To Serve Man - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Human beings are mostly water. Their tissues and fluids retain flavors and other residues from their food. Their bones have a brittle quality. Their skin is warm and pliant. Thirst-quenching, well-seasoned, crunchy and yet chewy: People are the Elvis of snack food."

— Nextwave

The planet Earth in fiction seems to be a magnet for every hostile alien, demon, trans-dimensional being and human-created atrocity known for a very simple reason.

They come for the food.

Humans seem to be the universe's top delicacy. On a planet covered with millions of animal and plant species, it seems that humans are the only thing here worth eating. Never mind that predators native to this planet tend to turn their noses up at human flesh unless nothing else is available. From a predator's standpoint, humans aren't really worth eating. As a food source, we are frighteningly inefficient given the amount of meat on us relative to our size, as well as our growth rate.

Nonetheless, rampaging alien carnivores will bypass an entire herd of beef cattle, bison, elephants, whatever, just to get their chops around a nice, juicy human. Maybe it's because humans are easier to find nowadays?

A lighter version of the trope, bordering on aversion, is when the aliens can, in fact, eat just about anything... but humans just taste better. In other words, that line above - "Humans are a delicacy" - is taken literally; you wouldn't eat it every day, but when you get the chance...

This also happens in just about every zombie movie - the zombies spend almost all their time and efforts attempting to feed on live humans, which is pretty strange for creatures acting on "Pure motorized instinct." This is averted briefly in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead where one zombie is shown eating a field mouse.

Likewise, in any given werewolf horror movie, the werewolf typically preys on live humans, as opposed to raiding a butcher shop or a livestock farm. In cases where the lupine hunting instinct is said to be causing this behaviour, why doesn't the werewolf go after wild deer or rabbits? This makes no sense given that wild wolves will scavenge from an existing food source if available, rather than waste energy hunting for it, and humans behave much the same way.

On the topic of horror genre monsters, the same could go for vampires. It seems like all recently turned vampires just decide, "Hey, let's go kill humans!" They never once consider feeding on other animals, such as livestock, which would surely contain more blood than humans, nor does it occur to them to break into the blood bank of a hospital. A human would be more likely to fight back, and human blood would increase the risk of food-borne diseases. This is somewhat justified in series such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer due to regular sadism, as vampires are essentially inherent sociopaths.

It should be noted that, in reality, very few animals actually see humans as food, mainly because we're too bony.

Named for the classic Twilight Zone episode (itself based on a short story by Damon Knight) that dramatically shows you cannot judge a book by its title. See I'm A Humanitarian for plain old cannibalism, and How To Invade An Alien Planet for additional reasons why this doesn't work so well.

Examples:

