Instant Taste Addiction

"No one can resist a Krabby Patty!"

[After Tina tries espresso for the first time]
Teddy: Gross, right?
Tina: Yeah, it's an acquired taste... that I just acquired.

— Bob's Burgers, "The Unnatural"

There is a specific food that a character has either never heard of or was never interested in before. Once they try it, they unexpectedly develop an extreme liking to it. If this happens with everyone who tries the stuff, it's probably Impossibly Delicious Food. But be careful — there might be consequences.

If a character's addiction to a certain food goes too far, someone else might make them eat a lot of it until they don't even want it anymore.

Other people could exploit their addiction by using the food as a bribe to get them to do what they want.

May have an allusion of a G-Rated Drug. If it's likened to a real addiction, see I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!. May overlap with Perfection Is Addictive.

Not to be confused with Trademark Favorite Food, which it is often the cause for this trope. Subtrope of Sense Freak.

Compare First Time Feeling, I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham, Limb-Sensation Fascination.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Exaggerated in The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You. Kurumi will start craving a food whenever she sees or hears anything that bears the slightest resemblance to it or its name. It's to the point where she's largely lost her taste for walnuts due to having started craving them whenever she hears her name.
  • Naddy and Rin are non-food examples. Naddy became obsessed with American culture after watching a single American movie and Rin became a Nightmare Fetishist after only seeing a few seconds of a Resident Evil film. It's lampshaded in the latter's case, with the narration saying that many children awaken to unique proclivities after only a single taste. The bonus chapter of Rin's introductory volume reveals that she's had a taste for violence ever since she was a baby.
• Death Note: Ryuk falls subject to this trope when he first tries "human world apples". For context, vegetation in the shinigami realm is all dried up, so a juicy fruit is unlike anything he has ever tasted before. He immediately forms an addiction to them, even going through withdrawal symptoms.
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Soma of the Soma Familia and his wine. It's so insanely addictive to the point that one sip can render a person addicted for life and would be willing to do anything for a another drop. He considers them all complete failures and has long since abandoned his Familia as followers would join just to try the wine and become slaves to it. Liliruka, however, manages to resist its intoxicating power in order to help Bell.
• In the HGSS arc of Pokémon Adventures, Gold tosses the snacks he got to Bruno after realizing that he came to the Pokeéathlon for nothing. Bruno bites into a dumpling and immediately thinks, "It's delicious! Too delicious! I'll never eat anything else for the rest of my life!"
• In the Voices in the Dark story "Smashed", all of the main characters taste a type of "honey" from a tree in South America and become immediately addicted to it — which is bad news for them, because the tree the "honey" comes from is able to detect when people are eating it and can teleport its branches around the world to squash them flat.
• Yuri!!! on Ice: Both Viktor and Yurio fall immediately in love with katsudon after trying it for the first time.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: In Season 7 episode 39, we learn that chocolate has the qualities of an addictive drug to Lele's species of dog alien. Some chocolate accidentally ends up in Lele's mouth, and from that moment, he immediately becomes addicted to the candy and wants more of it.
• Mechamato: When MechaBot says that they should be getting paid to help people, Amato says "How about this for payment?" as he shoves a curry puff in the robot's mouth. Love Bubbles spawn around MechaBot as he cherishes it before he remarks how great it tastes, and he agrees to help others if he gets paid in curry puffs. MechaBot enjoys Amato's mother's curry puffs so much that he couldn't wait for them to cool before stuffing his face with them.

Comic Books

• Birds of Prey: Sin actually starts crying Tears of Joy when she first eats pancakes, but the maple syrup is what she particularly loves.
• The Dandy: In one Bertie Buncle and his Chemical Uncle strip, Bertie's uncle has invented a new flavouring in the form of pellets. When he tells Bertie about it, he says that he's already eaten far too much of it himself. At the end, the pellets are accidentally scattered over the lawn, and Bertie and his uncle start eating the grass.
• A young Hellboy falls in love with pancakes after trying them, and they become his Trademark Favorite Food, with a bonus funny scene of the denizens of hell lamenting that he'll never return to them now that he's discovered pancakes.
• Justice League issue #4 has J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter, attend a meeting at headquarters. There, Captain Marvel is enjoying a plate of Oreos. J'onnz tries one ... and not long after, is having crateloads of these cookies delivered. Later comics change the name to Brand X "Chocos."

