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Sci-fi and fantasy elements of pop culture – movies, TV shows, books, etc – distinguish themselves from contemporary times through weirdness. People wear weird clothes, pilot weird vehicles, live in weird houses and interact with weird races. The weirder a common function of society is, the odder the landscape.

And what’s weirder than weird food?

“Fictional food” is up there with “alien sex” for producing the squirmiest reactions. We’re very self-conscious about how we look when we eat and what our choice of food says about us. And we defend our tastes very fiercely, to the point that treating the weird as normal freaks us out. The way we react to fictional food tells us about the fictional society being depicted, as well as … about ourselves.

Overthinkers – what is the Best Fictional Food?

(And stick around ’till the end for a verdict from our MYSTERY CELEBRITY JUDGE!)

An army, Napoleon observed, marches on its stomach.  The Overthinking It army, on the other hand, rolls along on cylinders of fresh flour tortilla, stuffed to bursting with a delicious melange of beans, rice, meat, salsa, pico-de-gallo, sour cream, and who knows what else.  Today’s Think Tank will attempt to answers perhaps the most important question facing our society today:  what should I get in my burrito?

We are very pleased this week to welcome a very special celebrity judge!*  Based on your feedback, we may invite** more celebrity judges in the future, so sound off in the comments and let us know, y’hear?

* Note:  no real celebrities were harmed, or involved, in the creation of this blog post.

** i.e. impersonate.

Barbacoa (shredded, spicy, barbeque beef)—Lee

My mouth is literally watering as I write this.

I was unaware of barbacoa until Chipotle introduced it as a menu item a few years ago. Barbacoa blows away the other meat competition (chicken, pork, beef) for two important reasons: 1) it’s packed with crazy spices (chipotle adobo, cumin, cloves, garlic and oregano) and 2) it’s tender and moist beyond my ability to describe in written words. Notice the pool of grease juice in which the meat resides. That’s concentrated awesomeness.

NOM NOM NOM NOM

As if I needed any additional proof of barbacoa’s superiority, I brought the statistics with me. Read ‘em and weep. For a single 5 oz serving, barbacoa packs the following:

Calories: 285

Calories From Fat: 143

Fat: 16g

Barbacoa is the leading meat on all three statistics.

But perhaps more important than barbacoa’s standalone prowess is how its abundantly flowing grease juice affects other ingredients. Just like a superstar athlete who makes his/her teammates play at a higher level, barbacoa enhances the other ingredients with its flavor and moistness. It kicks the entire burrito up a notch. Barbacoa. It’s the LeBron James of burrito ingredients.

If there is one word I don’t want associated with my food, it’s “choke.” Choking is the absolute worst-case scenario when it comes to eating (with the possible exception of poison, which is why I’m on the fence about “boysenberry”).

“Artichoke” compounds the problem by including the word “art.” It makes it sound like this vegetable is so freaking good at choking people, it raises choking to an artform. And it even looks the part, with those sinister flared petals.

So… better names for the artichoke?