Eat Like Walt: The Wonderful World of Disney Food

While my wife and I love visiting the Disney Parks, we haven’t been to Disneyland for about a year and a half. We’ll be correcting that shortly, and to prepare for the trip, I read a great book that my brother gave me for Christmas: Eat Like Walt: The Wonderful World of Disney Food by Marcy Carriker Smothers.

Artist's rendering of the Blue Bayou

While I love the parks, especially the design and attractions, much of my Disney Park memories are connected to food. Before I got married, my tradition was to get up and hit the road around 4 or 5 am, drive from Vegas to Anaheim, and arrive in time for breakfast. I would always have that first breakfast at the River Belle Terrace, and it would always be Mickey Mouse pancakes. Sadly, that tradition went by the wayside when I married a woman who wasn’t willing to get up that early for the drive, and completely ended when the River Belle Terrace stopped serving breakfast. But up until that point, my Disney vacations always started with a specific meal.

We’ve developed our own dining traditions since getting married. We don’t always go to the same places every single trip, but we do always get a cream-cheese filled pretzel at the Refreshment Corner. We also try to make a point of dining at Napa Rose, the fine dining restaurant in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. And, of course, we always get churros.

This book focuses on three areas: Walt Disney’s dining preferences at home, the food served at his studios while he was alive, and the food served at Disneyland while he was alive. Richly illustrated with photos and production drawings from the period and reproductions of menus from the studio commissaries and park restaurants, and shopping lists and menus for meals in the Disney home, this book is a visual treat. It also includes recipes from many of the restaurants and Walt’s home, and a list of Walt’s favorite restaurants, some of which still exist today.

The book serves not only as a history of the early days of Disneyland, but also as something of a cultural history. It discusses which food trends were popular at the time, and why some restaurants proved popular enough to survive to the present day, while others were either revamped, removed entirely, or never even built in the first place. This book explains why the Enchanted Tiki Room is the only attraction in Disneyland with a bathroom, why the Refreshment Corner has one lightbulb painted half red and half white, and where the worst cup of coffee in Disneyland used to be found. 

The worst cup of coffee was found in the Jolly Roger restaurant, until they fixed the problem.

As a fan of the history of Disneyland, and of the food I’ve eaten there, I found this to be a fascinating, if quick, read. This will definitely help me enjoy our next trip to Disneyland, putting things I see in a new context. It’s the same as when we go to the Blue Bayou restaurant, and I look at the plantation house facade differently since I learned that it was the front of the old chicken restaurant that used to be in Disneyland. I appreciate knowing those additional layers of history, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dining at Disneyland.