the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.

November 9, 2018 8:29 AM

It has been 15 years since Buddy The Elf smiled and twirled and sang his way to becoming a modern Christmas classic. In honor of Elf’s anniversary, a Chicago restaurant has put its saccharine train wreck—the syrup- and candy-topped spaghetti breakfast Buddy created in the movie [YouTube]—on the menu. [...] the pasta is topped with strawberry and raspberry sauces, marshmallows, s’more Pop-Tarts, M&Ms, Oreos, Fruity Pebbles, coconut flakes, syrup, and chocolate sauce.” [via: The Takeout]
posted by Fizz (24 comments total)

... squad
posted by Countess Elena at 8:33 AM on November 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Nooooooo! But my Uncle Stanley used to amuse me and my brother by telling us he was going to make soup with soda as broth and candy as meat and vegetables. Luckily he never made it a reality.
posted by mermayd at 8:48 AM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Now that I think about it, a little of this might not be bad because of the spaghetti. A lot of chocolate icebox pies in the South have crusts without sugar, and that keeps them from being too sweet.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are plenty of places where you can get pancakes topped pretty much like Buddy does the spaghetti. I don't see why spaghetti instead of gluey diner pancakes would be any worse.

On the other hand, those photos make it look lazy and bad and they should feel bad about serving it.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Now that I think about it, a little of this might not be bad because of the spaghetti.

I think a tamer version of this with just coconut shaving and small pieces of dark chocolate combined with the spaghetti would be super yummy.
posted by Fizz at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Binging With Babish tried it in 2016. I think it's even in his cookbook.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

On the other hand, those photos make it look lazy and bad and they should feel bad about serving it.

Seriously. They just broke up a poptart and dumped it on there? That doesn't fit with the pasta at all. Not the flavor, but the texture/size of the pieces. Grind that thing up more so you can eat it with the pasta or leave it off the plate. Maybe a single small part as a centerpiece to the pasta that was to be eaten separately might work, but as shown it looks like they didn't even try to make this anything but a gimmick.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:29 AM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Now do a plate of beans.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:37 AM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

To be fair, just breaking up a pop tart and dumping it on the pasta is pretty true to the movie. I just hope they aren't mixing it with their hands.
posted by potch at 9:41 AM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

no, i reject this summarily
posted by poffin boffin at 9:43 AM on November 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

To be fair, just breaking up a pop tart and dumping it on the pasta is pretty true to the movie. I just hope they aren't mixing it with their hands.

Sure, but at that point they would do better to just bring out the ingredients in separate containers with the pasta and let the person buying it mix their own. I expect a restaurant, even one indulging in a silly gimmick, to put some effort into making the thing edible or even just vaguely presentable as an actual dish.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:46 AM on November 9, 2018

I tried dessert pasta once and oh god it was a hard pass. This looks gross to me, but then again, I have a store of withering glances I reserve for people who put an excess of thematically incoherent candy toppings on frozen yogurt, so what do I know
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:51 AM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

There are plenty of places where you can get pancakes topped pretty much like Buddy does the spaghetti.

And by "plenty of places" we understand that you mean IHOP. That's the first place that I drank coffee, when I was a senior in high school, and in retrospect my subsequent energy surge may have had as much to do with the chocolate-chip pancakes.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Now I'm trying to imagine what a dish called Throne of Lies would look like.
posted by praemunire at 10:33 AM on November 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

Related to the movie, but not to the dish -

A couple of years ago we had a Christmas gathering of friends and people wanted to watch holiday movies after dinner. We also decided we wanted to play drinking games along with the movies. Everyone was supposed to come up with a rule. I had never seen Elf, but was encouraged to just make something up.

I chose "Drink on Pointy Shoes"

That was a... rowdy movie viewing. My friends who had seen it really should have vetoed that rule.
posted by flaterik at 11:03 AM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Gracious. Just take my foot at the door, why don’t you.
posted by 41swans at 11:08 AM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

We also decided we wanted to play drinking games along with the movies

Let me tell you about the drinking game we play during the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Drink when:
- Santa is mean
- Rudolph's nose glows and makes that awful sound
- Anybody's googly eyes go all the way around
- You hear jingle bells
- Christmas is saved

Everybody gets one challenge flag (a fun-sized candy wrapped in a red cocktail napkin, secured with a twist tie or rubber band) to throw if they disagree with the drink / don't drink call. Somebody will throw one of these on a googly-eye call, I guarantee it.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:29 AM on November 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

Disguting as this sounds, I admit to have actually eaten BP dessert pizza, more than once, and therefore have no right to a seat on this Gustation Bandwagon.
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:08 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gross, but it gave me a million dollar idea:
I'm going to start collecting all the chewed wads of bubblegum I find stuck to stair railings and the undersides of park benches, re-package them, and sell them under the product name "Buddy the Elf's ABC Gum."
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

ahhh this thread finally taught me what virtue-signalling is

(Dessert spaghetti is nasty. Not a single one of you grown-ass adults would eat this stuff sober, come on.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:33 PM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

A small amount of real maple syrup drizzled over the sauce would probably be quite tasty. I've seriously considered trying it on several occasions.

Other than that, no thanks.

Love the movie, though.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:45 PM on November 9, 2018

I admit to have actually eaten BP dessert pizza, more than once,

Hmm, I wonder at what point it stops being pizza and becomes pie?
posted by Fizz at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2018

It has been 15 years since Buddy The Elf smiled and twirled and sang his way to becoming a modern Christmas classic.

A nearby theatre company is presenting Elf: The Musical as its Christmas show. I mentioned as much to Mrs. Biscuit, as she loved the movie. Unfortunately, due to background noise and a less-than-scrupulous distinction between vowel sounds on my part, she wondered why I reckoned she* would be interested in ALF: The Musical.

*Or indeed anyone.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:15 PM on November 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

I only watched Elf when The Littlest Hobo hit the right age for it a few years ago. I was most astonished by the fact that it was Zooey Deschanel playing the exact opposite of the type she'd been cast to, while Will Farrell played an almost literal Manic Pixie Dream Boy. That was the crack in my façade, and I watched the whole film through with her after that and found myself unable to breathe because after the "best cup of coffee in the world" jokes I immediately imagined Buddy coming on stage in the middle of the Sweeny Todd number "Best Pies In London" to congratulate them.

I would totally go see Alf: The Musical.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:07 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]