‘Blue Bloods’: Bridget Moynahan Reveals If Family Dinner Food Is Real

Blue Bloods fans are one rabid group with overflowing love for the show, the characters, and the actors that bring them to life. But as Bridget Moynahan once pointed out in an interview with PEOPLE, there is a good reason while the bonds on screen are so strong.

Those dinner scenes that anchor each episode have become a big part of the series that fans enjoy each time out. Moynahan revealed to PEOPLE that the scenes resonate with fans and take a long, long time to shoot. The reason is because it is all real food at the table.

“With the older generation it kinda brings back the memories of when they used to do that, and the younger generation is kind of looking for that,” Moynahan tells PEOPLE. “So it’s hitting everyone I think.”

She also revealed that the shoots for the dinner scenes can take up to four hours, meaning the cast might have to stomach the food as it gets colder and older on the table.

“I think the first couple of seasons I didn’t eat anything, then I moved into mashed potatoes,” the actress reveals. “So for a few years there, I was eating too many mashed potatoes for four hours. Now I’ve moved to the cucumbers.”

She chalked up the mashed potato decision to “bad choices” for those years, but her decisions seem to be good going forward.

Tom Selleck echoed Moynahan’s behind-the-scenes info, telling Country Living back in December 2018 that the show takes the dinner seriously and sometimes pretending to eat.

“We embrace family dinner,” Selleck noted. “The only problem is it takes 6-to-8 hours and you have to just keep eating the same old food.”

Co-star Will Estes agreed at the time, noting that the actors had to “pace” themselves to keep it together during the long shoots.

Country Living adds that the actors don’t get to choose what they eat each week on the show. Moynahan’s cucumber decision might just be a general result of the meals provided. The BeeHive Oven Biscuit Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, is the caterer behind the food featured on the show and put together dishes like chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese for the actors to feast on.

“It’s usually a pot roast, maybe meatloaf, roast chicken with some version of potatoes. Green vegetables. Always dinner rolls,” Blue Bloods property manager Jim Lillis noted in an interview with The Virginian-Pilot at the time.

So yeah, “embracing” the family dinner is not an understatement. It just takes a bit longer than most probably want to spend with their family. Keep your eyes on the tables as Blue Bloods continues its run on CBS.