History Main / FoodChains

If you should ever happen to find yourself in a MetaphysicalPlace or another locale not entirely bound to this Earth, especially the realm of TheFairFolk, under no circumstances should you eat or drink any of the native comestibles while you're there; the specific results vary, but you'll inevitably wish you hadn't.

* Eating the food brings on Involuntary Shapeshifting onto the one who consume the food, oftentimes it doubles as a skewed KarmicTransformation.

* ''SpiritedAway'' has both an example and an inversion: The trope is played straight with Chihiro's parents being turned into pigs by the food at the abandoned restaurant, but Chihiro herself has to eat some of the spirit realm's food or else she'll fade out of existence.
** The difference here, as this troper sees it, is that her parents ate food that did not belong to them and transformed into pigs. Chihiro, on the other hand, ate food that was offered to her.

* Invoked in TheDresdenFiles, when Harry tells Billy to not eat or drink anything. Apparently, however, you ''can'' [[CrowningMomentOfFunny use the ice cold water to bring your libido to its senses.]]

* In ''MidnightRiot'' by Ben Aaronovitch, the protagonist goes to interview Mother Thames and is told not to eat or drink anything while he's there or he'll fall under her power. She keeps trying to feed him, but seems to view it more as a game than anything, and is in no way insulted when he refuses.

* In ''Midnight Riot'' by Ben Aaronovitch, the protagonist goes to interview Mother Thames and is told not to eat or drink anything while he's there or he'll fall under her power. She keeps trying to feed him, but seems to view it more as a game than anything, and is in no way insulted when he refuses.

* In ''[=~Pan's Labyrinth~=]'', Ophelia is told not to eat any food while taking the second challenge. [[TooDumbToLive She eats a few bits of fruit]] off the table, and wakes the Pale Man.

** This troper remembers a literature class he took in college in which this poem was discussed. I assure you that it has nothing to do with actual food, [[FreudWasRight the poem is about sex and sexual repression in Victorian society]].
*** Be that as it may, she was unable to eat human food, hence this trope. Take it literally for once.

This goes double for [[GoldilocksAndTheMinesOfMoria food that clearly belongs to someone else]].

* ''Goblin Market'' by Christina Rossetti has the 'tastes like dust' variant.

** No, most of them decide to continue with Caspian to the Ends of the World, and only one ends up remaining on the island until they return, and not very happily.

* The ForbiddenFruit from TheBible, which trapped Adam and Eve (and all their descendants) in sin.

** And the ForbiddenFruit, which makes you immortal, but when eaten without Aslan's permission, makes your existence miserable.

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* Mentioned in {{Percy Jackson and the Olympians}}, when Percy is warned by Zoe Nightshade not to eat anything from the garden of Hersperides.

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* Subverted in ''[[{{Narnia}} The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]''. The heroes find a feast in the middle of some ruins on an island near the end of the world, along with three sleeping men who have obviously been sleeping there for a long time. The heroes, reasonably enough, assume that the men's enchanted sleep was caused by eating the food; because the men are the missing lords Caspian was searching for, they also resolve to sit at the feast all night in case that could break the enchantment. Turns out, the men [[spoiler:never ate any of the food; their sleep was punishment for attempted violence in a holy place]]. The owner of the island and his daughter tell them how to break the enchanted sleep and invites them to winter on the island, which most of them end up doing, with no ill consequences.

** Don't forget the Turkish Delight in ''[[{{Narnia}} The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe]]''.

* Subverted in ''[[{{Narnia}} The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]''. The heroes find a feast in the middle of some ruins on an island near the end of the world, along with three sleeping men who have obviously been sleeping there for a long time. The heroes, reasonably enough, assume that the men's enchanted sleep was caused by eating the food; because the men are the missing lords Caspian was searching for, they also resolve to sit at the feast all night in case that could break the enchantment. Turns out, the men [[spoiler:never ate any of the food; their sleep was punishment for attempted violence in a holy place]]. The owner of the island and his daughter tell them how to break the enchanted sleep and invites them to winter on the island, which most of them end up doing, with no ill consequences.

* Another variant occurs in an early [[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] episode, wherein Kai Opaka (I think) journeyed to a planet where she was killed, but microbes in the atmosphere brought her back to life and healed her. The catch is that, in order to continue living, she can never leave that planet.

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* Eating the food brings on {{Involuntary Shapeshifting}} onto the one who consume the food, oftentimes it doubles as a skewed {{Karmic Transformation}}