Fan Works

• Pack Street: Trying fish for the first time at a food truck, Remmy Cormo, who up until this point has had a Trademark Favorite Food of bug meat, immediately decides 'Fuck bug meat'. From that point on fish becomes one of his favorite foods.

Films — Animated

• Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea: Sosuke feeds Ponyo the ham from his sandwich, with Ponyo grabbing the entire slice of ham from his sandwich instead of eating the crumb he offers. From then on out, ham becomes Ponyo's favorite food to the point where Sosuke tells his mom Lisa "All she thinks about is ham, mom!"
• The Proud Family Movie: in the Made-for-TV Movie, when clone Oscar eats his first hot dog, he immediately becomes addicted to hot dogs and that's the only food he eats and he makes the other clones eat it too, including the real Penny who would later get sick of it. Later on, Penny uses his hot dog addiction to help convince him to perform a Heel–Face Turn during the climax.

Films — Live-Action

• RoboCop (1987): When RoboCop first revealed to the rest of the police department, it's explained by the engineers that RoboCop eats a "rudimentary paste that sustains his organic systems." The OCP exec Donald Johnson tries some and immediately tells Morton it "tastes like baby food," and can't resist helping himself to more.
• The Pink Panther (2006): Ponton offers Inspector Clouseau a hamburger. He initially dismisses it as "disgusting American food," but after a single bite, he's absolutely in love with them. His love for them gets him in trouble with airport security when he tries to sneak some burgers in his pockets and the security dogs start sniffing him because of the food and the security thinks he's trying to smuggle weapons.

Literature

• Animorphs: Part of Ax's characterization is that he turns into a Sense Freak when in human morph (Andalites absorb nutrients through their hooves, and thus don't really have a sense of taste). His first taste of a cinnamon bun leads to it becoming his Trademark Favorite Food, with the epilogue noting that morphed Andalite newcomers to Earth are always easy to spot in public — they're the ones yelling about food.
• Everyday Saints: Father Augustine, having previously lived in the mountain wilderness since he was four, becomes practically addicted to nut ice cream from the first time he tries it. Subverted, as he turns out to be an impostor who has never been a monk and has only spent a short while in the mountains, and ice cream has long been his favorite food.
• Gregory, the Terrible Eater: Gregory the goat defies Extreme Omnigoat by refusing to eat trash and only wanting to eat human food. His parents give him human food mixed with objects, and then he loves it. This backfires, as he becomes a Big Eater and he won't stop eating his parents' belongings. His parents get him out of the habit by having him eat many objects from a junkyard until he ends up with indigestion from it.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen immediately took a liking for lamb stew with dried plums, to the point it was sent to her in the arena.
• Red Dwarf: The first novel of the series introduces Bliss, a drug that gives the user a euphoric high so intense they feel like a god, before wearing off after several seconds and leaving them in a decades-long depressive downer. It's so powerful you can get affected by just looking at the stuff, and once you've been Blissed, you're an addict.

Live-Action TV

• Corner Gas: In "Pandora's Wine", Lacey gifts the Leroys expensive foods that they become addicted to (fancy wine for Oscar and Emma, marmalade for Brent), leaving them no longer able to enjoy the cheap alternatives they used to like. They plot a revenge brunch to get her addicted to other expensive foods in turn, but Lacey shows up after they've already eaten everything and all they have to serve her is some leftover meatloaf from a previous meal. Lacey becomes addicted to the meatloaf, which is the cheapest, easiest thing they know how to make. Hank then tries to gift the Leroys some expensive chocolate, since he heard they've been into fancy food lately, but they refuse the gift because they don't want to become addicted to the chocolate too.
• Frasier: In the episode "Roe to Pedition", Roz doesn't see what the big deal is about caviar, and Frasier says she's never had proper caviar and offers her a taste of top quality Beluga caviar, before reminding her she's not invited to the party where it's being served. Since the whole caviar business is being presented as a drug deal, Roz becomes totally addicted based on that one taste.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch has Sabrina become addicted to pancakes after a single bite. It's one of the many dark secrets within the Spellman family.
• In the Welcome to Pooh Corner episode "Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti," Tigger tries spaghetti for the first time and becomes obsessed with it, not only eating it nonstop himself, but constantly cooking it for his friends until they can't stand it anymore. After he eats all the spaghetti that his friends have turned down, a bad stomachache finally cures his obsession.

