Savoring the funny taste of culinary chaos

As I get ready for Thanksgiving, it occurs to me that one of the most unifying things about that holiday is that just about everyone has a least favorite food that gets served every year.

For some, it might be a vegetable(okay, for a lot of people, it's a vegetable), others may dislike such staples as cranberry sauce, stuffing or a particular flavor of pie. What we need to remember is that your foul dish is likely another person's fabulous treat that they wait all year for.

So, in the flavor profile of this upcoming culinary occasion, I thought it would be fun to look at a few moments in pop culture where off the menu items were featured and not always appreciated. Not all of these are Thanksgiving related but the laughs that come with them are tasty indeed:

STINKY SWEET TREATS: While the ladies on Golden Girls did love their cheesecake, there were many times that they had to snack on dishes that one could literally turn their nose up to.

A memorable late night snack from Rose actually woke the whole household, with her foul smelling krispie squares that actually tasted wonderful as long as you knew the proper way to eat them:

TURKEY NOT FOR ME: A classic episode of Everybody Loves Raymond had mother Marie replacing her beloved traditional Thanksgiving feast with healthier fare, which included making a tofu turkey.

While the fellas in the family were less than thrilled with this flavorless fowl, it was one of the few times that Marie and daughter in law Debra were on the same page, cooking wise that is:

A BLUE SOUP BIRTHDAY: Understandably, the British do not have Thanksgiving yet they are not strangers to festive meals gone awry. One of the best sequences in the movie Bridget Jones' Diary making a royal wreck of a birthday dinner that she's planning to serve her best friends.

Fortunately for her, Mark Darcy shows up and stays as both rescue chef and guest, giving a very good first impression to Bridget's pals. In fact, you could say that the terrible dinner, that consisted of blue soup, omelette and a dessert that resembled orange marmalade in more ways than one, was truly a wonderful celebration. Only true friends(and true loves) would stick around for a miserable meal like that:

A MOUTHFUL OF MARZIPAN: Given the legendary appetites of Lorelai and Rory on Gilmore Girls , you wouldn't think that there was any edible item on earth that either one of them could resist. Yet at times, both mother and daughter could be picky eaters.

A prime example is the one time that Richard and Emily gave them specially made marzipan as a Friday Night Dinner dessert. While Rory was willing to give it a chance, Lorelai considered such a dubious sweet to be on the level of Velveeta(although she did take a bunny shaped piece). In the end, Rory followed suit as her first bite became her last but she wasn't the last one to slip some into a napkin for future disposal:

On that note, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving(I'll be back here on Cyber Monday) and to remind all of us that Thanksgiving is not really about what you do or don't eat. The real meaning of the holiday is to share a special time with loved ones as a celebration of the good things that we have in life.

Granted, it might be hard to do that during these troubling times but it is when the state of things are in flux that we need to take a moment to embrace our blessings the most. Oh, and don't forget to pass the potatoes or the popcorn, whichever is on your table that night: