Your Favorite

"'Tain't the mincemeat filigree
And it ain't the turkeyneck stew
And it ain't them bruleed okra seeds
Though she made them a-special for you."

— Tom Waits, "Filipino Box Spring Hog" - Mule Variations

One character shows his knowledge of, and attentiveness to, another by providing his favorite food or drink without his needing to request it. The dish, obviously, will be somewhat unusual, but does not need to be very much so — only enough that knowing it and having it on hand have to be in order to provide it for this person.

The person may not mention it, but if so, the Stock Phrase is "Your Favorite."

May overlap with Trademark Favorite Food, but can be something the person eats only occasionally, or usually is not significant. It is, in fact, often not something made a big deal of, because it does not show obvious attentiveness to pick up on it.

It can also be used in an attempt to bring a character out of a funk: "Come on, cheer up. Look, I made your favorite!" This use overlaps with Comfort Food.

Can go wildly awry if the character gets it wrong.

When the Affably Evil villain says No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine, this may be part of it; it will add to the creepiness and can even be used as a subtle threat. ("I know what you eat, I know what you drink, I know about your beloved daughter who attends college upstate." You get the idea.)

Subtrope of Through His Stomach. Note that just good cooking goes under that trope.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Fruits Basket, when they visit Tohru's mother's grave, they find it already cleaned up. Tohru realizes it must have been her grandfather, because he had brought her mother's favorite food.
  • When Ayame visits he brings first crabs, then peaches. Shigure observes they were Yuki's favorite foods when he was a child, and that he does not know what Yuki likes now.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: "Mint chocolate chip ice cream? I know it's your favorite!" Filler Villain Noa Kaiba, a digital ghost in a digital world, was apparently told this every day by the digital ice cream vendor in the digital park. One day he wanted to try something else, but she wasn't programmed for that and just kept repeating that line.
• Chrono Crusade has a variation — Fiore is very pleased when Azmaria enjoys the food she's cooked for her, saying "This is my sister's favorite food. You remind me of her."
• In the infamous anime film Grave of the Fireflies, Seita tries to get fruit drops for his little sister as often as he can, because they're her favorite food. After she starves to death, he cremates her and puts her ashes in a fruit drop box.
• Mentioned in Ai Yori Aoshi. The first meal that Aoi cooks for Kaoru at his apartment consists of all of his favorite foods. When he expresses surprise at this, she mentions that she'd remembered them since their childhood meeting.
• In Ouran High School Host Club, the rest of the members know that Haruhi loves to eat fancy tuna and if they want to bribe her into doing something, they offer her it.
• A darker variation in Loveless. Ritsuka has had to memorize all of the "original" Ritsuka's favorite foods and react accordingly, because if he doesn't, his mother will punish him for it.
• In Sherlock Hound, a kidnapped Mrs. Hudson feels sorry for Professor Moriarty and his minions, who can't cook particularly well, so she fixes them a highly extravagant steak-and-kidney pie, which just happens to be Moriarty's favorite. She somehow figured this out in spite of never having met him before in her life. He was so touched by the gesture that after he was inevitably foiled, he swore that whatever other depths he may sink to in his efforts to best Hound, he would never, ever involve Mrs. Hudson again.
• In a relatively early episode (and chapter) of Soul Eater, Maka and Soul are at a party, and despite Maka's protest that Soul should get his own food instead of mooching off of her, she did get fish. Which she hates. And is his favourite food. He eats after she gets dragged off screen, realizing that she got it for him in the first place.
  • This trope gets a much darker take later on in the manga. Medusa welcomes back Crona, whom she raised in such pleasant ways as starving Crona till they killed some of her (pet) rabbits, after they defeated Tsar Pushka and Fyodor— with a table full of pasta just they way they like it. And Crona can have as much as they want, the wonderful child. And then Medusa hugs them. So they freak out and butcher her. Just like she taught them to.
• In Skip Beat! Sho and Kyouko (childhood friends with a dash of hate thrown in there for good measure,) are at a hotel's continental breakfast when Sho puts all the things Kyouko likes on her plate. Needless to say, she's not amused.
• In The Wallflower, Kyohei's favorite is strawberries, which gets significant when he's sick.
• In Case Closed, one story ends with Ran being so impressed by her dad's solving of a case that she promises to make him his favorite food for dinner. She draws the line when he asks if she'll also get him a case of beer.
• In the Mushishi episode "The Sunrise Serpent," the first sign that something unusual is wrong with Sayo is when her son Kaji celebrates a profitable day of work by bringing home Sayo's favorite food, dango, as a treat - only for her to act as though she's never had it before.
• On two separate occasions in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Kaguya has attempted to cook food with oysters in them for Shirogane, though a variety of circumstances keep him from trying it both times.
• In the Alternate Timeline of Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs known as the Marie Route, Leon typically responds to Marie crying by offering to buy her steak (as much as ten servings). She once criticizes him for thinking he can calm her down with it, to which he tells her to stop drooling and come along. Marie’s brother-in-law Nicks and his wife also offer her steak after hearing stories of her extremely neglected childhood leaves the two in tears.
• In The Villainous Daughter's Butler, I'll Crush the Destruction Flags, the protagonist Cyril offers strawberry shortcake to Sophia to try and calm her Yandere jealous rage over him at one point, as well as whenever she receives dire news.
• In The Prince of Tennis, Fuji's brother Yuuta goes to a boarding school because he's tired of only being known as the genius Shuusuke Fuji's younger brother. After their schools have a tennis match, Fuji starts wheedling Yuuta to come home for the night, and casually drops the fact that their mother is making pumpkin curry for dinner, because they know it's Yuuta's favorite.

