Our extremely over-worked but blessedly talented prop mistress made fake food out of canvas bean-bags.  She created patterns for chicken legs, potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables, sewed them out of cotton canvas and filled them with dried rice.   They were painted quite convincingly (The cabbages were masterful -- simply a rounded bean-bag with extra cloth "leaves" sewn in place.) 

They were relatively non-injurous (although you didn't want to get hit in the eye with one), very durable with a nice heft to them, were fun to throw.  In fact, it was getting the cast to STOP throwing them at each other that was the difficult part.