Quick links: Figaro’s Fish | Princess Cleo’s Cake | Geppetto’s Chicken | Stromboli’s French Bread | Pleasure Island Pie | Verdict
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One of the saddest parts of Pinocchio is that Geppetto made a huge mouthwatering feast that no one got to eat!

The Fish Figaro Failed to Eat

So as it goes, Pinocchio gets turned into a living puppet that’s a little less creepy than RL Stine’s Night of the Living Dummy. Geppetto is ecstatic to have a son, so he takes it slow and kinda gets him familiar with the world around him, right? Wrong. The next day, he gives him a juicy apple and sends him off to school, just in time to be picked up by a sly fox and his cat sidekick.

Luckily, Jiminy shows up in time to tell Pinocchio that he should not be an actor and should go to school (sounds exactly like a conversation I had with my parents in high school). However, right after Jiminy tells Pinocchio not to go with the fox and cat, he turns face and goes with them. Talk about a block head. Fun fact—the cat (Gideon) that was with the fox was originally to be voiced by the famous voice-actor Mel Blanc, who also did Bugs Bunny and almost all the other Looney Toons. But all of his lines were cut, except for a couple hiccups.

Anyway, Geppetto is home cooking a fantastic feast to present to Pinocchio after his first day of school. I wonder how a puppet’s digestive system even works.

We got some chicken, some fruit, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a fish all cooked up for Figaro the cat. Figaro is about to go all in and rip apart that delicious fish, but Geppetto tells Figaro to wait until he finds Pinocchio.

And since Pinocchio was chilling with Stromboli the Gypsy at this time, there’s no telling if Figaro ever got to eat the yummy fish. But lucky for us, we got to taste it.

Bass is a common fish in Italy, so I got that kinda fish.  We can see in the movie that there is lemon on the fish, some butter and some olives.

If Geppetto is half as good of cook as I am, Figaro really missed out, because the fish is delicious. It was a fun experience. I had never cooked a full fish before, let alone gutted one. So if anyone is like me and needs to know how to gut a fish, this link is really helpful.

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A Cake Worth its Weight in Gold-fish

Man, how spoiled is Cleo. I guess you can’t blame Geppetto, she is a darling fish. I wonder how she felt as Figaro was about to devour her steaming uncle.  Cleo the goldfish was given a beautiful yellow cake with a ribbon around it. Talk about presentation.

I think she would be about 3x her size if she ate that whole piece. If I were her, that’s a risk I would take.

We kinda cheated on this recipe due to time and budget restrictions. Although, just because we used a box cake mix, doesn’t mean that my wife can’t enhance it and make it absolutely savory.

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Jiminy Chicken!

The last thing that Geppetto made for his feast was a succulent chicken. I kinda took some liberty in making this because I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for chicken cooked in milk for a while. So I didn’t do my research and cook the chicken exactly like they would in Italy at that time. But who’s to say that Geppetto didn’t cook his chicken in milk.  Cooking in milk makes the chicken really tender and moist.

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Stromboli’s French Bread

So the next meal we get to see is when Stromboli is thinking about how rich he’ll be with Pinocchio in his show. He has a platter of veggies, some spread, some sausage, cheese and some french bread. Why does he have French bread in Italy? Well he is a gypsy. Maybe he just came from France.

Anyway, during this time, he takes a bite out of an onion as if it were an apple.

I wouldn’t advise to do that, but if you so desire, chomp into an onion and eat this bread. You can find some sausage and cheese to go with it as well. This is a pretty simple bread recipe, perfect for a gypsy on the move.

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Pleasure Island Pie

One of the last foods shown is in the infamous Pleasure Island. A quintessential fun-land for boys in the 40’s. If Pinocchio were remade for a modern day audience, it would be a bunch of Xboxes, Nintendos and Playstations running on giant screens and…maybe a bouncy castle, because what kid doesn’t like a bouncy castle. Even though the modern Pleasure Island would be different than the 40’s Pleasure Island, the food would be the same. We see Pinocchio walking around with a full pie and ice cream, and his friend Lampwick (what a funny name. Good ol’ Lampy. Always brings such light in our lives) with a full roasted chicken.

Since we already made chicken as part of Geppetto’s feast, we focused on the pie. It isn’t explicitly shown what kind of pie Pinocchio has, other than it has red filling. So after some research into common Italian berries, we went with the tried and true strawberry (which isn’t actually a true berry, but whatever). They also drink beer and smoke cigars later. But since I’m not in the business of letting little boys smoke and drink beer, I’m gonna skip those recipes.

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Will this Food Make Your Tongue into a Pleasure Island?

I loved Geppetto’s feast. Pinocchio was crazy to have missed it. The fish was tender and had a great flavor. The cake was moist chocolatey and yup, I loved it. The only thing that was somewhat lacking was the chicken. I was saddened by that because I was so excited to try out that recipe. It definitely was tender, but I don’t think it was flavorful enough. So maybe when you cook it, you can add some more seasonings. Let me know if you improve the recipe.

Stromboli’s snack was good. I didn’t particularly enjoy eating an onion whole, maybe it’s an acquired taste. But the bread was fluffy and delicious.

I would go to Pleasure Island for the pie. It was scrumptious. I didn’t have any pink ice cream, just vanilla, so I added some of the pie filling to it. It turned out great and pink. Just be careful not to turn into a donkey.

Verdict:

Figaro’s Fish – 9/10

Cleo’s Cake – 10/10

Geppetto’s Chicken – 7/10 

Stromboli’s French Bread – 7/10

Pleasure Island Pie – 8/10