Believe it or not, Tom Cruise’s visit to a Hertfordshire Indian restaurant has caused such a sensation that it has been made into a film.

The actor’s visit to local St Albans curry house, Veer Dhara, last August inspired the script for a new film after the star was unable to pay the bill using American Express (let us state, the restaurant doesn’t accept the credit card, it’s not that Mr Cruise wasn’t good for the money)  This is possibly the biggest film-and-food related news since Brad Pitt was seen eating in nearly every scene of Oceans 11.

It was during the filming of his latest movie All You Need Is Kill in Hertfordshire that Cruise enjoyed a lobster and chicken tikka at Veer Dhara, and inspired an unnamed filmmaker to turn the situation into a movie. The short film has now been entered into the first ever St Albans Film Festival, which runs from 8th-10th March 2013.

All this talk of inspirational food set us thinking: who else has been inspired by their food? Food is occasionally inspired by films, and fan sites were overflowing with Butterbeer recipes following the Harry Potter craze. But not so many people seem to have been inspired by food.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that ‘one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ Pointing out that food is, more often than not, the foundations on which we build our lives rather than a great source of inspiration. But considering how great curry is, it should surely have caused far more creative spin-offs by now.

So next time you eat a curry, don’t just enjoy it, but see what it could inspire you to do.