A character who has been established as a foreigner to the work's setting (sometimes even a literal Alien) tries out the local food, and finds out a dish they particularly like. Oftentimes, it'll be the first thing they try and they'll have little interest in trying anything else.
Compare Alien Catnip and Mundane Object Amazement. A Sub-Trope of Klingons Love Shakespeare. Sister trope to Trademark Favorite Food.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Death Note
- Ryuk loved apples. He knew apples in his own world, but claimed the Earth ones had far superior taste. At one point he brings a Shinigami Realm apple to Earth and offers it to Misa, who complains that it tastes like sand.
- Sidoh develops a love of chocolate from Mello.
- A Shinigami in a stand-alone sequel story who tried and failed to copy Ryuk by giving a Death Note to another human indulges in bananas.
- In Chapter 109, the bonus chapter included in Volume 13 "How To Read", the Shinigami King is revealed to have adopted apples as well as his favorite. During the run of the series, he puts in a rule that prevents shinigami from getting a new Death Note if they lose theirs (after seeing what hijinks Ryuk gets into). By the time Chapter 109 rolls around, he'll give them out in exchange for two apples.
- When Nanami travels back in time five hundred years in Kamisama Kiss she takes with her some modern food, including a bunch of canned peaches. Akura-Ou, the local demonic warlord, becomes addicted to them.
- In To Love Ru, alien assassin and bioweapon Konjiki no Yami doesn't need food for sustenance, but she develops fondness for taiyaki after Rito (her target at the time) offered her some as a show of good faith. Later chapters show that it's effectively the only thing she eats during her stay on Earth, and she's a very familiar face to the vendors who sell it.
Comic Books
- Mickey Mouse Comic Universe has Eega Beeva, aka. Pittisborum Psercy Pystachi Pseter Psersimmon Plummer-Push, who eats moth balls like sweets.
- The Martian Manhunter's love of Oreo Expy's called Chocos (sometimes they're really Oreos, but usually it's the Brand X). At times this love is treated like an addiction.
- The Skrull Xavin in Runaways claims that the Caramel Marchiatto is Earth's greatest creation.
Film
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial loved Reese's Pieces (M&Ms in the novelization).
- In Meet Joe Black, Death develops an intense love of peanut butter.
- The Prawns in District 9 love cat food. There's a pretty good chance that this is because it has a narcotic effect on them, but this is never confirmed.
- Prot from K-PAX really enjoys Earth's "produce" (usually fruit, at least onscreen). In one memorable scene he devours a banana, peel and all.
- In the 1995 Made-for-TV Movie version of The Invaders (1967), the eponymous aliens liked very fatty foods and smoking cigarettes - it was actually good for them.
- The titular character of Aquamarine added salt to everything she ate, but that probably has to do with her being a mermaid and all and used to salt water. The actress who played her, Sara Paxton, was actually pouring lots and lots of sugar to mimic the look without actually having to eat all that salt.
- In Elf, Buddy, a human raised by Christmas elves, grew up on a diet of sugary sweets, so when he goes to the human world, he starts putting maple syrup on everything.
Literature
- Just about every patron of the titular Restaurant to Another World has their own favorite Earth dish that becomes their nickname among their peers.
- In the Star Wars short story compilation Tales from Jabba's Palace, one of the stories focuses on a particularly stupid Gamorrean Guard who shows a fondness for eating packing foam peanuts.
- Animorphs:
- Andalites eat through their hooves, and tend to become Sense Freaks when they morph human and get taste buds for the first time. Ax will eat practically anything, but his cinnamon buns are his favorite by far.
- In another book, a female Andalite goes nuts for jelly beans.
- After the war is over, Andalites start going on taste tours on Earth where they take on human form and visit food courts. They eventually end up trading some valuable scientific knowledge and technology...in exchange for having a donut shop opened up on their homeworld.
- In Wallace MacFarlane's "How Shall We Conquer?" (New Dimensions 3, ed. by Silverberg, 1973) Human Aliens make First Contact by inviting a single Earth family to live on their world for a year, then send a family of their own to live on Earth. The young alien girl, Elivizan, develops a fondness for cherry caramel sodas.
Live-Action Television
- Saturday Night Live's Coneheads are fond of beer, drinking a six-pack at a time. In The Movie they like Subway Sandwiches.
- ALF eats cats, and his desire to eat the family housecat is a running gag.
- Farscape: After the crew spend some time on Earth, Rigal becomes hooked on both sugar (which he says is illegal in most of the galaxy) and popcorn.
- The alien kids on Roswell are big fans of Tabasco sauce, even putting it on cake.
- The Observers on Fringe (wherever they're from) have been seen eating excessively spicy foods, from drinking straight hot sauce, to dumping an entire shaker of pepper on a sandwich. It's later revealed that they need to do this if they want to taste their food at all.
- Teyla and popcorn on Stargate Atlantis.
- Vir becomes very fond of Shirley Temples when he is driven to drink in Babylon 5. For reference, a Shirley Temple (named for the child actress) consists of lime juice, grenadine, Ginger Ale and a cherry to garnish, and is notably non-alcoholic.
- Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation likes prune juice. According to him, it is "a warrior's drink".
- In an episode of The Golden Girls, Stan's cousin visits from Czechoslovakia, and complains about everything in America, except for Slushies, which she loves to the point that she even likes the brain freeze when she drinks too fast.
- Doctor Who: The Doctor rather likes jelly babies in a lot of his incarnations. He's probably more often seen offering them to other people (often in random, inappropriate situations) than eating them himself, though. Later he grows very fond of fish fingers and custard.
- Supergirl:
- J'onn J'onzz shares his comic book counterpart's love of Chocos.
- Kara declares that, seeing as she's been to twelve planets, saying her foster mother's chocolate pecan pie is "the best dessert in the galaxy" is Not Hyperbole.
Video Games
- In DC Universe Online, Mera (being from Atlantis) enjoys banana splits (after being comically offended by clam chowder).
- In Ensemble Stars!, Arabian transfer student Adonis quickly takes a liking to anpan.
- In Puyo Puyo Tetris, Tee hails from a different dimension than the main Puyo Puyo cast. He quickly takes a liking to sweets once he's introduced to them by Lemres, who's surprised to hear such foods don't exist in his Tetris universe. In Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, Tee's first mate Ess also develops a thing for sweets.
Web Original
- ELF (a clear parody of ALF) from Nicky 510 likes to eat soap. He initially mistook it for food, but even finding out that it was not, failed to stop him from eating it at every opportunity.
- Space Beasts
- The Bird-like alien Falco (not to be confused with THAT Falco) isn't especially fond of Earth foods (In one episode, he tries maple syrup and ends up wiping his tongue on the floor). But he does seem to be extremely fond of salmon, especially while it's still live and squirming, which makes sense considering he's an evolved alien heron.
- On a similar note Zander (who is a member of the same species as Falco) is also fond of Earth's fish, but he also seems to be very fond of apples — this may be because his mate Matoaka gave him an apple as a present the second time they met. This simple gesture seemed to have great emotional significance for Zander.
- Special mention goes to The God of the Plot, who goes absolutely nuts for curry — seriously it's one of the few things that calm him down when he is mad about disruptions in the plot.
Western Animation
- Roger from American Dad! seems fond of Pecan Sandies. (And booze.)
Roger: These Chocodiles, oh my God.
- Teen Titans: Starfire is very fond of mustard, going so far as to drink it.
