuff. It's usually pretty bad. I mean the pictures are always so awesome, you know? It's like "Hell yeah I'm stoked for this lasagna!" and then you nuke it and the cheese gets all scabby on top and it's like, it's like you're eating a scab. I mean, seriously, what's that about? It's like, "[[VerbalTic Yo]], whatever happened to truth in advertising?"
* In a short on ''Series/YouCantDoThatOnTelevision'', Lisa complains that the Barfy Burger she got is nothing like the one in the picture hanging on the wall. Barth defends himself, saying her burger is not only just like the burger in that picture, it '''is''' the burger from that picture. How long ago said picture was taken is best not contemplated.
* On an episode of ''Series/SaleOfTheCentury'', TheAnnouncer Jay Stewart was wearing a giant hat with fruit and what appeared to be whipped cream. Host Jim Perry walked up to the hat, dipped his finger in, and licked some off... only to discover that it was actually ''shaving'' cream.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manhua]]
* ''Manhua/KitchenGoddessAndTheAssassin'': Mentioned in the author's notes of Chapter 46, where the author claims that because they used up all their FX budget [[spoiler:blowing up the butte hole]] in Chapter 41, all the food since then have been plastic props.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other Internet]]
* The owner of [[http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/ Candyblog]] swears that they always use the real candy she reviews in [[http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/item/candy_blog_photography/ the photos of her reviews.]] Gratuitous FoodPorn!
** The [[http://foodirl.com/ Food in Real Life]] blog owner reviews convenience foods, comparing the photo on the box to what's actually in the box and how it tastes.
* Showcased on this site: [[http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm Ads vs Reality.]]
* Parodied by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK3uXCaZccA this]] Website/CollegeHumor video, a Photoshop "tutorial" on how to spice up Chinese restaurant menus. Featuring the "Aging Filter", which makes photos taken in the 2010s look like they were taken in 1977 by an incompetent photographer, or a texture feature to make chicken look like overcooked mystery meat.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* On stage, food props are almost always real food of some kind (if not the food they're supposed to be) because actors have to eat it onstage. It usually is intentionally made to taste awful so the actors won't eat too much and it can be reused multiple nights. Alcohol, however, is almost invariably fake because of the hazards of the actors getting drunk in the course of performing the show (usually, dark liquors like whiskey will often be iced tea, lighter drinks like beer are apple juice, and wine is, of course, non-alcoholic grape juice. Obviously these can be subbed out for something more to the actor's tastes, all the way to simply water with food coloring.)
** Which is ''very'' conducive to the classical practical joke of replacing your victim's prop drink with some GargleBlaster. And theatre people ''love'' practical jokes.
* In some productions of ''Theatre/{{Oliver}}'' applesauce stands in for the gruel eaten by the workhouse orphans in the opening scene. It's easy to "set up" (no cooking required), easy to clean off of prop bowls and spoons, is readily gobbled by a group of 8-14 year-old kids, and looks "truly disgusting" from the audience.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Krusty the Klown is often seen to be disgusted with what he actually has to eat during commercials for his restaurant chain, and spits it out when the camera is off. This may have been a reference to George Foreman, in which leaked footage showed him spitting out food cooked by his signature grill (which is actually what they do when people eat for a shot, since after 30 takes he would have been throwing up with all he ate otherwise). Even better, it's shown that despite being Jewish Krusty [[MoneyDearBoy has no problem]] putting his name on pork based products and eating them himself. One episode reveals that whatever he's putting in his food is even worse than "fake" food!
--> '''Krusty:''' The animal we made the ribwich out of is now extinct!
--> '''Bystander:''' What, you mean the cow?
--> '''Krusty:''' You're ''way'' off! Think smaller! [[{{Squick}} Think more legs!]]
* During ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Action'', one of the challenges was to find a key Chris had hidden amongst a pile of styrofoam prop food. Owen eats his way through the pile, not realizing it's fake, and ends by burping up the key.
* In the debut episode of the Chipettes in ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'', the Chipettes are getting ready for their first American shows and they're all on edge. [[BigEater Eleanor]] immediately runs to the fruit bowl and starts eating. Theodore walks over and comments that he eats when he's nervous too. Eleanor asks how he can tell that she's nervous. He then tells her that she's eating wax fruit.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Japan, as mentioned in a few examples above, has an entire industry dedicated to producing realistic models of a restaurant's menu items permanently display in the restaurant itself. They were originally made using wax, but many nowadays are made with plastics (as wax models would melt and need to be replaced).
** In fact, there's a block or so of Tokyo's kitchen district, Kappabashi-dori, dedicated to this. It's worth a visit and you can purchase USB drives and refrigerator magnets that look like realistic sushi.
** In ''Creator/DaveBarry Does Japan'', he mentions finding a store that sells these. He turns to his wife to express his amusement... and she's already buying some.
** Historically, the reason that Japanese restaurants display food samples started with the consumers initially being unfamiliar with many of the dishes being served. They used to have real food on display but these would attract flies, go bad after a day and need to be replaced, which is huge waste of money. Then someone had the brilliant idea of making food models out of wax after observing that wax takes on an imprint while it cools into a solid.
* Milk is hard to photograph: under studio lights it often comes out looking bluish and translucent. The "milk" you see in cereal-box photographs is actually a 50/50 mixture of whole milk and PVA glue. And if a cereal box shows a splash of milk, the splash shape is molded from plastic, which is of course easier than trying to photograph a real splash at exactly the most photogenic moment.
