movies @lemm.ee Thorned_Rose @fedia.io 1mo ago

What is the food eaten in Close Encounters during the infamous mashed potato scene?

My kids haven't seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind yet and I thought it would be a fun surprise to recreate the meal eaten in the mashed potato scene and watch the movie with the movie dinner. (I can't wait to see if they put two and two together when that scene comes up lol.)

Obviously there's mashed potato. And I can see sweet corn. Kids are drinking milk. But I can't tell what the little meat things are. I assumed they were crumbed rissoles but having not been raised or lived in the US, I'm unsure if I'm missing a common protein that was eaten at dinner around the late 1970s. Meatloaf has also been suggested but in my country we never have mini meatloaves that I've seen so I'm unsure how accurate that is.

EDIT: Middle bottom, you can see a partially eaten meat thing which looks pink inside:

I also can't tell what is in the bowls beside Roy and his sons - to the top left of Roy's plate, right hand side of Toby and top right of Brad's plate. Maybe Ronnie and Silvia have one of these bowls too but I can't tell. You can see Brad eat out of his bowl at one point and it looks like something pale (I wondered coleslaw or macaroni).

EDIT: Screenshot of side

Anyway, anyone know or have an idea of what the little meat things are and what are in the side bowls?

All Things Food and Cooking @sh.itjust.works DominusOfMegadeus @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

What is the food eaten in Close Encounters during the infamous mashed potato scene?

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45 comments

It’s Fish Cakes. 100%. We got fed these all the time as kids in the 80’s. I honestly haven’t seen them in the supermarket or even thought about them for years. I don’t even know if anyone makes them anymore. You could certainly make them from scratch pretty easily though. And they would almost certainly beat out the store-bought ones I was raised on.

EDIT: it’s These: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishcake
- Fish cakes sounds likely, but I remember eating lots of pre-prepared Chicken Cordon Bleu that looked a lot like that.
  
  I might concede if they had been any good.
  
  I need more Ash gifs in my life.
- Looks like Walmart sells them lol
  
  Those are not fish cakes. Those are crab cakes. You can tell by the words “Crab Cakes” on the package.
  
  Crab is fish for exceptional values of fish.
  
  Crabs is bugs. As is shrimps.
  
  I'll put money on the guess that these are made from polluck. "Crab Style Fish Cakes"
- Are fish cakes normally pink inside in the US? Here fish cakes are white inside.
  
  Your images aren’t showing, so I can’t see what you mean
  
  Sorry, I usually use Fedia.io but for some reason it's not federating very well. Here's the one where you can see a partially eaten one and it's pink inside.
  
  I grabbed this from the 4K director's cut. Maybe it's just variations in lighting.
  
  Also, we had that exact same white PYREX serving dish and brown bowl the potatoes are in, lol!
  
  Here's a couple more:

45 comments