"top food songs" news and stories

While most top-ten lists of food songs are bombarded with predictable pop selections from the past 50 years (invariably including a Bubble Gum number and "Savoy Truffle" by the Beatles), we've managed to delve much deeper, and come up with a few songs so obscure, you may have never even heard of them. Luckily, some rendition of each lies on YouTube, and most will have you tapping your feet and guffawing before the tune ends.

10. "The Roast Beef of Old England," traditional marching song
This memorable rant against French food ("But since we have learned from all-vapouring France/To eat their ragouts as well as to dance") is the work of Henry Fielding, the 18th-century Englishman who wrote the risqué novel, Tom Jones. The patriotic nature of the lyrics and somber marching cadence may send the wrong kind of shivers down your spine, but who can complain about a tune whose refrain is the gleefully redundant, "Oh! The roast beef of old England/And old English roast beef!"

9. "Sing for Your Supper," The Mamas and the Papas
Though this ditty penned by the songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart first appeared in the musical The Boys from Syracuse (1938), the most memorable rendition is by the Mamas and the Papas. Check out the live performance on YouTube, and you'll see a swaying Mama Cass (who, at age 32, was erroneously reported to have choked to death on a ham sandwich) crooning this romantic and stoic paean to hungry street performers everywhere.