Comic Books

• In the Power Pack comics, when the Power Pack meet Franklin Richards and go into space with him, the Fantastic Four search for Franklin. Some Avengers and Jarvis are staying at the Baxter Building; Jarvis, hoping they will find Franklin, buys some of Franklin's favorite foods to welcome him home.
• In the Marjane Satrapi graphic novel Chicken With Plums, Nasser Ali's wife tries to drag him out of his depression by offering his favorite food, the eponymous chicken with plums.
• Swamp Thing Alec Holland getting some canned peaches for Abby, which doubled as Chekhov's Gun.

Comic Strips

• In Baldo, Tia Carmen tell Baldo she made his favorite form of potatoes — and then second favorite — and then that she made potatoes.
• U.S. Acres "What if it's strawberry ice cream? That's your faaaaavorite, isn't it, Lanolin?"

Fan Works

• In one of the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf mini-stories, Hefty's favorite Christmas food is fruitcake...a carry-over from The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol .
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Hisashi Midoriya brings katsudon home for his adoptive son Izuku on his way home from work.
• When Marinette has dinner at the Agreste mansion in Someone to Watch Over Me, there's camembert at the table, and Gabriel comments that Adrien must really like Marinette to let her have some. He's shocked to learn that Adrien doesn't actually like it, since the household goes through so much of it. It's actually his kwami's Trademark Favorite Food, of course.
• In Thieves Can Be Heroes!, Inko insists that she and Izuku go out to a donburi restaurant to eat katsudon while they're catching up over Golden Week.

Films — Animation

• In Shark Tale, Kelpy Kreme donuts are Angie's favorite, and Oscar gives them to her on a daily basis at their work at the Whale Wash.
• In Tangled, Gothel brings Rapunzel hazelnut soup, saying that is Rapunzel's favorite food. Zigzagged in that only Gothel but not Rapunzel herself says this, and it's implied that it isn't a favorite food of Rapunzel's and Gothel is just making this up as part of her emotional abuse of Rapunzel.
• In Turning Red, Ming makes all of Mei's favourite foods to entice her stay for dinner as opposed to going to what Ming thinks is an after school club.
• In Zootopia, after the conspirators of the predator-prey tension are caught, Benjamin Clawhauser (who had been relocated to the records room during that time) is welcomed back by two cops, who present him with donuts. The portly cheetah's joy at this is pretty adorable.
• In The LEGO Batman Movie, Batman is informed that Alfred left some Lobster Thermidor in the refrigerator for Batman, causing Batman to yell, "Oh, that's my favorite!"

