My Halloween costume involves food. How can I make this work?
October 17, 2017 7:05 AM Subscribe
My halloween costume involves food. Is there some kind of sealant or shellac I can treat the food with, such that it won't go bad or fall apart?
My Halloween costume involves food items -- specifically, a half-made sandwich. Think bread, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. These food items will be stuck to a piece of styrofoam on the side of the costume. Is there something I can use to treat the food, such that it won't fall apart or go bad? I feel like there's a whole variety of things people use when preparing food for television commercials. Maybe something like that would work?
I do realize that, even if treated, the food won't last forever. Worst case scenario, I make a backup sandwich. But each sandwich has to at least make it through one night of revelry.
My Halloween costume involves food items -- specifically, a half-made sandwich. Think bread, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. These food items will be stuck to a piece of styrofoam on the side of the costume. Is there something I can use to treat the food, such that it won't fall apart or go bad? I feel like there's a whole variety of things people use when preparing food for television commercials. Maybe something like that would work?
I do realize that, even if treated, the food won't last forever. Worst case scenario, I make a backup sandwich. But each sandwich has to at least make it through one night of revelry.
I agree that this might be impossible (and kind of revolting). If you're not interested in making a mock sandwich, you can buy mock food made from felt from places like etsy.
posted by glitter at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by glitter at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2017
Best answer: All sorts of faux food available...
posted by jim in austin at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yeah, to get even more specific, lots of faux sandwiches!
posted by clone boulevard at 7:13 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by clone boulevard at 7:13 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Could you vacuum seal it or wrap it in some of that shrink wrap used for insulating windows? You could do all the ingredients individually or just do the whole sandwich. I think doing it individually might look better.
posted by bondcliff at 7:17 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by bondcliff at 7:17 AM on October 17, 2017
Best answer: Unless the point of the food on the costume is to entice animals to jump on you or attract flies, I agree with all of the above to just go with entirely fake food.
posted by jozxyqk at 7:17 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by jozxyqk at 7:17 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Nthing "make fake food".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:20 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:20 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you all -- I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.
I would appreciate any and all recommendations for where to buy fake food. My only requirement is they'd have to be able to ship it out soon, since Halloween is fast approaching.
posted by panama joe at 7:23 AM on October 17, 2017
I would appreciate any and all recommendations for where to buy fake food. My only requirement is they'd have to be able to ship it out soon, since Halloween is fast approaching.
posted by panama joe at 7:23 AM on October 17, 2017
People do this for props or to make food for display, but you have to dry it out first which may not work well with the items you are proposing to build a costume out of. The basic process is dehydrate food and then varnish. See if the following link works for you.
posted by edbles at 7:25 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by edbles at 7:25 AM on October 17, 2017
Oh come on OP didn't ask for fake food.
I think this can be done with real food and not be gross.
Get a thick sturdy whole grain bread, use a solid green like kale or collard, skip the tomato, use a rather hard cheese. None of that will "go bad" in the course of 6 hours of revelry, you could probably add in a cucumber too.
Do the pro thing and make mockups early. Honestly I don't think I'd even bother with shellac etc, but if you think it's necessary after experimentation, I'd just go with clear coat matte spray products, rustoleum has a good one. And if you need extra adhesiveness for any part, keep it simple and use flour paste.
Also: you gotta tell me what this costume is :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:28 AM on October 17, 2017
I think this can be done with real food and not be gross.
Get a thick sturdy whole grain bread, use a solid green like kale or collard, skip the tomato, use a rather hard cheese. None of that will "go bad" in the course of 6 hours of revelry, you could probably add in a cucumber too.
Do the pro thing and make mockups early. Honestly I don't think I'd even bother with shellac etc, but if you think it's necessary after experimentation, I'd just go with clear coat matte spray products, rustoleum has a good one. And if you need extra adhesiveness for any part, keep it simple and use flour paste.
Also: you gotta tell me what this costume is :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:28 AM on October 17, 2017
I would appreciate any and all recommendations for where to buy fake food. My only requirement is they'd have to be able to ship it out soon, since Halloween is fast approaching.
Unless you are in a contest, I think the fact that this is a costume absolves you of this having to be 100% realistic. So you can totally DIY this: cut out lettuce, tomato and cheese shapes from red, green, and yellow felt, and use magic markers for detailing; then take a couple of kitchen sponges, spray-paint them beige (and maybe a darker brown on the edges if you want to make things look more "crust" like, you could even use brown sharpie for that) and slap the felt food in between 'em. Slap it on a paper plate, glue it to your costume, bam. This would be lighter-weight than real food, and you wouldn't be worried about things starting to smell funny as the night goes on.
Oh come on OP didn't ask for fake food.
