Food Glorious Food - A Broadway Musical Meal

I must be hungry today, as all I can seem to think about are showtunes that make references to food. It started out with "Food, Glorious Food" from Oliver! and escalated into a full-on party in my head of songs that celebrate eating. This got me thinking: could I assemble an entire meal using references to songs from musicals. Won't you join me for dinner and see what I came up with? 

Drinks before dinner is where we should start and what better way to enjoy our libations than with "We'll Take a Glass Together" from Grand Hotel? Whether you like Sherry, Campari, Scotch Whiskey or Absinthe, this Robert Wright and George Forrest showtune promises a fully stocked bar and great company to start your dinner off right. Join us at the bar for a cognac, perhaps! 

I like to offer my guests a nice bowl of greens to start the eating, so I will draw from Song & Dance's "Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad" to make sure you get your appropriate roughage. I swear to you, though, that the salad will most-certainly not be "splashing its dressing." A little Guys & Dolls reference there... oh, skip it. If that doesn’t work for you, I can always offer “Greens, greens and nothing but greens. Parsley, peppers, cabbages and celery, asparagus and watercress and fiddle ferns and lettuce.” I might be able to throw in some rutabaga and arugula, but I am told that beans, although they are special, are off-limits. In the end, this would probably make a bizarre salad, but I aim to please.

Every dinner table needs a basket of bread for the symbolic act of breaking bread together. What better use of the song "Bread" from Stephen Schwartz's The Baker's Wife to underline the importance of carbohydrates in our diet. Let's face it, after dessert, it is our favorite part of the meal. 

Rodgers and Hammerstein may have composed one of their corniest songs when they wrote "Chop Suey" for Flower Drum Song, but this dish, which features a little of this and a little of that, was a perfect metaphor for the melting pot that is America. Asian-American fusion (before we called it that) usually made of chopped meat, eggs, vegetables, and often pasta, what a perfect addition for our Broadway musical meal. It will make a nice course before the main one. 

We have three choices as our main course for tonight's dinner: Obviously, we could go with the traditional sit down dinner and make it "Turkey Lurkey Time" as this Promises, Promises song ... promises (groan) a "fowl" tasting combination of turkey and goose. If you are more of a beef and potatoes type person, there is always "That's the Way It Happens" from Me & Juliet, a mouthwatering serving of French fried potatoes and a T-Bone steak. And if a vegetarian option is what you require, there's a "special at Stouffers" that offers a "$1.90 vegetable plate." The How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying song "Been a Long Day" even says we can get a deal: "Service for two is $3.58." Not bad. I'll order in, if you like? 

You knew it was coming, so insert the moans and groans now as I serve up "Vanilla Ice Cream" for our dessert at this Broadway meal. Perhaps serving it over a pie from Waitress would be more to your liking, but Amalia Balash of She Loves Me knows just how this treat can stand on its own. Bock and Harnick didn't mind singing its praises, so who am I to judge?  

Tea and Coffee anyone? A good host makes sure a fine dinner concludes with tea or coffee to round out the meal. The question is, so we steal from No, No, Nanette's "Tea for Two" or 70, Girls, 70's "Coffee In a Cardboard Cup?" Why settle for one lump of sugar when you can just as easily enjoy two? A Vincent Youmans ditty or a Frank Loesser tune are both excellent for digestion. 

So there you have it, folks, a dinner made for Broadway fans. Grab your knife and fork because it’s “Supper, super pepper upper, supper supper suppertime!”