Films — Live-Action

• In Groundhog Day, there was one scene where the protagonist used his knowledge from previous replays to get his Love Interest her favorite dessert. Since from her point of view she never told him, she concludes that he's been stalking her. Although technically, he was.
• Played for Laughs in Galaxy Quest, when the Thermians serve the main crew all their favorite foods from a food synthesizer. It works out well for almost everyone... except Alexander Dane, because the Thermians got the crew's information from their roles in the "Galaxy Quest" TV show, and thus serve Alexander his character's favorite: live alien insects swimming in brine.
  Quellek: Enjoying your Kep-Mok blood ticks, Dr. Lazarus?
  Alexander: Just like Mother used to make.
• In UHF, George makes his roommate his favorite food, a "twinkie-weiner sandwich" to make amends. It's a twinkie cut in half, with a hot dog stuck into it and cheeze whiz sprayed over the top as garnish. Bob refuses, so George dips it in milk and eats it himself. This is reportedly a favorite snack of "Weird Al" Yankovic himself, although these days he uses tofu dogs.
• Inverted in The Blues Brothers. Jake and Elwood order breakfast in a soul food restaurant. The cook (their former band mate) recognizes the peculiar order and comes out to greet them. That being "dry white toast" for Elwood and "four fried chickens" for Jake. And a Coke.
• Clue has this when the six guests are fed monkey's brains for Mrs. Peacock's benefit — "Mmm, this is one of my favorite recipes!" "I know, madam." In two of the endings, Wadsworth uses this as an indirect admission of guilt later.
• In The Jerk, Navin gets his favorite meal of tuna fish on white bread with mayonnaise, a Tab, and a couple of Twinkies on his birthday.
• Invoked at the end of Stargate: Continuum when Sam makes Mitchell macaroons while he's in the infirmary. This is a callback to when he did the same thing for her in the series.
• Played with in (500) Days of Summer when Summer and Tom are messing around in Ikea.
• In Iron Man 2, Tony misremembers and brings Pepper strawberries...the one food she's allergic to. Then he tries to get partial credit for at least knowing there was some sort of connection.
• James Bond:
  • A myth is that the line "Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred" was not said in the very first Bond movie, Dr. No. In reality it (well, a slight variation) was said by— No himself. So the first time we learn about the favourite drink of James Bond is when the bad guy tells us.
  • In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond and Anya show they know enough about each other by both asking the barman for the other's favorite drink.
  • This one is in turn flipped again in Tomorrow Never Dies, where Bond attempt to order the girl's favorite drink only to find she wants champagne instead.
  • The original drink order (as in, from Casino Royale, the very first book) appears in the movie of the same name, as a Shout-Out (it's essentially a more complicated version of "vodka martini, shaken, not stirred", specifying preferred brands of liquor).
• In The Movie adaptation of The A-Team, an angry/upset Baracus is always calmed/cheered by Murdock's coconut curry tapenade with toast points.
• Chocolat: Vianne has a gift for guessing people's favorite sweets, although she has a hard time with Roux, not figuring him out until the very end: hot cocoa.
• Played somewhat disturbingly in Black Swan: Nina's beloved smother presents her with a fancy cake when she gets the Swan Queen role, trilling "It's our favorite!"
• Subverted in Battlefield Earth, when Terl decides to find out what humans' favorite food is in order to obtain leverage over them. He observes some humans eating raw rat meat (because nothing else is available), and concludes that that's what they like.
• Subtly done in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) After she surprises him at a ball, Catherine goes home with Thomas and they spend the night together. The next morning, his butler brings in her customary health drink, suggesting that he'd researched her preferences and having her over wasn't entirely unexpected.
  Catherine: "Damn, I hate being a foregone conclusion."
• In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Gideon responds to Scott barging into his club by offering him a glass of Coke Zero, his favorite drink.
• Played with in Batman Forever. Two-Face's girls, Sugar and Spice, each surprise him with what they claim to be his favorite foods, two completely disparate meals (Sugar's includes poached quail eggs, while Spice's includes raw donkey meat). Thing is, they're actually both right - Sugar made the favorite meal of Two-Face's normal personality, and Spice cooked for his...other one. He's entirely delighted and declares that they spoil him.
• In Blast from the Past, The Webbers have been in the fallout shelter for decades and Helen is getting stir crazy. Calvin fixes hot Dr. Pepper for her to calm her nerves:
  Calvin: Hot Dr. Pepper. Your favorite.
  Helen: No, Calvin. Your favorite.
• Nathan's Kingdom: When Laura meets Nathan at the institution where he now lives, she brings his favorite: piles of junk food.
• Ming and Ming: To celebrate Xiaoming's first taekwondo class, Daming serves all his favorite foods for dinner, including shrimp and rice.
• Sherlock Holmes (2009). Holmes wakes up to find Irene Adler in his apartment offering him nuts from Syria, dates from Jordan, "...and your favorite: olives from the Cyclades". Sherlock can't help munching on the nuts, even though his first instinct is to check his safe is still locked and try to hide the photograph of Irene on his desk.
• Spencer: Darren, the head chef, is obviously fond of Diana and is sympathetic to her bulimia and oppression by the royal family. While preparing the royals' Christmas dinner he puts apricot soufflé on the menu specifically for her because he knows it's her favorite.

