Ode to Food

♫ "Sugar, butter, flour
Don't let me down
Let's see the next amazing thing baking does now!" ♫

"Cookie, cookie, cookie. Me love all kinds of cookies. Me ate up five whole cookies, then six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Cookie, cookie, cookie. Hey, everybody, looky! Me ate up all the cookies, now me want to eat again."

— Cookie Monster, Sesame Street ("The First Time Me Eat Cookie")

We all like at least some foods. We like to taste them, smell them, and to a lesser extent, look at them. But some characters like their food so much, they sing about it, and that's this trope.

This is generally to show that the person really loves that particular food (maybe it's even their Trademark Favorite Food) or food in general, sometimes to the point of obsession. They may also be a Large Ham, but that's not a necessity. It could also be because they're really hungry for whatever reason. If the singer is singing while cooking (which can overlap with Job Song if they're a professional chef, waiter, waitress, food seller, etc), it could be a song about the joys of cooking.

Often Played for Laughs because Food Songs Are Funny, but when Played for Drama, it might be sung by a villain who wants to eat the protagonist or similar.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • "Steel Ball Run" has Gyro's cheese song, where he sings the names of various types of cheese, throwing in a mention of pizza (which typically uses mozzarella) as well.
  • At one point in "JoJolion", Yasuho asks Josuke to sing something. He sings a little song about how much he likes large fries (but not fried chicken).
• Downplayed in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War with the full version of "Chikatto Chika Chika", which has Fujiwara realize that she hadn't thought up all the lyrics yet and quickly decides to devote the second verse to her love of ramen.
• One Piece: Big Mom's introduction is through a Villain Song about making a wedding cake.

Asian Animation

• The second Boonie Bears end credits song, "My Honey", has the singer explain that, since they're a bear, they love honey and prefer it over all other foods.
  And I would eat you at every meal and snacktime
  Honey, oh won't you please just be mine?
  You think that I'm out of my mind, I just don't care
  'Cause I'm a bear
  I love honey
  It's just right for me!
  

Children's TV

• Barney & Friends has several songs that are odes to food such as "Pumpernickel" about Barney's love of the titular bread plus the kids' love of other breads, "Mac and Cheese" about Baby Bop's love of macaroni and cheese, and "Have a Snack" about the different types of fruits and vegetables one can snack on just to name three.
• LazyTown: The song "Cooking by the Book" is about how it's easy to make cake if you follow the recipe.
• Sesame Street:
  • "The Celery Song" is a song by three kids called the Celery Bunch about how much they like celery.
  • Invoked in one episode where Elmo finds Abby's magic wand and enchants people so that they can't talk, only sing. This leads to Baby Bear and Alan singing about how great porridge is.
  • At one point, a boy thinks he doesn't like zucchini but once he eats some, he sings about how it's the best food he's ever eaten.
  • "Everyone Likes Ice Cream" is about how while people may be different, most of them like ice cream.
  • Being the show's resident Big Eater, Cookie Monster has several:
    • "Food, Food, Food" is a song sung by Cookie Monster about all sorts of food.
    • "Healthy Food" is a rap sung by Cookie Monster about the healthy food he likes and the importance of eating a balanced diet.
    • "Breakfast Time" is a song by Cookie Monster about the unusual ways he eats cookies in the morning (juicing them, boiling them, frying them, etc).
    • "C is for Cookie" is a song written by Cookie Monster about how he loves cookies so much that he doesn't care if the only word he can think of beginning with C is "cookie".
    • "The First Time Me Eat Cookie" is about how Cookie Monster has liked cookies since his first time eating them when he was about one.
• The Sprout Sharing Show: "Ricky's I Love Bread"
• Yo Gabba Gabba!: "Party In My Tummy", which is about Brobee enjoying his lunch and pretending the food he consumes are partying in his tummy. There's also a breakfast and full cast variation.

Comic Strips

• Popeye: In "What, No Spinach?", Wimpy sings "Hamburger Mine", an ode to his favorite food.

Eastern Animation

• KikoRiki: In the episode "The Chill", Wally wants to catch a cold so that he can be given food (because his friend had a cold and people were giving him food to help him get better). He sings a song about how people give you treats when you have a cold.