The OP has also come around to the notion of real food being problematic for other reasons they hadn't considered.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Unless you are in a contest, I think the fact that this is a costume absolves you of this having to be 100% realistic. So you can totally DIY this: cut out lettuce, tomato and cheese shapes from red, green, and yellow felt, and use magic markers for detailing; then take a couple of kitchen sponges, spray-paint them beige (and maybe a darker brown on the edges if you want to make things look more "crust" like, you could even use brown sharpie for that) and slap the felt food in between 'em. Slap it on a paper plate, glue it to your costume, bam. This would be lighter-weight than real food, and you wouldn't be worried about things starting to smell funny as the night goes on.
Oh come on OP didn't ask for fake food.
The OP has also come around to the notion of real food being problematic for other reasons they hadn't considered.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
If you're OK with less realistic, try a toy store. My nieces have this one.
posted by ITheCosmos at 8:15 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ITheCosmos at 8:15 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can find a lot of fake 'play' food at any decent toystore. Admittedly the quality is sometimes not great, but it might do.
Alternatively, make your own. Cut some off-white soft/squishy foam into whatever bread shape you want (bun? sandwich slices? baguette?) then lightly spray-paint brown for a crust. Use more foam or felt for the fillings --- pinkish felt for ham slices, for instance.
posted by easily confused at 8:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Alternatively, make your own. Cut some off-white soft/squishy foam into whatever bread shape you want (bun? sandwich slices? baguette?) then lightly spray-paint brown for a crust. Use more foam or felt for the fillings --- pinkish felt for ham slices, for instance.
posted by easily confused at 8:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can totally do this with real food. I build dumb stuff for halloween every year, this is absolutely doable.
The key is, I think, the food will have a hard time sticking to each other. Glue each item to a piece of thicker paper or cardboard, then assemble so it's bread - cardboard - cheese - cardboard - red paper (tomato will not work, I don't think) - cardboard - lettuce - cardboard - bread.
Use thick cut bread because the glue will sort of soak in. Stale bread might be better, actually. On the day you wear the costume, so it's nice and fresh-looking, get an attractive piece of lettuce and a kraft single. If you only unwrap it half-way, the glue will adhere to the plastic better than the cheese itself. Elmer's spray glue, available at hardware stores (and possibly Target, I think I got mine at Target actually) works on lettuce. My boyfriend went as Cabbage Head last year! I tried a lot of glues to make that work.
If it works with the costume, maybe a toothpick through the sandwich? You'd have to poke/punch holes in the cardboard, but it would help keep it all together.
Alternately, obviously it depends on the costume, but put half a sandwich in a sandwich bag and attach that to the styrofoam. You can even let it stick out a bit, so the baggie is less visible.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
The key is, I think, the food will have a hard time sticking to each other. Glue each item to a piece of thicker paper or cardboard, then assemble so it's bread - cardboard - cheese - cardboard - red paper (tomato will not work, I don't think) - cardboard - lettuce - cardboard - bread.
Use thick cut bread because the glue will sort of soak in. Stale bread might be better, actually. On the day you wear the costume, so it's nice and fresh-looking, get an attractive piece of lettuce and a kraft single. If you only unwrap it half-way, the glue will adhere to the plastic better than the cheese itself. Elmer's spray glue, available at hardware stores (and possibly Target, I think I got mine at Target actually) works on lettuce. My boyfriend went as Cabbage Head last year! I tried a lot of glues to make that work.
If it works with the costume, maybe a toothpick through the sandwich? You'd have to poke/punch holes in the cardboard, but it would help keep it all together.
Alternately, obviously it depends on the costume, but put half a sandwich in a sandwich bag and attach that to the styrofoam. You can even let it stick out a bit, so the baggie is less visible.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
IKEA has some decent, fairly realistic play food, or at least the veggies aren't bad. It's made of felt. Bonus, you could give it to a kid (if you know a small one) after Halloween.
posted by john_snow at 8:34 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by john_snow at 8:34 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Could you just get access to a foodsaver and vacuum pack them? It'd probably squish them beyond deliciousness but not beyond recognizability. Plus the plastic would probably give a better surface for glue than shellacked bread.
posted by solotoro at 9:01 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by solotoro at 9:01 AM on October 17, 2017
If you are gonna use real food, then glue/adhesive is going to be your next obstacle. You can glue any dry-ish ingredients, but I think the wetter stuff like tomatoes, lunchmeat, cucumbers and possibly the cheese are going to be problematic to get stuck to another surface. Maybe silicone will work? I'd try a test run before launching full force into this.
posted by sarajane at 9:47 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by sarajane at 9:47 AM on October 17, 2017
Best answer: The amount of work and constant surveillance to use real food isn't worth it in my opinion. You'll be thinking about it the enire time and it will likely get gross.
If you have Amazon prime then you're in luck though. They have a few options with 2 day shipping.
posted by Crystalinne at 10:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you have Amazon prime then you're in luck though. They have a few options with 2 day shipping.
posted by Crystalinne at 10:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you decide the Amazon fake sandwiches are too expensive, I'd recommend starting with real bread - probably sourdough - and drying it out for a day or two, and then making the fillings out of felt or plastic. You might need to replace the bread part each day, but wouldn't have to deal with actual soggy veggies and meat gaining bacteria.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:33 AM on October 17, 2017
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:33 AM on October 17, 2017
Best answer: Am I the only one dying to know what on earth this costume is???