Literature

• In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Traitor General, Sturm's lifeward offers him a drink: "weak black cup of tea, with cinnamon". He comments that the lifeward is very attentive; he's had personal adjutants who took less care of him. Later, as his memories return, he remembers his favorite dish, and the lifeward makes a mental note to have it served at dinner.
• In Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels, several people keep tanna tea on hand because Cain is rather fond of the drink. These include Amberley Vail, who was once persuaded to have some by Cain and pronounces the drink "distinctive."
  • To the point that in Death or Glory, when Trapped Behind Enemy Lines Cain assembles surviving units into a ragtag army, fights his way across most of a mid-sized continent and through the bulk of an Ork WAAAGH!, and kills the Warboss in charge in order to reach friendly lines, with the express goal of finding some tanna.
  • Similarly, at the end of The Caves of Ice, Cain takes the liberty of ordering dinner; Vail notices, with a smile, that he had remembered how much she liked a certain sorbet.
• In L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne, arriving to work as a school's principal, is invited to dinner by every student's family. At the first dinner, she highly praises some pumpkin preserves. Thereafter, every single dinner features pumpkin preserves until she loathes it; a family that hates it had gotten some specially for her, and sent the leftovers home with her.
• In The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce, upon the arrival of her foster brother who she hasn't seen in years, one character fixes enough of his favorites to cause one character to ask if she plans for him to roll away from the table.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Kreacher offers to bake Harry the treacle tart "to which Master is so partial".
• In the first book of The Fire Thief trilogy this is done unintentionally when The Avenger, AKA the eagle that ate Prometheus's liver each day, enters a bar looking for the the escaped Prometheus. The Avenger was offered a bowl of soup, but declined it and would have found Prometheus just outside if the bar owner's daughter hadn't said just before he opened the door, "It's liver." The Avenger quickly changes his mind.
• In the novel Chocolat, the protagonist Vianne Rocher has the gift of being able to tell a person's favourite chocolate just by looking at them, or even thinking of them. Also present in the film, with a lesser degree of Magic Realism.
• In Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells, Evanelle brings Sydney strawberry Pop-tarts because she knows she ought to give them to her. Then Sydney's sister Claire shows up with her daughter Bay in tow, and Bay's favorite is strawberry Pop-tarts.
• In The Hunger Games, Katniss comments in an interview that the thing that impressed her most about the Capitol was the lamb stew with prunes. In the arena, she receives a tin of it from sponsors.
  • In Catching Fire, she knows that the kitchen staff on the train "clearly wants to please" her because they made the stew.
  • The lamb stew strikes again in Mockingjay, in the sweetest way, when Peeta, still recovering from the I-hate-Katniss hijacking, finds a can of it and gives it to her during the infiltration of the Capitol.
• In Michael Flynn's Up Jim River, Billy serves the favorite drinks from the bar, having, as a good servant, learned them on the way.
• In Sarah A. Hoyt's Draw One in the Dark, Edward makes Tom's coffee with three sugars, surprising him with it before he can refuse it.
• In Harriet the Spy, Harriet suspects something is amiss when her nanny, Ollie Golly, needs to confirm that Harriet likes asparagus, seeing as Ollie Golly has taken care of her for all her life. It turns out that Ollie Golly's boyfriend is coming to visit, hence her nervousness.
• In Seanan McGuire's Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, Aaron remembers to get blueberry coffee cake for Velma.
• In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society book Villains Rising, Misty's mother appears on TV to say Misty's been kidnapped, and appeal to the kidnappers to free her and the public to report her. Since she has actually run away from the secret supervillain society — and her mother is working for them — Misty is distraught. They get ice cream to help console her.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: In King's Landing, the Tyrells give Sansa her favorite — lemon cakes — as a gesture of goodwill.