To elaborate on the Trope Namer, the story begins when seemingly benevolent aliens come to Earth bringing solutions to the world's hunger and poverty issues, and eventually offering humans rides back to their home planet. Said aliens are carrying a book whose title is translated as "To Serve Man" (that is, presumably, to be of service to man). However, as more of the book is translated, its true nature is discovered, leading to the reveal: "It's a cookbook!" (Most likely Better Than It Sounds)
- Of course, double meanings do not carry over well in translation, which raises the question just how stupid or unlucky the translators must have been.
  - It's not impossible, depending on the language structure. The "poor luck" scenario in this particular case is more a 20% chance or so than a 1% chance, at least in Earth languages.
The aliens in V plan on making humanity into a food source. Averting the trope slightly, however, they seem to have no problem with eating other mammals as well (see: the famous sequence where one swallows a guinea pig whole).
The Tyrannosaurs of Skull Island in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong seemed to find blonde heroine Ann Darrow an irresistible tidbit, eagerly pursuing her with intent to devour regardless of circumstances. One actually drops the carcass of its reptilian prey (massing about as much as a human) to pursue her, and later a T. rex struggles to bite her while dangling by (industrial strength) vines over a canyon floor! (Maybe blonde female humans are "carnosaur crack" and just the sight or scent of one immediately addicts the poor brute.)
Let's not forget this is the premise for Peter Jackson's (yes, that Peter Jackson) first movie, Bad Taste: if the aliens have their way, our entire species will be served thoughout the galaxy as "Crumb's Country Delights"...
In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair the children are invited to stay in the giants' castle, where they will be "part of the great Autumn Feast in their honor". The older female giants fawn and tut-tut over their charges. Then they discover a giant-sized cookbook in the kitchen... it lists Man as a delicacy, albeit with very little actual meat. The cookbook goes so far as to list Marshwiggle (Non Human Sidekick Puddleglum), claiming that while edible, they are very stringy and have a "muddy flavor".
- What courses are Man served at the Autumn Feast? "MAN. This elegant little biped has long been valued as a delicacy. It forms a traditional part of the Autumn Feast, and is served between the fish and the joint. Each Man—" We don't know what it says after that because Jill stopped reading.
It's been mentioned in Ben 10 that humans are one of the universe's most delicious species.
Doctor Who: The episode "The Two Doctors" featured Shockeye, an alien who prattled on endlessly about the gourmet possibilities for the preparation of human flesh.
- Spin Off series Torchwood got in on the act with the five part storyline "Children of Earth", where the invading aliens have developed a taste for human children, and their one and only condition to Earth's politicians in exchange for leaving the planet peacefully is that humanity hands over a certain percentage of children... naturally, politicians being politicians, they immediately comply with this request.
The demons in Yu Yu Hakusho, combined with Carnivore Confusion. It doesn't say whether all species of demon have to eat human flesh to survive, though. This leads, later in the series, to a what measure is a human discussion, as well as Raizen's death via starvation for his medieval Japanese human lover, from whom Yusuke is descended.
The Martians in HG Wells' The War Of The Worlds are here for the food. As medical science at the time (or at least Wells' understanding of it) had the digestive system actually transforming food into blood to keep the body moving, the Martians "fed" by directly transfusing human blood into their system. So this is Older Than Radio.
Demons in Tales Of MU are required to feed on humans, either something physical or intangible, depending on the individual. Even ones who feed on blood apparently find human flesh tasty, as do other races such as ogres and even mermaids (Why did you think they were so attracted to sailors?). With members of these races integrated at a human university, it can lead to culture clash.
In Yulia Latynina's Inhuman, the extinct Ttakas ate everything regardless, including humans, though they showed no particular preference. A better example would be the Barrs, who have a proud hunter culture and like to eat their prey - especially humans because they're so difficult to kill, what with their power armour and their general predominance.
In the M. Night Shamayalan movie Signs, the aliens want to eat humans, but are afraid of, and affected badly by, water. The liquid that makes up most of human biology. Maybe they planned to turn us all into jerky.
In Angel, Big Bad Jasmine needs to regularly eat humans whole for nourishment. When Gunn finds out about this, he screams "To Serve Man! It's To Serve Man all over again!" When Angel mentions this as one of his reasons for opposing her, she quickly retorts "Like you never have?"
Subverted in an episode of Sunbow's G.I. Joe, of all things, where Scarlett mentions that animals actually find that humans taste rather bad (all while being chased by a mind-controlled T-Rex).
The whole plot of Commander Keen 6 revolves around saving the protagonist's babysitter from aliens that want to eat her (the full name of the game is Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate my Babysitter!). The game even features a level which contains a book with "How To Serve Man" written on the cover with alien alphabet.
