The Mashed Potato Ice Cream Trick That Keeps Sets Running
What if I told you that Hollywood food stylists are little short of magicians—only instead of pulling rabbits out of hats, they’re turning piles of mashed potatoes into ice cream sundaes? This isn’t some random internet myth – it’s one of the most famous tricks in the movie business. Did you know that scoops of mashed potatoes are dyed in different colors and used in ice cream ads because they don’t melt during long shoots under hot studio lights? Think about it: real ice cream would be a puddle of sticky mess within minutes under those blazing movie lights. With all the lights used during the filming of an ad, it’s no surprise that advertisers don’t use real scoops of ice cream in an ice cream ad. The heat from the lights and the time it takes to film would inevitably melt the product within minutes. Meanwhile, your carefully crafted mashed potato “ice cream” can sit there looking perfect for hours, waiting patiently for the director to yell “cut!”
When Glue Becomes Your Best Friend in the Kitchen
Here’s something that’ll make you look at cereal commercials differently forever: Cereal ads often use glue instead of milk because it doesn’t make the cereal soggy. I know, I know – it sounds absolutely disgusting. But think about the alternative. Milk makes the cereal go soggy on camera pretty quickly. The solution? Dilute some white (PVC) glue with water to give the appearance of milk and hey presto, that cereal still looks puffed to perfection. According to Mental Floss, advertisers use white glue as a substitute for milk. Yogurt or shampoo have also been known to do the trick. The whole point is making food that can survive multiple takes, camera angles, and lighting changes without turning into a soggy disaster. Your bowl of “Cheerios” might look amazing on TV, but you definitely don’t want to take a spoonful at home.
The Art of Making Burgers Look Like They Actually Came From Heaven
Ever wondered why the burgers in McDonald’s commercials look like they were assembled by angels while yours looks like it fell down a flight of stairs? Getting one to stack up the way the photographer needs it to can be achieved by cardboard and toothpicks, strategically placed like hidden scaffolding. The oozing cheese is created by using a glue gun to melt the bits on show. Cheap and cheerful sliced cheese is much better than a fine, mature cheddar. But wait, there’s more! Instead, food stylists take a blowtorch to a burger patty and finish it off with a little shoe polish, or more palate-pleasing Marmite (yeast extract spread), for depth of colour where needed. Not forgetting a slick of sunflower oil applied with a tiny paintbrush for an appealing sheen. Yes, you read that right – shoe polish on your “food.” You’ve never purchased a burger bun with all the sesame seeds in absolutely the right place so why do they always look perfect in photos? The stylist will select the best bun, possibly out of 30 examples.
Steam That’s Actually Smoke and Other Hot Food Illusions
That appetizing steam rising from the soup in TV commercials? Likewise, “steam” rising from “hot” food is often smoke from a hidden cigarette, match or candle, and ice cubes will really be deftly sculpted chunks of acrylic. One of the most infamous tricks of the trade that is used to make a meal appear hot. A damp ball of cotton wool is microwaved then submerged within the food. Wet tampons have been known to retain the steam for longer. The food styling world has gotten creative with making things look piping hot when they’re actually stone cold. It’s important for that bowl of soup, or baked potatoes to look hot. Professional food stylists will go to incredible lengths to create that perfect “just off the stove” look, even if it means hiding smoking cotton balls inside your mashed potatoes.
The Real Food Revolution That’s Changing Hollywood
While food stylists are well-versed in the old-school swap tricks—using a pint of white glue to impersonate a glass of milk, for example—those are being phased out. Now, directors want actors to interact with their food, and high-definition camera lenses have made the fake stuff much more obvious. Plastic food props only appear in the background of scenes today, where they’re less visible and susceptible to scrutiny. “People assume the food is plastic or fake,” says JoDee Hayes, food stylist on ABC’s dramedy series “A Million Little Things.” “The food is definitely real — I’m not playing around with anything that can’t be eaten.” This shift toward authentic food means actors are actually eating what you see on screen, which creates a whole new set of challenges for food stylists. JP: I make vast amounts of food for each scene—sometimes enough to repeat each plate for 15-20 resets since the plates have to be replenished/replaced for each take. Surprisingly, most of the food gets eaten, or at least nibbled on and coughed into a napkin or spit into a bowl when the camera isn’t looking.