• In The X-Files novel Ground Zero by Kevin J. Anderson, Mulder orders Chinese food to share with Scully and mentions that he got kung-pao chicken because it's her favorite. Scully wonders how he knows this, because they've never gone out for Chinese food together. Mulder says, "Now what kind of FBI agent would I be if I couldn't find out a simple thing like that?"
• Almanzo Wilder, the titular Farmer Boy, says his favorite thing to eat is fried apples'n'onions and is excited when Mother has it waiting for him after the day's work. His wife also cooks it to cheer him up after a disappointment in Little Farm in the Ozarks.
• In The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, Jaina Proudmoore visits Anduin Wrynn in his room to cheer him up. Anduin is touched and decides to return the favor by having food brought in. He requests cheese(Dalaran Sharp) and apples, Jaina's favorite snacks.
• Emma: Harriet Smith fondly remembers how Robert Martin went three miles round one day in order to bring her some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them.
• In Trueman Bradley, Mrs. Levi makes raspberry lemon cakes because she knows they're Trueman's favorite.
• Cooks Good Meals, a Merriban chef in Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse, likes to offer humans who come to his restaurant Tjikko nuts infused with flavored oils. He knows that any human he encounters will have come from the Krakau Alliance and has mostly ever eaten Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious gray paste through ports in their stomachs. They won't have tried Tjikko nuts before, but they always love them and he enjoys watching their faces.
• In the Bounders novel The Forgotten Shrine, the Alkalinians question all the visiting Earthlings about their favorite foods. When the humans arrive in their quarters on Alkalinia, they find themselves served delicious VR versions of the food to make sure they eat the venom hidden inside.
• In The Camp Half-Blood Series, when demigods eat ambrosia and nectar, it tastes like whatever their favorite food is. When Percy eats it, it tastes like his mom's blue chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven and the chips melting.
• Played for Drama in Coraline. When Coraline goes back to the Other World after her parents are kidnapped, the Other Mother (who kidnapped them in the first place) prepares her an absolutely delicious breakfast of her favorite foods, specifically saying "Cheese omelet—your favorite." Coraline hates the fact that it tastes so good, because she's learned by now that the Other Mother is Faux Affably Evil and only interested in feeding on her love.
• Used as a surprisingly useful superpower in the novel Playing for Keeps. Colette, a restaurant chef, has the superhuman ability to inherently know a person's favorite food, and the best way to prepare it, the instant she meets them. With some creative application, she becomes a Living Lie Detector: since her gift works on who a person truly is, even the most skilled Master of Disguise or shapeshifter can't hide themselves from her.
• The Brotherhood of the Conch: In The Conch Bearer, the evil sorcerer Surabhanu, disguised as a kindly old man, lures Anand into an empty train car and serves him a lavish feast of all his favorite foods, which are enchanted to make him easier to mind control. Nisha sees through the deception and warns Anand before he eats anything.
• When My Heart Joins the Thousand: Alvie's mama served her her favorite foods, mac 'n' cheese and chicken nuggets, the evening she tried to kill her in a Murder-Suicide.
• In The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly, Brona serves Charlie cinnamon rolls, his favorite food, which his mom used to make before her depression got severe. Unfortunately, although they smell delicious, they're completely flavorless like all the other food in the Asylum.
• To get the titular Raven Consort in Raven of the Inner Palace to hear his request after she kicks him out of her abode, the emperor bribes her with baozi with red bean paste and lotus seeds, her favorite food. It works, setting off the plot of the entire series.
• The Syrena Legacy: On Emma's first day of school after Chloe's death, her mom makes garbage eggs, her favorite food. Unfortunately, Emma is Too Unhappy to Be Hungry and just pushes them around on her plate.
• In Ana on the Edge, Ana decides to thank her mom for everything she's done for her by getting up early to make her her favorite chive pancakes, only to find that they're out of chives and eggs. She and her mom go to the grocery store that afternoon to buy ingredients.