A number of aliens in John Scalzi's Old Man's War universe like to eat humans, most notably the Rraey. This tends to be the main issue with human-Rraey relations. Or at least, so the protagonist is informed by his superiors; they're later revealed to be fairly dishonest and/or misinformed, so it's possible that this is propaganda.
Triple-subverted in a Simpsons Hallowe'en Special parodying the Trope Namer. Lisa finds a book entitled How to Cook Humans, but Kang quickly wipes away some dust to reveal the true title - How to Cook for humans. Lisa then wipes away some more dust, revealing that the title is in fact How to Cook Forty Humans. Finally, Kang wipes away the last of the dust, showing that the full, complete title is How to Cook for Forty Humans. After that, the aliens are so disgusted at Lisa's assumption they would eat her that they leave earth for good... after trying everything you'd expect from a secretly "humanitarian" race, including the book that looks like a cookbook, the neverending feast, etc.
In Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, vampires usually feed from humans, but have no problem whatsoever with existing on animal blood if they have to. Lestat even explains this to Louis in Interview With The Vampire when he points out that if Louis doesn't want the(at the time) still-superstitious humans opening his coffin while they're at sea, Louis "damn well better keep that ship clean of rats." Additionally, Lestat's mother Gabrielle lives almost exclusively in the wilderness, and subsists on wild animals.
Buffythe Vampire Slayer and Angel both stayed with and subverted this trope; standard vampires in Buffy were shown to make regular runs at blood banks in an effort to stay out of Buffy's way, while Angel was shown to buy animal blood from a slaughterhouse. And when Angel later became CEO of Wolfram & Hart, he was given a cup of blood to drink; wondering at the taste, he was informed that "the secret ingredient is otter."
As you can see in the page quote, Nextwaveexplains monsters' preference for eating humans.
Referenced in World of Warcraft - the item "An exotic cookbook" is described as having the title "How to serve Man". Seeing as it drops in a jungle area populated with cannibalistic trolls, this is definitely meant to be taken literally.
In Warcraft III, the basic Troll Unit has 'Soylent Green is made from Trolls' and 'It's a cookbook! A COOKBOOK!' as his taunts.
Aylee from Sluggy Freelance seemed to eat nothing but human beings at first. Justified since her species is specifically designed to take over worlds, so she'd naturally be geared towards attacking the dominant species.
- Also the zombies. Justified because not only do they need to eat humans, they need to eat SPECIFIC PARTS, because they literally "are what they eat". Their bodies constantly rot, and only regenerate the body parts they consume. Hence, the ones that go after BRAAAAAAINS end up being as smart as regular humans while those with a low-brain diet are stupid like regular zombies.
The "Processing Plants" in Cannon God Exaxxion convert humans into food, among other things, some of which is actually sold back to other unwitting humans. Somewhat justified as the aliens' main motivation is to colonize the planet & making the dominant species into a foodsource is simply conveniant.
In Dude, Where's My Car, the first thing that the alien Amazon Brigade do after merging into the Super Hot Giant Alien is swallow the nearest teenage boy whole.
This is literally a genetic imperative of the aliens in Parasyte - as one tells the main character, the first thing all of them hear in their heads when they take over a body is "Kill and eat this species!" This is further expanded on early in the story, when the main character sees a Parasyte that accidentally landed in a dog - it's eating another dog.
Homunculi in Busou Renkin eat humans, but this doesn't seem to be necessary for their survival; after an early feeding frenzy, Papillion Mask doesn't eat another human for the duration of the series. Victoria Powered later suggests that it's because, unlike other homunculi, Papillion has absolutely no wish to be human again. Notably, this tidbit comes after the line, "Want a taste? It's my mother."
According to Jon Stewart, Bill O'Reilly's memoir A Bold Fresh Piece Of Humanity is a recipe book.
Troll 2: The ~~trolls~~ goblins try to treat the Waits family to Nilbog food so that they can turn them into "half-man, half-plant" goblin food.
Arnold: They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD!
Inverted in the Star Wars Expanded Universe comic Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan: Last Stand On Ord Mantell, the title characters discover that a group of humans are smuggling aliens off of their planet, and assume it is because they are useful as cheap slaves. In reality, it is because they are "delicious".
The War Against The Chtorr series has an invading alien ecology transforming Earth into a world where humanity will not only serve as food, but will welcome it.
Buried in Time: The Journeyman Project Part 2 features a player death sequence in which the hero accidentally teleports himself onto the table of some aliens preparing to sample earth cuisine, and is mistaken for Kung Pao Chicken.
The first (and only) season of War of the Worlds ends with the Blackwood team allying itself with an android sent by a "friendly" alien race to help protect mankind from the invaders. Her final message back to her homeworld before leaving, subtitled for the benefit of the audience, but untranslated for Blackwood and his team, changes a hopeful ending to a Downer Ending. The message? "Humanity still in danger as future food supply."
The godlike Managers imprisoned beneath the showgrounds in The Pilo Family Circus consider the entire human race little more than an exquisite but miniscule delicacy.
It's hinted in the X-COM series that one of the reasons aliens harvest humans is for food... some fan works retaliate with humans dining on the aliens in return. (Rule Of Funny is in play)
