Food seems to make its way into every single great comedy show, and Friends is no different, with the show having some fantastic moments involving food over the course of its 10-season run, from practical jokes by using food to simply the mention of it creating a running gag.
With Monica being a chef by trade, there were always going to be some references to food within the show, although it isn’t always through her character that these iconic moments were created, as other characters have been involved with food jokes as well.
Updated on June 26th, by Matthew Wilkinson: While food isn’t ever the main part of this series, it’s something that pops up frequently due to the fact Friends is all about regular life. Because of that, there are great balances between normal moments with food from meals to hilarious cooking mistakes that everyone can understand.
But with the show being as iconic as it is, many of the food moments have ended up standing out. Whether it’s people wanting to recreate them or eat something that their favorite character has tried, the show brought some memorable culinary scenes.
15 Floor Cheesecake
Cheesecake might not seem like an amazing piece of food, but when it’s shown how the cheesecake is actually consumed then it makes sense why fans remember it so vividly, with this being an incredible moment. Chandler and Rachel end up fighting over cheesecake in the hallway of the apartment building, which results in the dessert being spilled all over the dirty floor.
While it might seem disgusting, the pair then decides to make the best of the situation and just eat it from the floor. However, while that is funny, the best moment here is when Joey arrives and pulls out a fork already in his jacket and starts eating from the floor with them as if it was all totally normal.
14 Mockolate
From a piece of food that only has a small part to play in an episode of Friends to one that dominates, with mockolate being one of the most iconic pieces of food from the show, with this coming from Monica finding a job where she creates recipes for a food using a faux chocolate substitute, called mockolate.
Despite looking like chocolate and being branded as ‘better than chocolate,’ the taste is nothing like it, as everyone who tastes it winds up stating that it is horrible, with both Rachel and Phoebe hating the food, with Phoebe claiming “this is what evil must taste like.” Monica eventually winds up escaping from the job, although she does almost end up with another horrendous food task of ‘Fishtachios,’ although that is never fully explored within the show, unfortunately.
13 Crab Cakes
Being stood up is never a nice experience, but for Ross, that is something that happens within the show. He is in the restaurant waiting for someone to meet him, but that never ends up happening, turning it into an awful disaster of a date that was one of the worst of the whole series.
However, all is not lost, because Ross is given some crab cakes on the house to cheer him up. It’s food that he loves and in hearing the moment, Joey makes a bid to get the same treatment.
12 Gallon Of Milk
Throughout the course of Friends, Joey does some ridiculous things and when it comes to food and drink, he is more than confident to take on the world, trying to take on as much as possible as if he is on an episode of Man vs Food, and one example is when he goes to war with a gallon of milk.
This actually comes around from Phoebe attempting to help fix Joey’s acting résumé due to the fact that it was full of fibs and lies that he made up to make himself sound better, with one example being that he claimed he could do horseback riding. Another of his ‘skills’ is that he can drink a gallon of milk in just 10 seconds, which he claims that he can do. Of course, that leads to a hilarious bit of physical comedy as Joey goes on to do just that, pouring milk all over the place in a hilarious moment from the show.
11 Nestle Toulouse
This is a rare example of how Friends brought in a branded food item to crate a superb gag on the show featuring Phoebe and her family’s incredibly secretive cookie recipe, which she claims had been passed down from several generations of her family.
However, while Phoebe is happy to talk up these classic cookies, when Monica breaks things down she quickly realizes that it is just the Toll House recipe from the famous Nestle brand of chocolate chips that her family has been using. Phoebe claims that her grandmother got the recipe from her own grandmother, Nestle Toulouse, which is when the punchline kicks in and the fans work out what has happened.
10 Monica’s Candy
Candy is something that everybody can enjoy, and that’s why it is no surprise that it gets brought up within Friends. Monica makes her own and kindly puts it out on her apartment door for other people to take for free in order to try.
However, this candy ends up being so popular that she gets overwhelmed and the orders become far too frequent for her. But while it makes Monica stress, it does help make it very memorable because audiences wonder what it would taste like.
9 Friend Stuff With Cheese
Anytime Friends uses lots of makeup and prosthetics, it’s clear something hilarious is going to happen, and while it is normally Monicagets that treatment, for this particular food example it is Joey (who absolutely loves food) that ends up being changed.