Films — Animated

• Asterix and Cleopatra: Hungry Obelix fantasises about food and sings a song called "When You're Eating Well, You're Well". The food and drinks celebrated in the song include beer, boar (his favourite), meat in general, cheese and bones for his little dog Dogmatix.
• In the Animated Adaptation of The Butter Battle Book, there are several songs about bread and butter.
• Played for Black Comedy in Ice Age: The Meltdown: The vultures have a Running Gag of wanting to eat the protagonists, and at one point, they sing "Food, Glorious Food" while trying to eat the protagonists.
• In the movie adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, James and the insects sing about the "Fantastic Peach" when they learned they could eat it during their voyage. See also Literature below.
• The Jungle Book (1967): Kaa sings "Trust in Me" as he's preparing to eat Mowgli. It's all about how he enjoys watching Mowgli fall asleep as he's hypnotized, and how Kaa can't wait for his meal.
• In The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure, a villainous Struthiomimus sings a song about how much he loves eggs.
• In The Little Mermaid (1989), Sebastian the crab encounters the royal chef, who is hammily singing about how much he loves to slice up and cook fish to eat. Sebastian is horrified and grossed out.
• The Polar Express has a song-and-dance number about hot chocolate.
• Winnie the Pooh (2011):
  • In the song "A Pooh Bear Takes Care of His Tummy", he sings about how he "takes care of his tummy" by never neglecting to eat.
  • In "Everything is Honey", Pooh sings a song about an imaginary utopia where everything is made of honey.

Films — Live-Action

• E.B. from Hop is an Easter Bunny who loves candy and he's often singing the song "I Want Candy".

Literature

• The Mock Turtle sings the "Turtle Soup" song about said soup in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the song also makes it into various adaptations.
• In the Frances book "Bread and Jam for Frances", Frances sings several songs about how much she likes jam, until she becomes bored of it.
• In James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings a song about the many delicious (to him) foods he has eaten, and how they can't compare to one bite of the peach.
• Roys Bedoys: In “That’s an Opinion, Not a Fact, Roys Bedoys!”, Roys starts singing a little song about ice cream when the ice cream truck shows up.
• In Wombat Stew, a dingo wants to cook a wombat and sings a song about wombat stew.

Live-Action TV

• In Babylon 5, G'Kar sings a song called "So Many Fishes" to a fish dish as he prepares it. A considerable time later, it gets a Dark Reprise when he and Londo believe that they're about to die when they're trapped in a burning lift shaft after a terrorist bombing, and he sings a version to gloat about Londo's impending demise.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: The famous "Spam Song" occurs in a restaurant that serves only meals containing Spam. The restaurant is populated with a group of Spam-loving Viking customers, who pound the table in anticipation of their meal, and periodically break out into musical cries of "Spam! Wonderful Spam!"
• The Cat in Red Dwarf at one point sings a song called "I'm Gonna Eat You Little Fishy" to his meal.
• Schmigadoon!: "Corn Puddin'" is sung by the townsfolk about how much they love the savory dish, with a sprinkle of Double Entendre on top.