Newspaper Comics

• The mastermind behind the Black Spider pirate fleet from Hal Foster's Prince Valiant got one taste of French escargot, and took an immediate liking to them. His base of operations on the stormy island of Ouest is determined by tracking where shipments of this delicacy aggregate.

Puppet Shows

• Fraggle Rock: Traveling Matt, in his youth, accidentally discovers the Gorgs' garden and radishes. When the other Fraggles try one, it immediately becomes their Trademark Favorite Food.
• Sesame Street: Cookie Monster sings "The First Time Me Eat Cookie", remembering his mother introducing him to cookies when he was a baby. After one bite, cookies become his Trademark Favorite Food.

Video Game

• In Hell Pie, it's implied that, despite the poor quality, the food in Flavor Peaks is made to be addictive. This would make a lot of sense, as the sin of gluttony is more concerned with quantity over quality.
  Jaques Huseau: I hope this place has a graveyard. Because I feel like my taste buds have died here. Yet... I cannot... stop... feasting... and feasting...

Web Animation

• Animation vs. Minecraft: In Potions, Blue tries netherwart for the first time and instantly becomes hooked on it. Very hooked on it. In fact, it becomes the catalyst for most of the problems Blue gets into, for he is easily able to be swayed by netherwart.
• Goblin Slayer Abridged: Lizard Priest is on a mission to try the food from every culture on the planet. When he tries cheese, he initially says it's alright... until the taste kicks in and suddenly he declares he would die for cheese. It's part of why he aligns with Goblin Slayer; he's afraid the goblins with goblinate cheese which is unacceptable.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: The episode "Krunch Time" is about Jimmy accidentally causing this trope when he creates a new perfect candy. Everyone who ate became incredibly obsessed with it. Jimmy eventually had to resort to aversion therapy to drive them off the stuff.
• American Dad!: In Season 13 "Garfield and Friends", after Stan brought former President James A. Garfield back to life using a cloning technology, Hayley takes Garfield to a movie and introduces him to orange soda. He loves the drink so much that he gives a speech about it to the audience and starts drinking a lot of it. Stan originally planned to have Garfield killed to ensure people don't find out about his existence but he allows him to live knowing that with all that soda he's constantly drinking he'll be dead in a month. Ironically, he's still alive in later episodes and he eventually becomes the mayor of Langley Falls.
• Animaniacs: In the short "Star Truck", which parodies Star Trek, the Warners introduce Squatty (the Scotty parody) to donuts and he spends the rest of the short eating them and getting fatter.
• Bob's Burgers: In Season 3, "The Unnatural", Bob buys an espresso machine for the restaurant, Tina tries out the espresso when Teddy refuses to try it. She didn't like the taste at first but she immediately acquires the taste of it and enjoys the energy it gives her and she becomes addicted to it and basically anything with caffeine in it.
• Family Guy: In Season 2's "Love Thy Trophy", Meg gets hired at the diner because Flappy and his manager thinks Stewie was her child. Stewie becomes addicted to pancakes after a single taste while Meg lies by claiming him to be a crack-addicted baby who eats dog food, all to milk more money out of sympathetic customers to buy an expensive Prada bag. Later, when social services take control, they assume the "pancakes" he keeps clamoring for mean some kind of hard drug.
• Futurama:
  • In Season 1 "A Fishful of Dollars, anchovies apparently had this effect on Decapodians. As their arrival on Earth drove the fish into extinction and when Zoidburg eats one from the last can on Earth he quickly sucks up the rest and demands more!
  • In Season 2 "The Problem With Popplers", Leela discovers the hole full of "popplers" and takes a taste of one. She goes wide-eyed and starts shoving them into her mouth. The others start eating them and find them so delicious, they take them down to Earth and they become an intergalactic hit. Unfortunately, everyone immediately stops eating Popplers once Lrr and Ndnd and their army arrive to Earth to reveal the "popplers" are their babies.