Anyway, in your shoes I would meticulously crochet faux sandwich fixings. A different approach would be a combination of felt, embroidery, and general sewing - if you have a crafty friend this would be an awesome small but detailed project that you could pay them for.
Cheese is easiest. Yellow felt cut to size, with holes cut out if you want it to be Swiss, but next to other fixings it will read as cheese without the holes.
For bread, use beige felt and brown bias tape. Cut four bread shapes out of the beige felt and sew brown bias tape around the edges of two. Turn inside out and sew the other felt piece on to the other side of the bias tape, leaving a side open. Stuff each slice with polyfill or folded batting and hand stitch the opening. To "toast" the bread, use diluted brown acrylic paint and a seasponge to stipple toastiness on one side.
Lettuce starts with green cotton and white felt. Cut out a rib for the lettuce from the white felt and attach securely to a large teardrop shape of green fabric. Take white yarn and embroider veins coming from the central rib. Then with green thread, use running stitches in arcs around the curved edge of the teardrop. Every few inches, gently tug the stitches to gather the fabric up into ripples and ruffles. Make softer larger bumps close to the veins and smaller more tight ripples around the edge. This will make the texture of lettuce. Use a spray on fabric stiffener to lock it in.
Tomatoes are red felt circles, take one and cut out the triangles where seeds are and sandwich that to another whole circle. Inside the little spaces, glue or embroider small shiny orange beads for the seeds. To make it look wet, you can find high gloss acrylic medium in art stores, paint that onto the felt (do a test piece first). You might be able to find a shiny red fabric for the top circle, too.
For deli meat slices, use fabric in the appropriate pink or beige. Cut in big rounded slices and whip stitch around the edges in brown thread. Use diluted acrylic to sponge pinkness or brownness where you want it. Then fold and drape like you would meat on a sandwich and with fabric glue or basting stitches lock those folds into place.
All of these are meticulous but small projects that add up into a pretty impressive whole, and are forgiving in terms of messiness and error (much like an actual sandwich).
posted by Mizu at 4:03 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Anyway, in your shoes I would meticulously crochet faux sandwich fixings. A different approach would be a combination of felt, embroidery, and general sewing - if you have a crafty friend this would be an awesome small but detailed project that you could pay them for.
Cheese is easiest. Yellow felt cut to size, with holes cut out if you want it to be Swiss, but next to other fixings it will read as cheese without the holes.
For bread, use beige felt and brown bias tape. Cut four bread shapes out of the beige felt and sew brown bias tape around the edges of two. Turn inside out and sew the other felt piece on to the other side of the bias tape, leaving a side open. Stuff each slice with polyfill or folded batting and hand stitch the opening. To "toast" the bread, use diluted brown acrylic paint and a seasponge to stipple toastiness on one side.
Lettuce starts with green cotton and white felt. Cut out a rib for the lettuce from the white felt and attach securely to a large teardrop shape of green fabric. Take white yarn and embroider veins coming from the central rib. Then with green thread, use running stitches in arcs around the curved edge of the teardrop. Every few inches, gently tug the stitches to gather the fabric up into ripples and ruffles. Make softer larger bumps close to the veins and smaller more tight ripples around the edge. This will make the texture of lettuce. Use a spray on fabric stiffener to lock it in.
Tomatoes are red felt circles, take one and cut out the triangles where seeds are and sandwich that to another whole circle. Inside the little spaces, glue or embroider small shiny orange beads for the seeds. To make it look wet, you can find high gloss acrylic medium in art stores, paint that onto the felt (do a test piece first). You might be able to find a shiny red fabric for the top circle, too.
For deli meat slices, use fabric in the appropriate pink or beige. Cut in big rounded slices and whip stitch around the edges in brown thread. Use diluted acrylic to sponge pinkness or brownness where you want it. Then fold and drape like you would meat on a sandwich and with fabric glue or basting stitches lock those folds into place.
All of these are meticulous but small projects that add up into a pretty impressive whole, and are forgiving in terms of messiness and error (much like an actual sandwich).
posted by Mizu at 4:03 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Hey all! Thanks for all the good advice. I went ahead and bought some very nice fake food from Amazon. As for my costume ... I can't reveal it before Halloween! Check back after the 31st and you'll have your answer :)
posted by panama joe at 9:42 AM on October 20, 2017
posted by panama joe at 9:42 AM on October 20, 2017
Response by poster: Okay, I guess I can reveal my costume now.
I went as Fyre Festival.
Front of costume
Back of costume
Not everybody got it, but those who got it loved it.
Thank you all for the help!
posted by panama joe at 7:49 AM on October 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
I went as Fyre Festival.
Front of costume
Back of costume
Not everybody got it, but those who got it loved it.
Thank you all for the help!
posted by panama joe at 7:49 AM on October 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
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