Music

• "Advance Sausage Sizzles", a song by Queenie-Lou, portraying the character Zadyn Mc Dijon, celebrates the Australian tradition of the sausage sizzle in a parody of "Advance Australia Fair".
• “Burgers”, a song by Devin Millar going with his friends to many fast-food joints before all settling in on Five Guys, and their famous bacon cheeseburgers and fries becoming his new favorite food.
• "Spider Suite" by The Duke of Uke and his Novelty Orchestra has undertones of drug addiction or similar afflictions, but on the surface, the lyrics use the imagery of a spider about to eat a fly.
  What wicked little twist of fate
  Placed you here upon my plate?
  Here, where no one hears your cries?
• "Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts": Presents a gross-out version of this trope, lavishly describing the consumption of offal and monkey meat without any utensils.
• Parry Gripp has plenty, with most being Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • "This Is The Best Burrito I've Ever Eaten" is, well, about how awesome the burrito is.
  • "Yum Yum Breakfast Burrito" is another song about the joys of burritos.
  • "I Love Bread" is about how the singer loves bread.
  • "Spiral Cut Hot Dogs" praises spiral-cut hot dogs, and goes so far as to teach the audience how to make them.
  • "I Like Vegetables", a rap about how good vegetables are.
  • "Pound Cake" claims the cake will "pound you in the face with flavor".
  • "All The Nachos You Can Eat", about, well, "All the nachos you can eat" and how awesome they are.
  • "Chicken Nugget Dreamland" discusses the eponymous dreamland, where there's "infinite flavors of infinite sauce" and where one can "get a million-piece box".
  • "Do You Like Waffles?", in which the singer proclaims their love for waffles, pancakes, and french-toast.
• "Lollipop Tree": This song by Burl Ives tells the story of a child planting a lollipop stick in their garden and enjoying the "fruits" of the resulting tree.
• "Jambalaya (On The Bayou)" is about the singer heading down to his girlfriend Yvonne for dinner filled with the titular dish, plus crawfish pie and file gumbo on the bayou.
• "They're Red Hot": This blues song by Robert Johnson is either about a hot tamales salesgirl or a prostitute.
• "Candy": This song by Judy Pancoast is about how many children love candy a lot and wish they could have it all the time.
• Preschool Popstars:
  • "Wait Until I Cook It" is about the girls waiting for the blonde one's mother to serve them dinner and wondering what she's cooking.
  • "I Didn't Mean to Burp" is about the girls eating a lot of food and it making them burp.
  • "Juice Box" is an Ode to Drink: It's about the girls wanting a juice box that isn't just "your everyday, ordinary juice box" but one that's "so sweet that every kid [they] meet lines up for two blocks".
• "Grow Mrs. Goldfarb": Allan Sherman's song (to the tune of "Glow Mr. Glow worm") is pretty much this, especially in verse two:
  You had for breakfast two pounds bacon,
  Three dozen eggs, one coffee cake
  And then you had something really awful,
  Four kippered herrings on a waffle,
  Nine English muffins, one baked apple,
  Boston cream pie, Philadelphia scrapple,
  Seventeen bowls of Crispy Crunch,
  Then you said "What's for lunch?"
• Ken Ashcorp created a song titled “Burgz” which, as you expect, is about his favorite bacon cheeseburger and fries joint.
• Similarly, Jimmy Buffett wrote his popular 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' about his heavenly first experience with meat after a long trip out on the sea, where he was only able to eat canned food.
• Songdrops:
  • The song "Bananas" consists of only the word "bananas" over and over.
  • "Tacos" consists of only the title said once.
• Tsukiuta:
  • You's special single, "Hee! Hee! Foo! Foo!", is about his favorite food, curry. The B-side, "Layla, you become splendor" uses melting into curry as a metaphor for love (the word used for "splendor" is pronounced like "curry"). "Layla" might also be a hidden reference to You's partner, Yoru — "Layla" means "night", the same as "Yoru". In the 9th stage play, You, Yoru, Aoi, and Arata sing "Layla" for a curry commercial.
  • There's also SeleaS' single T.O.T.M -Takopa on the Moon-, about having a Takoyaki party on the moon (SeleaS is an idol unit of moon goddesses).
• "Turagsoy": This Visayan song is about a man who catches a fish from a river, cooking it into a spicy stew, eating it with his friends and savoring the spiciness of it.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic has done enough of these to fill an album; he became so well-known for this trope that when he asked Kurt Cobain for permission to parody Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as "Smells Like Nirvana", Cobain immediately asked if the result was gonna be another song about food (it wasn't). Among other instances are the following:
  • "I Love Rocky Road" (parody of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by the Arrows) about the ice cream flavor.
  • "My Bologna" (parody of "My Sharona" by The Knack) about the meat.
  • All three of his Michael Jackson parodies, "Eat It", "Fat", and "Snack All Night" (based on "Beat It", "Bad", and "Black or White", respectively), are odes to gluttony. Yankovic limited the third one to live shows and never released a studio version at the request of Jackson, who didn't want to risk undermining the original's anti-racism message. "Fat" is mostly about the narrator being Fat and Proud, but the lyrics leave no doubt about how he got that way.
  • "Addicted to Spuds" (parody of "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer) about potatoes.
  • "Spam" (parody of "Stand" by R.E.M.) about the brand of processed meat.
  • "The White Stuff" (parody of "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" by New Kids on the Block) about Oreos.
  • "Lasagna" (parody of "La Bamba" as sung by Ritchie Valens) is basically a stereotypical old Italian nonna trying to push food on a visiting relative.
  • "Grapefruit Diet" (parody of "Zoot Suit Riot" by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies): Half the lyrics are about all the foods he has to give up when his doctor tells him to eat only grapefruits.
  • "Livin' in the Fridge" (parody of "Livin' on the Edge" by Aerosmith), about finding gross old leftovers.
  • "Foil" (parody of "Royals" by Lorde) about storing leftovers in foil. At least before it veers in a rather different direction.
• Dinah Shore's "Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy".
  Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy
  I never get enough of that wonderful stuff
• Bobby Troupe's "Hungry Man" is about how he regularly travels to get the best of every food he's fond of, from chop suey to steamed clams.

