JAFAAC as well as doesn't actually show the trope.: Cordon Bleugh Chef

I would say that the key word is "unusual." The combination has to be unusual in the context of the story. If you read a book written 200 years ago where someone combines peanut butter and jelly, and all the characters act like no one's ever tried that before, than it would count.

Unusual is in the eye of the beholder and entirely based on cultural standards. What they sell at every restaurant one place, no one has ever heard of another. Which, yes, sadly does make the trope very YMMV.

In The Last Continent they talk about floating meat pies in soup, a typical Australian dish. The foreign wizzard encountering this thing things the combination is the weirdest they've ever seen. The locals think it's something everyone eats.

There's no objective standard for weird when it comes to food.

I'm not convinced. We can disagree on the specifics, but barring a few exceptions each culture has a convention on what is not-outrageous to include in a given dish.

Also, I would argue that this trope is mostly problematic in Real Life examples. In fiction it should be quite clear, if we inspect a work's origins, that Dish X is supposed to be unusual.

So your solution is to have us research every possible regional cuisine that an author might have come in contact with and enjoys but sounds weird to the people who've never had it and then base the page on that? That's still heavily YMMV and it likely to end in edit wars.

We inspect the work's origins. If it comes from Japan and we find something there that seems unusual, we must account for Japanese culture—if it happens to be generally usual there, then it's not an example.

The trope is meant to be used, consciously, to illustrate eccentricity (or cluelessness, or both). It's very unlikely that an author will not base his/her idea of "weird" on common sensibilities.

edited 23rd Jan '12 10:53:25 AM by Catalogue

Okay, thought it over and tried looking up some of the Real Life examples listed. Found one on bacon and ice cream; complete with reaction.

That's very good.

Hrrrm. Maple and Bacon isn't really a kind of rare mix. I mean, it's commonly sold in marketplaces (at least here). Neither is Bacon Ice Cream◊. It's also commonly sold in stores.

Also combining bacon with something sweet like Maple, Ice Cream or Chocolate is fairly common, for sweet and salty taste.

My point is, isn't that unusual.

It says, right on it, "He did what with bacon?!" That is this trope. It is perceived as unusual.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:33:18 PM by FinalStarman

But it's not. It's currently a fairly popular thing to do with bacon. Once again, more proof that this is heavily YMMV as written.

But it's not unusual. So if I photoshopped "You did what! Put soup in a can?!" over a can of tomato soup, it would fit this trope? Or if I put the same text over bacon and eggs, would that be an example? Heck, I'm willing to do it if that's the case. Mine would be higher quality too.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:40:30 PM by Ghilz

Oh, so I was wrong about the characters' reaction being this trope. I don't think an image would do this trope any justice, in that case, given that ice cream soup is incredibly common and people eat it all the time without hurling.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:44:42 PM by FinalStarman

Precisely. It's the reaction to it. As long as the food is being perceived as unusual and is indeed unorthodox (i.e. not ubiquitously found in most food outlets or brands), it is this trope.

P.S. to Ghilz: The reason I think the bacon sundae is a particularly good example is because it is/was indeed a genuine product and the 'we did what with bacon' tagline (i.e. the shocked reaction) was entirely part of its marketing.

See link: http://eater.com/archives/2011/03/25/dennys-unveils-a-maple-bacon-sundae.php

edited 23rd Jan '12 4:03:06 PM by peasant

The World God Only Know could help.

this show the food

this show the reaction

Back after a while.

I think we should avoid showing reactions, since the dish can cover any area in the tastiness spectrum.

And, Ghilz (#61), wouldn't that odd "you did what!" hypothetical ad still be a kind of Playing With on this trope?

edited 16th Feb '12 8:43:38 PM by Catalogue

How's this?

EDIT: Damn, even using the online program and saving it as a PNG, his dialogue didn't turn out well...I wonder if someone could 'shop in some more legible dialogue...

edited 16th Feb '12 8:56:39 PM by Willbyr

I think just the dish panel would be fine. Not sold, but it would be all right.

Just the bottom would work nicely.

Since the emphasis is on strange ingredients that sound disgusting together, maybe the fourth panel (from right of left, of course) on this page would work:

[1]

I just think it emphasizes more that it should sound weird or disgusting, but not entirely foreign. I feel like the example from The World God Only Knows could be misleading; otherworldly ingredients seem to display a different trope entirely, something closer to Foreign Queasine in nature.

Blank crowner

Crowner's hooked, still needs to be filled.

Just added a fourth option because I really feel like the other three don't capture this trope, or at least distinguish it from similar ones. I think Elsie's "Pescatori Styx" could easily be confused for a supernatural equivalent of Alien Lunch. The soup-and-ice-cream example is weird, but I think it lacks the reaction the trope calls for. I'll be happy if the bacon sundae one wins out, though, since it is the closest to having the right reaction.

Perfectly normal-sounding ingredients by themselves, but strange-sounding combinations. Another character has to react to that before tasting the dish, just to make it clear that the trope has nothing to do with how the Cordon Bleugh Chef's cooking actually tastes. And one example of this trope is pretty much an establishing character moment for Orihime Inoue, so:

edited 17th Apr '12 3:08:47 PM by NaphthaTurisas

This one's ready to call. The new pic's up, potholed, and tagged, and the Image Links page is up. Caption or no?

Forgot to star this, way past the point of needing to be closed.