  • In Season 3 "Anthology of Interest II ", in "I, Meatbag", Bender is turned into a human and has his first tries his first food, which is some nachos. He would later get addicted to eating a lot of junk food and would eat more or less nonstop until he dies.
• The Great North: "Aunt Misbehavin' Adventure": When Judy and Ham first try eating some of the Doctor Bojangles' Energy Crackers that they find in Aunt Dirt's bunker, they first hate the taste of it but then instantly can't stop eating it. When Beef looks at the ingredients of crackers, he discovers they contain ephedrine, which is a stimulant that's now illegal in the United States. Beef has to take the cracker boxes away from them to stop them from eating more and slap their hands when they try to reach out for more.
• Hey Arnold!. In the episode "Chocolate Boy," Arnold tries to help Chocolate Boy overcome his already-established addiction to chocolate by introducing him to other foods such as carrots, celery, peppers, and radishes; the radishes somehow reminds Chocolate Boy of his favorite treat and soon begins binge snacking on them instead of chocolate — something Arnold decides he needs to be broken of in the end.
• Jellystone!: In "Grocery Store", Augie Doggie tries cheese on crackers for the first time, and loves it so much that she gorges herself on more.
• Johnny Test: After Darth Vegan remains stranded on Earth, he tries toast for the first time and he loves it so much that he decides to settle on Earth permanently after finding out his home planet doesn't have the stuff. It has since become his Trademark Favorite Food.
• KaBlam!. In the Sniz & Fondue segment "Crustacean Sensation," Fondue tires of Sniz always eating junk food and gets him to sample shrimp cocktail; after one bite, Sniz is instantly addicted. Soon afterwards, Sniz tries to make Fondue his "shrimp slave" and fix shrimp cocktail for him at every meal, which drives Fondue crazy. When Fondue refuses to cater to Sniz anymore, Sniz wanders into the night in search of shrimp, and is finally cured of his addiction when he eats a rotten one at a food stand.
• Little Princess: In "I Want Baked Beans", the Princess doesn't want to eat baked beans at first until she tries them for the first time, then she loves them. They're all she wants to eat for a while, at least until she has a stomachache from having so many.
• The Looney Tunes Show:
  • In "Off Duty Cop", Bugs Bunny reluctantly purchases a new beverage from Yosemite Sam, just to be rid of him. The beverage is Spargle, and Bugs takes a liking to it, that quickly develops into a fixation. It gets to the point where Bugs is pestering Sam for more Spargle. A Justified Trope, in that one of Spargle's ingredients is an addictive narcotic, which causes the FBI to shut down the business and arrest everyone involved.
  • In "Bobcats on Three!", Bugs helps Porky Pig start his catering by following the recipes of Porky's grandma which ends up getting Bugs hooked on the food since those recipes contained butter and he eventually starts gaining weight. Bugs is so hooked that he starts throwing parties at his home so he has an excuse for Porky to make him the food, and even when his friends stop attending his parties due to how unhealthy the food is, with some of them hinting to Bugs about his recent weight gain which he's oblivious to, he invites random strangers instead. Bugs finally quits the food when Daffy Duck bluntly tells him he's suddenly fat.
• Mike, Lu & Og.
  • In "Jujubombs," Mike longs for her favorite titular hard candy from back home, so Og recreates it for her. When Lu is given a piece to sample, she instantly develops an addiction to them, causing Og to go into non-stop production since Lu can't get enough of them. After finally becoming fed up with her, Mike and Og end up covering Lu in the same candy coating, turning her into a candied statue - though she's still satisfied nonetheless.
