It's not unusual for me to get distracted by food and drink in movies. While viewing The King's Speech, for example, I kept wondering what flavor tea everyone was drinking and whether the Duke of York (Collin Firth) preferred milk or cream. And when I saw Jurassic Park, I started craving cake after watching those kids binge on the dessert buffet at the island's abandoned museum.

I recently re-watched Taxi Driver and completely lost my focus during a particular diner scene with Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) and Betsy (Cybill Shepherd). They order pie (blueberry, if I recall correctly) and both slices arrive garnished with slices of melted cheese.

I paused and rewound to make sure it wasn't just whipped cream or ice cream. Nope: a melted cheese slice. Possibly a Kraft single. De Niro and Shepherd continued their fraught flirtation, but I couldn't stop thinking about how they were shoveling blueberries and cheddar into their mouth at the same time.

Apparently, however, this consumption practice is not confined to Scorsese's fictional film world. After I mentioned this weird savory cheese-on-sweet-pie phenomenon to my father, he informed me, rather indignantly, that growing up in Boston everyone put cheese on fruit pies and no one thought it was gross.

Yikes. Am I so completely out of the loop that I am unaware of the universal appeal of this pairing? I tend to think not, because the only processed dairy option I'm offered when I order a slice of apple or pumpkin is Cool-Whip.

Do you eat cheese on sweet pie?

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