* In Music/ChristinaAguilera's video for "Candyman," there's a scene of her drinking a strawberry milkshake. As mentioned above, milk is notoriously hard to film, and there were several attempts to make the perfect shake. They ended up using a glass of pink paint.
* Going even further with the difficulty of milk, the "Got Milk?" ads. If you look in real life, milk mustaches don't show up as thick and opaque as they do in those print ads. Usually, they drink something comparable to a vanilla milkshake to get those mustaches. It gets ironically funny when you realize that to make an ad praising the health benefits of milk, the people in question have to chug huge amounts of ice cream in the process.
* Two real life subversions: Glamour shots for actual ice cream, not sundaes, are a special skill. Entire cartons of ice cream will be used to make the perfect scoop, which must then be photographed quickly and perfectly [[TimedMission before it melts]]. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Brooklyn, NY is full of fried chicken restaurants that display pictures of their menu items in the front window. These photos are of actual food items, and thus look completely disgusting. [[MemeticMutation At least they have chicken.]]
** The last can be applied to some eateries in some third-world countries, who had photos of its most popular foods. Some places have even real samples of its food in exhibition, who change inter-daily. Anyway, while rarely looking appalling and disgusting, those photos and samples rarely look that delicious either.
*** Greek restaurants, traditionally, do not have menus. Diners are led through the kitchen and invited to lift pot lids to decide on a meal. In places where health laws prevent such tours, there is often a wall of photos of all of the dishes to help diners choose.
* Pictures of hot chocolate will often involve adding dish soap to the liquid to make it bubbly.
* To photograph a roasted turkey, you roast it in a hot oven for half an hour or so, just long enough for the skin to swell up and look plump and tasty, and then paint it a delectable golden-brown with soy sauce. Sometimes iodine is also used. And if it needs to be carved, the breast will be pre-sliced and the visible meat will be cooked with a curtain steamer. Notice you never see a pristine turkey being cut, the knife is always halfway through it.
* "Consumer Reports For Kids" detailed in one issue some of the trickery used when photographing burgers for advertising, including not fully cooking the patty so that it doesn't shrink, basting the patty to look more done, and using toothpicks inside the burger to neatly stack the vegetable slices higher so the burger looks larger.
** There was a similar article in a ''{{Magazine/Nickelodeon Magazine}}'' about food photography. The photographer they were interviewing explained that the bun is hand-picked out of several other buns, and sometimes extra sesame seeds are glued on for show. Ketchup and mustard are applied artfully via eyedropper.
* As a pastry chef, usually a standard part of training is learning how to make 'display' versions of your normal desserts. Any restaurant you see with a cart of desserts displayed usually has at least a bit of lard on the plate.
** Related is making display plates for culinary competitions or as centerpieces. The food is coated in a very thin layer of aspic jelly, which is edible, but gives everything a pretty shine.
** Ditto bakeries that have display cakes, which generally consists of frosted Styrofoam. For example, if you watch ''Series/AceOfCakes'' on the Food Network, you'll see them cutting foam for display-only cakes sometimes (but most of their creations are actual cake).
* In a interesting case of fake food intersecting with real food, shady merchants in China (or anywhere else with lax food inspection) are known to soak yellow prunes in urine to make them more shiny and colourful, replace ethanol in liquor with the cheaper methanol (which can blind and kill you), or to make youtiao (s sort of deep fried breadstick) in a oil/washing detergent mixture, the detergent will make gas bubbles in the bread, making it look more substantial than it is.
** One Chinese dumpling vendor was arrested after it was found that he used [[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/13/content_5434250.htm hunks of cardboard soaked in pork juice instead of actual pork]] inside of his dumplings. This was later revealed to have been a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cardboard_bun_hoax hoax.]]
* Domino's pizza is trying to avert this and have customers photograph their pizza for their advertisements instead of using any sort of fake food or camera tricks. They even had a site called showusyourpizza.com that was [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what it said on the tin]].
* Like perfect "Hero" cars used for stunt shooting, "hero" foods are designed to be handled on screen in a desirable manner. For sandwiches, this normally means having one side glued together to keep the ingredients in place while the other half can be bitten into by an actor.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3pSmMExKz4&feature=player_embedded This]] [=McDonald's=] ad shows the burgers in the picture are edible, though overly prepared to look good.
* Sometimes, couples looking to save money on their wedding cake (or to prevent heat-and-humidity-related disasters that end up on Blog/CakeWrecks) do a "Rental Cake": The display cake is mostly Styrofoam (with the exception of the bottom layer for the cake-cutting), and then the "cake" is wheeled back into the kitchen after the cake-cutting "to be served" and replaced with sheet cake in the specified flavor and style. The guests (usually) do not know the difference unless they are told.
* Remember seeing ads for restaurants with all that delicious, golden-brown maple syrup being poured over fluffy pancakes or waffles, cascading over a pat of butter and some nice blueberries or fresh-cut strawberries, encouraging you to go to your local breakfast place ''right frickin' now''? That's actually motor oil. It runs better than real maple syrup.
* Exactly how the famous "cheese pull" seen in nearly every pizza advertisement in existence is [[{{Pun}} pulled off]] varies by pizza chain, but it is usually accomplished by cutting a wedge in raw pizza dough and then arranging strips of cheese perpendicular to the cut wedge. So when the pizza is fully cooked, the slice can be lifted up with the cheese dripping from the sides.
[[/folder]]
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