‘Blue Bloods’: Why Fish Is Never Served at Family Dinner
Since 2010, the CBS police procedural drama television series, Blue Bloods, has entertained audiences with the fictional story of the Reagan family, led by Tom Selleck, who plays a stoic police chief. Intertwined with New York’s criminal justice system, the long-running series focuses on the interaction of the family and each unique role they play in seeking justice for others.
The heart of Blue Bloods is the family dinner scenes where the entire Catholic Irish-American clan gathers together to dissect the challenges of their daily lives. While many a meal has been served over the show’s long-running history, fish has never found a place on the dinner table, and with good reason!
What’s for dinner?
The iconic dinner scenes have become integral to the show’s longstanding success. Fans adore seeing family members gather around the table, getting a glimpse into the Reagan family dynamic at least once every episode.
When Blue Bloods debuted, the show’s producer, Leonard Goldberg, told TV Guide, “I thought about two kinds of shows I always loved doing: police shows and family shows, and I thought, ‘No one’s ever done one that combined both, so maybe this is the time.” Goldberg explained the dinner scenes were inspired by the infamous Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting, saying, “I thought that would be kind of the cornerstone of the family side of our show.”
Now, 13 seasons later, the dinner scenes are the glue of the show, humanizing the family in ways even Goldberg could not have imagined. Over the years, the cast has shared plenty of meals. So many, in fact, that Bridget Moynahan, who plays Assistant District Attorney Erin Reagan, compiled 120 of her favorite recipes to publish The Blue Bloods Cookbook.
While the meals for the iconic dinner scenes usually consist of traditional Irish meat and potato dishes, there are certain foods the cast does not enjoy.
The Reagan family never eats fish
The show’s prop master, Jim Lillis, once told CBS58 that he always puts a vegetable, rolls, and salad on the dinner table. He explained the centerpiece meal usually consists of meatloaf, roast chicken, or a pot roast served with “some version of potatoes.” Lillis explained, “That basically is my mother’s menu, the one I grew up with because I’m also Irish Catholic.”
According to Startefacts, the cast and crew of Blue Bloods prefer to avoid salmon and other types of fish dishes when filming a dinner scene. Lillis explains it is not a matter of taste but rather the inability to keep the “delicate” meal fresh over several hours of filming without refrigeration.
Despite the scenes depicting dinner meals, filming often begins early in the morning, and the cast would prefer not to eat (or smell) fish in place of their morning coffee and Danish.
Other foods rarely served at the Reagan dinner table
Aside from fish, broccoli is another food the cast of Blue Bloods prefers to avoid. Donnie Wahlberg (aka Danny Reagan) once told The 92nd Street Y the high-fiber vegetable was “problematic,” insinuating that long hours of consuming broccoli inevitably leads to flatulence. Previous Blue Bloods co-star Amy Carlson (Linda Reagan) confirmed his distaste for leafy greens, saying it had to be eliminated from the food rotation.
Moynahan also wasn’t a fan of the moo shu pork calzones, revealing in a 2022 interview with Live With Kelly and Ryan, “I had to talk about it on screen, so I had to eat it every single time. And it was early in the series, so it was taking about four hours to do the dinner scenes. So it was four hours of eating a moo-shu pork calzone.” She expressed she will never try the dish again, saying no one should ever combine the two ingredients.
Since the food used on set for filming is real and prepared by a catering company, any leftovers are given to the crew to bring home once production for the day is over. Rest assured, they won’t be getting any doggie bags of fish dinners anytime soon!
