Puzzle #4: "Food Fight!"

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 I just participated for the first time in the annual MIT Mystery Hunt! I had an absolute blast, highly recommend it to anyone even a little interested in puzzles, and want to give a massive thanks to the puzzle creators and hunt organizers. Also, on a related note, I have slept for approximately 8 of the past 72 hours. Here's one of the first puzzles I ever made, when I was highly enamored of the idea of theme answers crossing each other (OK, I'm still quite enamored of that idea, but have come to realize how uncommon it is for that to be possible.) More thoughts below the puzzle.


Honestly, I'm surprised at how well this one holds up, in my estimation. While a lot of the fill is a bit on the obscure side, that mostly just makes it tricky; only a bit of the puzzle is properly bad. And the intersecting themers make for a much more interesting, open grid than many puzzles.

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