This is from a vision where Monica and Joey end up married, which leads to her simply feeding him as Joey calls her his “little chef.” Monica tells Joey she is providing him with his favorite and shows the table which is just loaded with friend stuff with cheese!
8 Thanksgiving Yams
Who could forget the incredible Thanksgiving episode of Friends which involved Brad Pitt being a guest star on the show as an old friend of Ross, who was supposed to be eating healthy until he sees his arch-enemy, Rachel Green.
This is when the secrets start to spill as the ‘rumor’ is revealed, creating some incredibly tense and hilarious moments which leads to Pitt’s character losing his cool and caving into the carbohydrates, demanding that Monica fills his plates with yams, in a hilarious moment from the show.
7 Wax
Wax isn’t something that most people would advise to be eaten, but in Friends, that’s exactly what happens. Desperate times call for desperate measures when the majority of the group end up stuck in Monica’s room while Ross and Rachel have a huge argument in the apartment.
Because they don’t want to disturb them, they all stay inside the bedroom, but the situation lasts for hours and leads to them being hungry. With no real food available, they turn to eat wax, which is a hilarious way of breaking up the tension from the arguing.
6 Jam Crackers
Anytime Joey comes out with something that he thinks is pure genius always relates to comedy gold, with his proud exclamation that he created “Jam crackers,” being a perfect example of that, which spills from the fact that Monica ends up making tons of jam.
While she ends up going a little crazy with her output, it isn’t something Joey complains about as he eats as much as he can get his hands on. What makes it hilarious is the fact Joey has a dislocated shoulder in this episode, and the jam cheers him up like a little kid as he dips in the graham crackers.
5 Engagement Ring Lasagna
Another great example of Monica cooking something far too much is when she makes lasagna. While the dish is a great one, she makes way too many in an attempt to get it right. However, it all goes wrong when Rachel ends up leaving her engagement ring inside it by accident.
This creates a hilarious moment with Joey and Chandler having to pull the meal apart in order to locate the jewelry and that leads to an iconic scene that people remember, and in turn, makes this an iconic food moment.
4 Turkey à la Head
This is one of the most famous images from the history of the entire show, with Monica standing with an uncooked turkey on her head, which has gone on to become something that has been merchandised by the show in order to show just how popular it has become.
Within this Thanksgiving episode, Monica tries to have a romantic moment with Chandler and uses the turkey on her head as a method of cheering him up, which is a sweet, and slightly strange moment. However, Joey doesn’t understand what is happening and ends up screaming and running away as if he has seen a ghost.
3 Sugar-O’s
The popular moment where Jon Lovitz makes a cameo in Friends leads to a hilarious moment involving food. He appears initially to interview Monica about a job as a chef, however, when he appears to sample her food, he actually has the munchies.
This leads to him not having an appetite for Monica’s fine-dining experience, and instead, he leaps into her cupboards for something to cure his need for food. That just so happens to be where the Sugar-O’s appear.
2 Moist Maker
The moist maker is something that is never actually shown on Friends, so fans have absolutely no idea what it looks like. But it is the incredible story that comes from this famous sandwich that makes fans remember it so much.
Friends is well known for fantastic holiday episodes, and this sandwich comes from that with the ‘moist maker’ being a beloved turkey sandwich that is created by Monica using the leftovers from the Thanksgiving turkey, which Ross always has the next day. However, this time around Ross turns up to work to find out that someone has eaten his sandwich, which includes a gravy-soaked bread layer in the middle, which leads to him completely losing his cool in an amazing moment from the show.
1 Feet Trifle
Monica is the trained chef out of the group, but that doesn’t stop the rest of the gang from attempting to cook every now and then, with Rachel even getting in the cooking mix in “The One Where Ross Got High.” This takes place in season six of Friends as Monica hosts Thanksgiving dinner.
She allows Rachel to cook the dessert, however, the pages of the cookbook end up being stuck together which leads her to make a dish that is half of a trifle, and half of a shepherd’s pie. This leads to an unbelievably funny moment where the group eats the dessert, not wanting to hurt her feelings as they eat through the beef and trifle, leading to Ross hilariously telling Joey that it, “tastes like feet.”
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