  • In "Hot Dog," Mike longs for hot dogs, which Og starts making for her, and once other islanders get a taste of them, they soon become crazy-addicted to them to the point that Og tries to settle things down by opening a hot dog restaurant, which only intensifies their addiction, prompting him to turn them away for making messes in their craze. He eventually breaks them of their addiction when he begins making hot dogs from coconuts.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle. In the Peabody's Improbable History segment about Don Juan, Peabody and Sherman learn that Don Juan's reputation as a romantic was damaged after his lover introduced him to onion soup, and since developed an obsession with anything that had onions in them; this unfortunately gave him incredibly smelly breath, resulting in no woman wanting to kiss him. Overcome with inner torment, Don Juan attempts to jump to his death, but Peabody is able to help him by "inventing" chlorophyll pills, effectively killing his bad breath.
• Scooby-Doo: ANY iteration that shows Scooby, and frequently Shaggy as well, being introduced to Scooby Snacks will undoubtedly invoke this trope.
  • Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! has the episode "Sorceror Snack Scare", which has Shaggy and Scooby fall instantly in love with the soon to be rebranded as Scooby Snacks. They then manipulate Fred and Velma into asking "Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"
• Sharkdog: In "Poots and Vegetables", Max tries to curb Sharkdog's addiction to fish sticks by having him try Brussels sprouts. Sharkdog becomes obsessed with them (even though they make him gassy) and even dreams about them. He sneaks into Mr. Heubel's garden to eat all his Brussels sprouts. After he's nearly caught, however, Sharkdog decides to swear off Brussels sprouts.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Homer at the Bat", Mr. Burns gives his superstar baseball team some nerve tonic, and Ken Griffey, Jr. immediately becomes addicted to the stuff, exclaiming "It's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited". He eventually drinks so much that he develops gigantism, putting him out of the final game.
  • The B Plot of "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can" has Homer go on a tour to follow the Krusty Ribwich, and everywhere it goes, after having plenty at one restaurant and enjoying it.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII", Homer accidentally cuts off and grills his finger. Since there isn't an ounce of food left in the house, he eats it and becomes addicted to himself.
    Ned: Homer Simpson, you don't like steak anymore?
    Homer: Actually, I've become a bit of a me-gan? Do have any spaghetti with my balls—uh, meatballs?
    Ned: Me-gan? My balls? Are you eating forbidden fruit?
    Homer: Fruit? Ugh!
• Spongebob Squarepants: Spongebob is surprised to find out that resident grouch Squidward has never tried a Krabby Patty before. Squidward takes a single minuscule bite out of one to make Spongebob happy, which he outwardly claims to hate but secretly he becomes instantly hooked. He breaks into the Krabby Patty vault that night and ends up eating so many that he explodes. On the way to the hospital, the paramedic implies that this happens to a lot of people who try Krabby Patties for the first time.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): The Turtles develop their well-known pizza fondness in the first episode this way.
• Teen Titans: Princess Koriand'r, better known as Starfire, samples some yellow mustard, and thrills at its taste, to the point where she consumes the stuff like a beverage.
• Totally Spies!: In Season 1, "Passion Patties", the villain in the episode creates a new brand of cookies called "Passion Patties" sold by the Happy Girl Scouts where eating one cookie will automatically get you addicted to it. This causes people to riot for more and cause them to become obese as they continue to eat more. Clover and Jerry learned this the hard way.
• Yogi Bear: In one episode, a new bear named Yoyo comes to Jellystone Park. Yogi and Boo-Boo introduce him to picnic baskets, and he eats the one they gave him (as in both the food, and the basket itself). He immediately wants more, and starts running around the park shouting, "Picnic basket, picnic basket! Must have picnic basket!".

Real Life

• Don Gorske ate three Big Macs in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin on May 17, 1972. He returned twice and consumed nine Big Macs on the same day. Gorske also claims he ate 265 Big Macs over the next month. According to Guinness World Records, he has since consumed over 34,000 Big Macs as of March 2024.

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