Live-Action TV

• Star Trek: The Original Series. In "Charlie X", Yeoman Rand is thrown when a smitten Charlie gives her a bottle of her favorite perfume, despite the fact that there's no perfume of that type on the ship and he would have no way of knowing what perfume she liked.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation. In "Journey's End", Captain Picard tries to put himself on a better footing with Admiral Nechayev by preparing her favourite canapes, having consulted her Number Two on her tastes. This actually has some effect, because she realises that Picard is trying to make her feel welcome for once.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Weyoun saying to Bashir "Do you remember the first time I brought you scones?" in that magnificent voice of his, after delivering said scones on a tray (with jam and tea, just the way Bashir likes it!) to a flustered and freaked out Bashir.
  • Bashir seems to fall victim (such as it is) to this trope a lot. When he appeals to Tain to save Garak's life in "The Wire," the venerable Cardassian spymaster offers him some red leaf tea, nothing that it's his favorite—which freaks Julian out a bit because they've never met.
• Star Trek: Voyager.
  • Q tries this on Captain Janeway to little effect. More successful is Inspector Kashyk in "Counterpoint", who offers Janeway a mug of black coffee (her Must Have Caffeine addiction is a Running Gag).
  • Despite the Running Gag of Neelix being a Cordon Bleugh Chef, he does carry out this trope successfully on occasion, such as Jimbalian fudge cake for Kes, pizza for Tom Paris and banana pancakes for B'Elanna. His efforts to spice up Tuvok's plomeek soup is, however, not appreciated.
• Star Trek: Enterprise
  • The crew go out of their way to find out Reed's favorite food (pineapple) so they can make him a cake for his birthday. This is the A-plot, since the difficulty of it highlights how reclusive Reed is. Also, eh, some aliens attack at one point.
  • Trip Tucker's favorite appears to be Pecan Pie.
• The A-Team episode "Timber!"
  Samantha Lawrence: [to Face] It's a long way to L.A., so I brought you some sandwiches. Your favorite kind.
• Alias episode "Succession"
  Ushek San'ko: [brings Sark wine] Chateau Pétrus, 1982... your favorite, no?
• Parodied twice in Dinosaurs.
  • Episode "Career Opportunities"
    Fran Sinclair: You just need to overcome your senses, and I made you your favorite dish: food.
  • Episode "Charlene's Flat World"
    Fran Sinclair: I'm so glad you're back, I made your favorite for dinner.
    Charlene Sinclair: You knew we were coming back tonight?
    Fran Sinclair: I made it every night.
    Earl: Yep, 80 consecutive nights of meatloaf, and nobody prayed for your safe return home more than me.
• Chuck, where Morgan completely screws up a night between Ellie and Captain Awesome by giving Awesome all the wrong things when Awesome knew what Ellie liked all along but was tricked into paranoia and subsequently wrong-guess territory by Morgan's longstanding stalkerness about his fiance.
• On The Big Bang Theory, part of Amy's experiment to seduce Sheldon involved serving him is favorite beverage (Strawberry Quik) and his favorite meal (spaghetti with cut-up hot dogs).
• Babylon 5 has Garibaldi's late father, who had the usual trouble (fictional) men have with expressing feelings, but cooked bagna cauda on his son's birthday. Now Garibaldi makes it himself as a tribute to him. The quest for ingredients is a minor B (well, C) plot in one second season episode, A Distant Star. A third season episode, A Late Delivery From Avalon, had Garibaldi once again trying to secure the ingredients for bagna cauda, this time despite a trade embargo and an obstructive mailman who refuses to hand the ingredients over until Garibaldi pays the extra fees for the more difficult delivery.
• Happens quite often in The Prisoner (1967), since the overlords at The Village know nearly everything about the Prisoner and can accomodate him almost immediately. They know how he takes his tea, what foods he likes, and so on, and regularly give him exactly that.
  • In one episode, they change his favourite food to mess with his mind.
  • In "The Chimes of Big Ben," he refuses to tell the new Number Two whether he takes sugar with his tea, so Number Two looks it up in his file ("Does not take sugar"). He then puts three lumps of sugar into the tea himself just to give Number Two the finger.
  • The original Number Two, when welcoming Number Six, tries to give him his favourite (bacon, eggs, and tea), but isn't entirely sure of the details. The trope is ultimately subverted when it turns out that Number Six doesn't especially care how the eggs are prepared or what kind of tea it is as long as it has lemon.
• On The Office (US), it is established in the pilot episode that Jim is head over heels for Pam, and that's one of the only reasons he works at Dunder Mifflin. "If I left," he explains, "what would I do with all this useless information in my head? You know? Tonnage price of manila folders? Um, Pam's favorite flavor of yogurt, which is mixed berry."
