“The Sopranos” had therapy sessions, “Friends” had regular trips to the coffee house, and “Blue Bloods” has always had dinner scenes. While it’s a major contrast, a family get-together in the gripping 14-season police drama has been as integral and unwavering as Tom Selleck’s facial hair, neither of which the show could go without. The Reagan get-together around the dinner table is a regular sequence in episodes fans always look forward to, as family members that work from all areas of law enforcement talk shop in between passing the gravy, or the mashed potatoes.
Given the large amount of screen time spent on these important moments at the family dinner table, a lot of attention to detail is applied, right down to what’s on the menu for the Reagans after their hard week full of police work. The food needs to be fitting of this particular family’s lifestyle and heritage, which begs the question — just what special selections are considered when it comes to the core cast of “Blue Bloods” sitting down to eat? As it turns out, the prop master for the show has revealed that when it comes to picking the right courses, he has his mother to thank for Reagan’s routine mealtime.
The meals come from the prop master’s background
Speaking to Country Living, the “Blue Bloods” prop master Jim Lillis revealed that he only needed to look back to his childhood to decide on what gets served up. During these iconic scenes from the show that are actually shot first thing in the morning and not in the evening as we’ve been led to believe, most meals are basic hearty essentials that the famously Irish-Catholic Reagan family wouldn’t be without given their background.
“It’s usually a pot roast, maybe meat loaf, roast chicken with some version of potatoes,” he explained, as well as a few key side essentials. “Green vegetables. Always dinner rolls. That basically is my mother’s menu, the one I grew up with because I’m also Irish-Catholic.” All of the options seem like fitting choices and ones that add further authenticity to the Reagan family that regularly gather around the table. You are what you eat, after all, and in these circumstances, there’s no doubt that the cast finishes filming these scenes with full stomachs.