In Parasite Pig by William Sleator, there are crablike aliens that have a whole gourmet tradition for cooking humans and similar creatures (complete with treating them as guests and fattening them up), even though they don't have space travel and have to wait for humans to come to their home planet. (In that verse, Casual Interstellar Travel exists, but Earth-inhabiting humans don't have access to it, and it generally doesn't seem as if the crabs in question do.)
In the 2009 film Star Trek Kirk is marooned on the planet Delta Vega where he is attacked by a large predator. That predator is killed by an even larger predator which drops its huge, freshly killed prey in order to pursue the miniscule Kirk.
The immortals from the Clive Barker short story The Midnight Meat Train have to eat human flesh to survive, though they claim not to enjoy it. The Eldritch Abomination that leads them and is implied to be the original source of all myths of Gods doesn't seem terribly interested in eating much of anything during the brief time we see it, though.
Inverted in the short story From Gustible's Planet by Cordwainer Smith. Petting Zoo People ducks invade/decide to hang out on Earth, eat all our food and refuse to leave. When there's an accident involving a Duck-person official, a fire hazard, and smell-o-vision, the entire world realizes that they're delicious. The few ducks that survive the ensuing massacre beat a hasty retreat and change their galactic phone number to 'unlisted'.
Averted in Piers Anthony's "Small Mouth, Bad Taste", in which a prehistoric race of sentient lemurs was driven to extinction because, unlike we humans, they were quite tasty to predators.
Inverted in the Futurama episode "The Problem with Popplers". The Planet Express crew discover a delicious life form on an uncharted planet, and market it as a snack food. Unfortunately for them, it turns out the popplers are actually larval Omicronians, who are none too pleased when they find out. Played straight when the Omicronians insist on eating humans (i.e., Leela) as compensation.
The Kaiju Gods of Primal Rage can eat the humans who enter the battlefield to pray to their respective god during battle to gain health. Taking this to the extreme is Sauron (No, not that one) whose insatiable appetite has him eating everyone in his ending.
The main reason the devils in The Screwtape Letters have any interest in people whatsoever.
Again inverted in District 9- some of the Nigerans believe that by eating the aliens, they'll gain the ability to use their DNA-coded weapons (this is based on Truth In Television. Some nasty stuff goes down in Africa). Humans Are Bastards is in full effect.
The Cyborg 009 2001 series has the Athans, a race of talking an telephatic dinosaurs that invade the peaceful Kingdom of Yomi to use its citizens as their living food stock. Hence why the five Princesses of the kindgom first latch on Black Ghost, and later on the Cyborgs as the BG Group betrays them...
In The Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper, humans are allowed to immigrate to the planet Northshore after the government essentially makes a Deal With The Devil with a native species (that resemble human sized, talking birds). When a person dies they are fed a liquid, The Tears of Viranel, which ‘supposedly’ helps them on into the afterlife. In reality this liquid turns them into walking zombies, and tenderises their flesh so the native species can eat them. Um, yeah...
In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "The Trouble With Augie", Donatello and April encounter the Brotherhood, a race of lizard-like beings who allegedly seeked to reach Earth in order to share their technology. However, Donatello eventually finds that not only does the Brotherhood plan to consume every human on Earth, they had already done so with the main inhabitants of the planet they currently lived in.
Stargate Atlantis's Wraith can only subsist on the life-energy of humans; alternative food sources won't work. Much of the protagonists' challenge involves keeping them from finding Earth, which they desire because of its large population even though it's in another galaxy. Yes, there are humans in another galaxy. It's Stargate.
The Matrix has humans being used by robots as food (well, batteries). Thermodynamic concerns notwithstanding, wouldn't cows be less trouble?

Real Life

True life example: Yellowjackets are carrion-eaters, and due to their size, our boniness isn't a problem for them. I haven't heard of any incidents on record, but I'm sure there's been at least one person who's been stung to death in the woods, and ended up as dinner for the whole colony.
Real Life aversion: While great white sharks do attack human surfers, such cases are generally thought to be mistaken identity, as they virtually always spit them out after a single exploratory bite. Seals and other marine mammals, the shark's staple diet, have much thicker subcutaneous fat than humans, so a quick taste is enough to convince a great white that our flesh is too lean to be worth consuming.
Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot, has a footnote about this during a part of the book where he refutes various arguments against watching for other life.
Surprisingly many people, including New York Times editorialists, are concerned that once extraterrestrials know where we are, they will come here and eat us. Put aside the profound biological differences that must exist between the hypothetical aliens and ourselves; imagine that we constitute an interstellar gastronomic delicacy. Why transport large numbers of us to alien restaurants? The freightage is enormous. Wouldn't it be better just to steal a few humans, sequence our amino acids or whatever else is the source of our delectability, and then just synthesize the identical food product from scratch?"