• Supernatural:
  • Zachariah offers Dean his favorite burgers and preferred brand of beer when he is at the mercy of the angels and supposedly about to die to destroy Lucifer.
  • Later, when Adam is in the exact same position, Zachariah has the same plate of burgers and beer, and remarks that the Winchesters are really quite predictable.
  • Dean is trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine where he has an adoring steady girlfriend. At one point she produces his favourite brand of beer, and Dean comments on how well she knows him. The moment is cruelly subverted after Dean escapes the fantasy and finds his 'perfect girlfriend' smiling back at him from a magazine ad for that brand.
• Gossip Girl. When Chuck decides to stop running from his feelings and to tell Blair that he loves her, he goes around Europe buying her favorite stockings, macaroons and whatnot from her favorite places. He's also been seen to bring her her favorite champagne and her favorite flowers on occasion.
• In one episode of The Odd Couple, Felix tries to butter up Oscar by making his favorite meal — lasagna and french fries.
• When Frankie visits her Mother on the Mother's Day episode of The Middle she asks her Mom to make a grilled cheese sandwich like she used to — with potato chips in the middle.
• A minor Running Gag in early episodes of Stargate Atlantis was Major Sheppard being bribed with turkey sandwiches.
• Starsky & Hutch: In the episode "Lady Blue," which revolves around the murder of Starsky's ex-girlfriend, Hutch makes him his favorite meal as comfort food, having called Starsky's mother up to get the recipe.
• Subverted on Heroes. Volume Five Big Bad Samuel tries this on his longtime crush Vanessa, but his information is about 30 years out of date.
• Most of the main characters in Eureka favor "Vincepressos", and Vince sometimes displays a preternatural sense of when they need one.
• CSI: NY:
  • Subverted in "Clean Sweep" when a reporter offers Mac a blueberry danish and coffee the way he likes it. This was based on what Flack told her, so naturally Mac is allergic to blueberries and had given up caffeine a year earlier.
  • Played straight in "The Real McCoy" when Adam brings his father, who is now suffering from Alzheimer's, a chocolate malt. Mr. Ross takes a big sip and says, "My favorite! How'd you know?" and Adam replies, "Lucky guess."
• Forever: After Henry is murdered in "The Frustrating Thing About Psychopaths" Abe makes up a batch of blueberry scones, Henry's favorite, because he thought a little comfort food would be in order.
• Friends:
  • When Joey's sister plans to tell him that she's pregnant, Rachel makes sure that she gets him his favorite sandwich to calm him down.
  • Subverted when Rachel is pregnant and Ross brings her her favorite tuna cucumber sandwich. However, she gets sick because of it and it's her favorite no longer.
• In Destinos, Raquel's mother brings pumpkin turnovers, a treat Raquel was quite partial to as a child, as a peace offering after a blowup between mother and daughter.
• The Brady Bunch, in a scene which made Susan Olsen furious because it makes Cindy seem like a complete doofus:
  Cindy: How come I always get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?
  Carol: Because they're you love them.
  Cindy: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting.
• Veronica Mars: Subverted. Logan's "loving" father Aaron makes him a birthday dinner of his favorite food. Except it is his sister's favorite and Logan is deathly allergic to it. Aaron responds by getting mad at Logan for not appreciating his efforts.
• On Mad About You, Jamie finds Paul making breakfast. "It's your favorite!" "French toast?!?!" "No." "Waffles?" "No! It's Eggs Benedict!" "My favorite!!!" It was cute.
• In the Once Upon a Time episode "The Thing You Love Most", Graham brings Emma hot chocolate with cinnamon in it. She immediately wonders how he knew about her favorite drink. He didn't; Henry ordered it for her. He was able to guess that she liked it because it's also his favorite (a preference that runs in the family, as Snow White likes it too).
• Murdoch Mysteries, "Murdoch and the Cursed Caves": Margaret Brackenreid is a good cook and she cooks a special feast with all her husband's favourites for their anniversary. They have been separated for some time so she wants to make it special.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Terry loooves yogurt, and his squad knows about it, so they occasionally try to bribe him with extra good yogurt, special flavours, a yogurt vending machine etc.
• Person of Interest. Harold Finch drinks Sencha green tea, something that John Reese picks up on early in the series. In the episode "RAM", the previous "Man in the Suit" Rick Dillinger is shown bringing Finch black chai, showing he doesn't have Reese's eye for detail.