Theatre

• Coming Out of Their Shells wouldn't be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Musical without a song all about their love of pizza, as is the case with "Pizza Power".
  But pizza power
  A flying saucer food delight
  Pizza power
  Oh, that's what makes us feel all right!
• Like in Coming Out of Their Shells, the turtles in Gettin' Down in Your Town have written a song that's all about their love of pizza "Pizza USA."
• Done pretty often in the opera by Engelbert Humperdinck based on Hansel and Gretel, considering the protagonists are poor and almost constantly hungry. Special mention goes to Hansel and Gretel's long and lyrical praise of the gingerbread house (What odor delicious! O say, do I dream?).
• Into the Woods: "Hello Little Girl" is a song sung by the Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood. In it, he tries to manipulate her into going off her path and getting distracted before safely and efficiently reaching her grandmother's house. At the same time, he makes comments to himself about how excited he is to eat both of them.
  Think of those crisp
  Aging bones
  Then something fresh on the palate
  Think of that scrumptious carnality
  Twice in one day
  There's no possible way
  To describe what you feel
  When you're talking to your meal
• The song "Food, Glorious Food" in Oliver!. The boys in the workhouse sing it to complain about the gruel they're being fed while fantasizing about the food they'd like to be eating instead. It praises delectable dishes like hot sausage and mustard, cold jelly and custard, pease pudding and a great big steak.
• "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd puts a rather nasty (but simultaneously hilarious) twist on the whole idea. "God, That's Good" is another example as it's largely about the customers loving the pies.
• The very catchy song "Sugar" from tick, tick... BOOM! is preceded by lines that make it sound like protagonist Jon is picking up a prostitute, and opens on some rather suggestive and deliberately vague lines. Halfway through the song it's revealed that he's in a convenience store buying Twinkies, and singing about how he loves to eat sugary foods.
  Jon: [singing] She can be white, she can be brown
  She's always easy, Goin' down, goin' down
  She don't care, what I look like, Or how I dress
  She never says, "No", Always says, "Yes"
• Waitress: In "What Baking Can Do", the protagonist Jenna sings about how she finds she can best express herself by baking new pie recipes. The refrain "sugar, butter, flour" is used as a motif throughout the show.
• You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown: After having a dramatic monologue over the lack of dinner, Snoopy jumps into an entire theatrical song, "Suppertime", once Charlie Brown gives him his food.

Video Games

• Moshi Monsters:
  • Played with in "The Sweet Tooth Stomp", which is about a villain named Sweet Tooth whose shtick is candy and mentions their weaponized candy several times.
  • The song "Bongo Colada" is technically about a drink, not a food, but it's close enough. It's about how the titular drink is delicious and makes you burp.
• Only the Brave Can Rescue the Kidnapped Princess has "I Love My Food," sung by the King about his love for fatty foods.

Web Original

• This video about the weirdest misheard love songs features several misheard lyrics being about food, with the same guy singing all the food-related ones.
  • In another misheard lyrics video, "All I Want for Christmas is You" turns into "All I Want for Christmas is Food".
• "The Real Me", joke music video by YouTube musicians Andrew Huang, RoomieOfficial, Boyinaband and Rob Scallon, features each of them doing their own verse. Rob's verse is devoted to his love of bagels, in which he proclaims to eat them at all times of day and that, to him, doughnuts are just "dessert bagels".
• Eddsworld has a song called "Sandwich" about a man who loves a sandwich.
• hololive's Nekomata Okayu has made a song about her love of food.
• Homestar Runner:
  • In the Strong Bad Email "time capsule", Strong Bad records a number one jam about "Grumblecakes".
  • In the SBEmail "origins", Homestar hosts weekly "bread sing-a-longs" where he sings the praises of bread, surrounded by a large pile of bread, as if serenading it.
  And bread is a good time for me
  Woo-doo-doo-loot-doo, singing,
  Bread is a good time for everybody!