The Safety Substitute Game That Keeps Actors From Getting Sick
Food safety on movie sets is no joke, and that’s where creative substitutions become a lifesaver. Another reason food stylists swap out on-camera food so much is because of safety concerns—hot and cold foods need to be kept at certain temperatures that may not be practical on-set. Sushi-grade tuna may be replaced with watermelon, for example, because the fish spoils so easily. For Amazon Video’s thriller series “Homecoming,” stylist Melissa McSorley created chicken entrails for a scene where one character’s boss is shown cleaning a chicken and tossing the guts to his employee. But real innards would spoil, so she created some with sausage casing, scrambled eggs and dyed Asian noodles. Think of it like edible special effects – everything has to look completely real while being totally safe for the actors to handle and consume repeatedly. JP: Their dietary restrictions are the second most important thing I have to consider, especially lately. The food I am making often has to be vegan and/or gluten-free. It’s very challenging when most of the times the script calls for meat or cake.
The Million-Dollar Toolkit Behind Every Perfect Plate
“Think about your kitchen: all of your mixing bowls and utensils … I have that times 10 in my kit,” Anderson says. She also has a torch on hand for quick-cooking burgers and cold spray for extending the life of ice cream. Other stylists may have glycerin for adding shine or Kitchen Bouquet sauce for adding color. Food stylists don’t just cook – they’re part magician, part chemist, and part artist. Now the most important tools in my toolkit range from Q-tips for getting rid of pesky smudges and crumbs to surgical tweezers to move even the smallest piece of herb or pepper flake. I also use everyday kitchen tools like spoons and tongs to get the look we want, and nothing beats a clean pair of gloves and manipulating the food with your hands. Some food stylists even travel with their own mobile kitchens. “It has a lift gate and everything’s on wheels, so I can take everything out and have a kitchen in the middle of the desert, if I want,” she says. Inside, she has a full commercial kitchen: a six-burner stove, refrigerator, microwave, grill, freezer, prep tables, storage, TV, and a generator.
The Crazy Eating Marathon Actors Never Talk About
Picture this: you’re filming a dinner scene, and the director needs 24 takes to get it perfect. “For two people eating a plate of pasta and a salad and dinner roll, we might go through four dozen rolls and 10 pounds of pasta,” says McSorley. “If you see a plate being served and they take a bite, you have to be prepared to replace that same dish in front of them maybe 24 times.” Actor Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) explains: When you consume something in a scene, you learn to be very circumspect because you may end up having to consume that amount 30 times. When you’re young, you think, “Man, it would be really cool if I smoke in this scene.” Then, on take 18, you’re green and vomiting because you’ve been smoking for 90 minutes. That’s why many productions use “spit buckets” – exactly what they sound like. They can use something called Spit Bucket. Actors chew, act, and then discretely spit out the food between takes.
The Surprisingly Big Business of Making Food Look Good
Food styling has become a legitimate career path with surprisingly decent pay. The average Food Stylist salary in the United States is $77,237 as of February 01, 2025, but the salary range typically falls between $69,089 and $87,103. There are currently 64,591 Food Stylists in the United States. That is expected to grow 14% from 2018 to 2028. Now that movies and TV shows are frequently filmed all over the world, instead of just on sets in Los Angeles, food stylists can be based anywhere. There is a concentration of stylists who live in Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, because that’s where many shows are now filmed. Labor laws also often require production crews to hire locally, so residing outside of L.A. can be a real advantage. The demand for skilled food stylists has exploded alongside the growth of cooking shows, food content on social media, and streaming services producing more content than ever before.
Behind the Scenes of TV’s Biggest Food Moments
Some of the most memorable food scenes in television required incredible coordination and creativity. McSorley said the scene took nine days to shoot and in that time they went through more than 50 turkeys. There were full, perfect turkeys, turkeys staged just for carving, turkeys that fell on the floor, turkeys that the dog came too close to, and even turkeys in the oven. McSorley had to find them, buy them, store them and cook them. “There were a lot of turkeys,” she said, shaking her head. On the first Harry Potter movie, Chris Columbus insisted on using all real food for the Great Hall. This did not go well, as they had to replace food whenever it spoiled, essentially forcing them to churn out the Hogwarts feast over and over again. In subsequent films, much of the Great Hall food was cast out of resin. Food stylists have also had to create incredibly bizarre concoctions for fantasy shows, like making believable alien cuisine or creating period-accurate meals for historical dramas.
What started as simple tricks to keep food from melting under hot lights has evolved into a sophisticated art form that combines culinary skills, chemistry knowledge, and pure creative genius. The next time you watch a movie or TV show, remember that behind every perfect bite and steaming bowl is a food stylist who probably spent hours making mashed potatoes look like ice cream or turning watermelon into sushi. Makes you wonder what other everyday “realities” on screen are actually elaborate illusions, doesn’t it?