Puppet Shows

• At the end of one episode of Allegra's Window, Allegra's mother calls her and her brother, Rondo, down for dinner, saying she made their favorite: spaghetti.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: In Sara Saturday's first appearance on the show, King Friday requests to have a meeting with her. She thanks him for allowing her to stay at the castle when she was recently frightened by a "red monster" (which had turned out to be a blinking red flashlight). To show her appreciation, Sara gives him a cup custard that she's made especially for him, because King Friday's chef, Edgar Cooke, had told her that cup custard is one of his favorite things. King Friday is touched by her kind gesture and, when it's time for her to leave, asks her to stay longer. She gladly accepts.

Theatre

• In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie's favorite variety of Wonka Bar is the Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, so when his birthday comes around his family makes sure he gets one — after all, it's the only chocolate the (literally) poor kid gets to enjoy all year! Willy Wonka made sure to put the final Golden Ticket inside one so Charlie would find it.

Video Games

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Max Gallactica says he always drinks a glass of milk before performing to not be nervous, so for the final day in court, everybody has left "a dairy worth of milk" for him.
• EarthBound: Ness's special attack is named after his favorite thing (the player inputs the name.) When calling his mother to prevent homesickness, Ness's mom often mentions his favorite meal (also input by the player.)
  • Hilarity can easily ensue, especially in Mother 3, where it gets used more frequently.
    Claus: Ooh, lunch, lunch! Babies!!
• In an optional scene in Chrono Trigger, Marle tries to reconcile with her father by bringing him his favorite food. (It doesn't work.) She was lied to as to what it was!
• Inverted in one optional ending in Chrono Cross: the player can ask Harle for "your specialty" when she asks what he wants for dinner.
• Every character in Star Ocean and Star Ocean: The Second Story has a favorite food which you can cook, which restores all their HP and MP. They generally make sense and/or poke fun at the character. Brooding Joshua likes the high-class escargot, perky Millie and Precis are partial to sugar-filled fruit parfait and chocolate crepes, and cat-people Perisie and Noel like tuna. Manly Cius and Iria, and boozer Opera, like various alcoholic drinks. Main character Claude likes good old steak.
• In one Ensemble Stars! comic, someone asks Adonis what his favourite food is. Souma listens on in blushing anticipation - could it be that Adonis likes his cooking most of all? However, Adonis actually responds "Anpan." After a brief shock, the final panel shows Souma furiously kneading bread dough - if anpan is the food he likes the most, Souma will try to make his absolute favourite anpan!
• In Final Fantasy XIV, one of Gilgamesh's attacks during the Battle on the Big Bridge is to turn his opponents into toads for his faithful feathered friend Enkidu to feast on.
  Gilgamesh: Go on, Enkidu! It's toad — your favorite!
• Choice of the Vampire: If the Player Character moves in the right social circles, he can welcome Jesse the vampire to town by referring him to a well-appointed brothel — his favourite source of blood. The gesture improves your Relationship Value considerably.

Web Comics

• Girl Genius: when Gil expresses his appreciation for Wooster, Wooster says of course he does, Wooster knows how he likes his tea.
• Parry And Carney: Santa Claus (who is actually Charles Darwin in disguise) brings Carney the Carnotaurus a "gigantic anthropomorphous ape" as a Christmas present, to which Carney responds by gasping, "My favorite! How did you know?" and promptly biting the ape's head off.
• In Draconia Chronicles, Shie brings her little sister Riah, traumatized into muteness by the loss of her eye, a lamprey, cooked burnt-outside-raw-inside in an effort to coax some words out of her.
• The Sluggy Freelance strip that introduces Torg and Riff's Christmas Beer Exchange. Actually, Riff got Torg his favorite hot sauce that year...

Web Original

• In A Day in Dracula's Life, Death makes pot roast for Dracula when Castlevania returns.
  Dracula: Oh, boy! POT ROAST! That just so happens to be the feast in which I have the most delight in feasting upon!

Western Animation

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Iroh is seriously injured in an encounter with Azula and wakes up to find that Zuko has been caring for him. Zuko also made tea, saying, "I hope I made it the way you like it." Turns out, it wasn't the way Iroh liked it, but Iroh drinks it anyway! (Well, the first cup anyway—the second one goes out the window while Zuko isn't looking).
• In Batman: The Animated Series, Baby Doll takes an interest in Killer Croc, (wrongly) believing they are kindred spirits because of their physical deformities. On the day of his scheduled execution, she pays him a visit. He initially isn't interested until she starts tossing him raw chickens, which happen to be his favorite food.
• Batman Beyond:
  • An episode has Zeta bringing a sandwich from Terry to an imprisoned Max, monotonously calling it "your fav."
  • Subverted in "Out of the Past", Talia al Ghul brings Bruce Wayne a gourmet meal they had on a past date, only for the elderly Bruce to point out that at his age he can't eat food like that (Talia is still young thanks to the Lazarus Pit).
• The Fairly OddParents! episode "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker":
  Denzel Crocker: Stupid two bit room! Stupid two bit van! Stupid two bit life!
  Mrs. Crocker: Denzel! Would you like your stupid two bit dessert? I made your stupid two bit favorite!
• The Flumps: Double subverted in the episode "Something Different". Perkin asks Mother what's for supper. She tells them, "Your favorite: vegetable soup." Perkin, Posie, and Pootle protest that they had it yesterday and the day before, to which Mother replies that she always makes it because they always ask for it. Later, after hearing the hoot of an owl, they decide to ask Mother what owls eat. On learning that owls live on worms and spiders, Perkin, Posie, and Pootle decide that vegetable soup is again their favorite.
• In The Legend of Korra when Opal decides she wants to go to the Air Temple to train as an airbender, her farewell dinner consists of her favorite meal: raw kale in veggie wraps.
• In Legion Of Superheroes, when Clark Kent returned to his own time, Martha Kent called him to come down to dinner saying she made his favorite, chicken and dumplings.
• In the Ren & Stimpy cartoon "A Yard Too Far", Stimpy spots Ren's favorite food, hog jowls, lying on a windowsill.
• Scooby-Doo: "Come on, Shaggy! Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?!"
• In Superman: The Animated Series, the adult Lana Lang still remembers Clark's favourite drink, root beer float.
• In Young Justice, the West family, and later Artemis, have at one point fixed Wally his favorite: everything.

---