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Jake sings a song about making "Bacon Pancakes".
• Animaniacs:
  • In "Be Careful What You Eat", the Warner siblings sing the ingredients on the labels of both a tub of ice cream and a chocolate bar. Despite the title, the ingredients included things that weren't so bad, like lactic acid and beta carotene.
  • In "Ice Cream", the Warner siblings sing about different types of ice cream.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "MC Pee Pants" centers around Meatwad becoming obsessed with a rap song titled "I Want Candy" about the rapper's love for candy. As it turns out, the song is actually Mind-Control Music that makes the listener addicted to candy as part of a bizarre, pointlessly elaborate scheme to sell diet pills.
• Arthur: Pal the dog once sings a song parodying "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" about how he loves bacon.
• Chowder: The title character is a gluttonous kid working as chef Mung Daal's apprentice. Fitting this, not only is the show's theme song about cooking (albeit with unconventional instructions like "you take the moon and you take the sun; you take everything that seems like fun"), but the Christmas Episode "Hey, Hey It's Knishmas!" also features a musical number about building a Shmingerbread House.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: Rolf's culture has an elaborate food-themed celebration as the equivalent to Christmas, and on December 24th he performs a song dedicated to the folkloric figure known as Yeshmiyek (the song's rhyming couplets mention at least one food per line).
• Family Guy: In "Road to the Multiverse," when the Lois of the Disneyesque universe bakes a pie, she and the other residents sing a rousing number about how "it's a wonderful day for pie."
• The Ghost and Molly McGee: In "Festival Of Lights", Scratch goes into an elaborate Disney Acid Sequence about his love of fried food after tasting the treats Libby's mom made for the Hanukkah party.
• Green Eggs and Ham: The 1970s short begins with The Cat in the Hat singing about how he thinks of eggs and how he's eaten them in all sorts of ways, which segues to him saying it "reminds me of Sam, whose favorite dish is green eggs and ham", thus leading to the actual short.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: "Little Rock of Horrors" has the "brain-eating meteor" voiced by Voltaire sing "BRAINS!" in which he sings about his love of eating brains and manipulates Billy into bringing the townspeople to him so he can eat their brains.
• Kidd Video: One episode opened with Whiz making a pizza in the oven. He then does a song and dance to celebrate the pizza. Unfortunately, this distracts him long enough to burn it.
• Looney Tunes: In "An Itch in Time", A. Flea, on seeing Elmer Fudd's dog, starts joyfully singing "Food Around the Corner".
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Pinkie Pie sings a song called "Cupcakes" about how much she likes to both eat and make cupcakes.
• Phineas and Ferb: The song "Meatloaf" is, well, about how awesome meatloaf is, sung in-universe by a band at a meatloaf contest.
• Pinky and the Brain: Pinky's "Cheese Roll Call" short is a song-and-dance number in honor of all the cheese varieties in the world, complete with anthropomorphic cheeses taking the mic to sing their own praises. See it here!
• The Simpsons:
  • Guess Who's Coming To Criticize Dinner?, when Homer is asked to be The Springfield Shopper's new food critic, since he likes food so much, he starts singing a song spoofing the West Side Story song "I Feel Pretty":
  Homer: I like pizza, I like bagels, I like hot dogs with mustard and beer...
  Editor: I get the picture.
  Homer: I'll eat eggplant, I could even eat a baby deer. La-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la-la! Who's that baby deer on the lawn there?
  Editor: Enough, already!
  Homer: Sorry.
  • The Food Wife: Bart, Lisa, and Marge start their own food and restaurant blog. The increasing popularity of the site is shown over a montage of them visiting numerous eateries, accompanied by a rap-style soundtrack detailing the individual dishes.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • The episode "Jellyfish Hunter" had Fred the fish singing and scatting "The Jellyfish Jelly Sandwich Song" after SpongeBob gave him one, then told everyone at the Krusty Krab.
    Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob! Who's playing Squidward's records again?
  • In "Banned in Bikini Bottom", SpongeBob sings about how much he likes Krabby Patties. Later in the episode, a green fish sings a similar song after finally trying one.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The episode "Lint Catcher" has Star singing to a burrito. She swears to not let go of it, until she throws it on Marco when he accidentally surprises her. Moments later, Tom comes out of the toilet, doing the exact same thing.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Burger vs Burrito", Beast Boy and Cyborg get into a squabble over which of the titular foods is superior. To settle this they enlist the other Titans to be judges, with one of their attempts being singing about each of their respective foods.
• Will and Dewitt: The episode "Double Frog Dare" opens and closes with a song dedicated entirely to pickles, boasting that they're "the world's best snack"; it's pretty bizarre once you think about it.

Real Life

• At a Burns Supper, a bagpiper serenades the main course of "haggis, neeps and tatties", then the host recites "Address to a Haggis."
• Although they are not sung, Pablo Neruda wrote several odes to different meals and published them in “Odes to Food and Other Elementary Pleasures”. Some of the most famous ones include Ode to Artichoke, Ode to Caldillo de Congrio, Ode to Wine and Ode to French Fries.

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