Replicated food vs real food

[Dînadan]

So in Trek we see establishments making/selling real food even though replicators are prevalent; why is this? Why would people bother white real food when replicators can make almost anything they want?

A few ideas that come to me:

1) novelty value; when replicated food becomes the default, real food prepared by actual people probably has novelty value attached to it, so would draw some interest from that alone.

2) dullness born of repitivity; not knowing how replicators work exactly, this is pure guesswork, but I think it’s likely that whenever a replicator makes a meal it makes the same meal each time. To save memory/computing power it’d make sense that it has one version of the meal in its memory and when it replicates that meal it produces the exact same meal. For example, if you ordered a burger and fries each time you’d get a burger that has the exact same dimensions, exact same weight, been cooked for the exact same time including being flipped at the exact same time for the exact same duration; the bun would be cut in the exact same place so that the bottoms are all the exact same thickness as are the tops, with the exact same number of sesame seeds in the exact same spots; you’d have the exact same number of fries, all the same sizes each time (or even size, singular, as it would probably be a single frie replicated multiple times). So you’d be eating the same meal each time you wanted burger and fries, and I imagine after awhile that repetition would get boring. Now considering how powerful Federation computers are I suppose it’s possible that they could have some sort of random variables programmed in to generate some differences, but I think it’d be simpler for bog standard replicators to come prepackaged with the non-variable patterns.

2b) it just tastes better; similar to the lack of variety I think there’s an element of it tasting nicer in general. Think of it like how your granny’s homemade food tastes better than mass produced fast food joint food.

3) convenience; now this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. You’d think that replicators would be more convenient because they can produce things within seconds rather than needing to wait for it to be prepared and cooked, and yeah, that is more convenient, but in other ways I think the real person preparing it could be more convenient. Considering every time we hear characters making a regular order (eg Picard’s tea, O’Brian and Janeway’s coffees) we hear them giving the same string of commands, I think it’s likely that if you wanted to customise your order you’d need to give a long string of precisely worded commands to get what you wanted rather than placing it as you would with an actual waiter.

4) some things can’t be replicated; considering we see numerous cases where things can’t be replicated, I think it’s not unreasonable to assume that that extends to some foods. The most obvious would be things like gahk and tubegrubs as we know replicators can’t create living things.

4b) laws/restrictions on what can and can’t be replicated; in addition to things that can’t be replicated outright, I think it’s plausible that there are things that can be replicated from a technological standpoint, but there may be restrictions programmed in due to laws. For example considering the prevalence of synthahol and scarcity of alcohol, it’s plausible that laws ban actual alcohol from being replicated, so if anyone wants actual alcohol someone needs to make it (possibly even restricted to it needing to be made using traditional methods). There could also be health guidelines limiting what you can have to prevent you having too much of stuff that’s bad for you.


Thoughts? And any other ideas of your own?

[TGLS]

1) Sure.

2) Maybe, but on the other hand, the replicator never has to hear, "Hey Waiter! There's a fly in my soup!"

2b) I always got the impression replicator food would be more like food from a good restaurant, but sure.

3) This is stupid, but it is borne out of the show. Really, it should just be as easy as "Tea, Number 1". On the other hand, all Picard has to say is "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" as opposed to "Earl Grey Tea, 250 mL, 20 grams of sugar, 10 mL of cream, 90 degrees Celsius, served in an elegant cup", so maybe it isn't right.

4) Sure.

4b) I figured that in Trek future, they had a bunch of things like synthahol for other foods (sugar, fats), that people don't talk about (because you can't really get drunk off of sugar or fat), so the health rules might be irrelevant.

[Dînadan]

With 3 I was thinking more along the lines of the replicator probably has preset meals so you just say the name of it and it automatically uses that as the standard and if you want to modify it then you’d have to add commands, and because it is a computer you’d need to use specific commands or it wouldn’t understand what you mean whereas a flesh and blood waited would.

For presets, Picard doesn’t have to specify size of cup because that’s preset, he’s just specifying the blend and whether he wants hot tea or iced tea (tea is supposed to be served at a specific temperature to best bring out the flavours so ‘hot’ defaults to that for example). He doesn’t need to specify milk/cream, sugar, lemon, etc because the default is not to have those.

[Independent George]

I always assumed that replicator food tasted like bland, mass-produced stuff from vending machines. Cooking is a delicate process involving some of the most complex molecules in existence.

For example, you can vary the texture and flavor of scrambled eggs just by changing the temperature, the cooking time, and the method of scramble. I expect a replicator to produce uniform eggs like you get from a sausage McMuffin; I have a hard time imagining a replicator duplicating the soft, custard-like texture of French styled scrambled eggs (which require constant agitation over low heat) - and that's before we even get to questions of milk/cream/butter/salt/herbs/pepper.

Now try to imagine something more complex. Is a replicator going to replace the structure of a primal cut of meat? Imagine wanting prosciutto to go with your scrambled eggs, and getting spam instead. It simplifies the logistical chain and makes perfect sense for a starship out on the far reaches of the galaxy, but I expect any place with the resources to offer freshly-prepared foods, like Sisko's place in New Orleans.

At the same time, replicator technology has the potential to dramatically improve cooking fresh ingredients. You can cook different parts of the food at different temperatures with pinpoint control. You can control moisture and evaporation. You can keep food at a precise temperature without fear of evaporation until it's ready to be eaten. The hardest part of frying a chicken is getting the differently sized/shaped pieces to cook properly at the same time; that's not a problem with replicators. And the cleanup! I'd kill to zap my dirty dishes/pans clean with voice commands.

ETA: Ok, I find Jamie Oliver kind of irritating, but this is a good primer on how scrambled eggs can be completely different dishes just by changing the cooking method. Now program a replicator for to make them from energy:


youtu.be/s9r-CxnCXkg

[SuccubusYuri]

Considering the amount of information that must be present in a replicator pattern, memory constraints do seem to be a logical concern. Indeed, Damar's men complain about using Federation replicators, which practically speaking, don't actually TAKE anything more than adding a few recipes, as we know they backwards engineered them on DS9 itself, going in the other drecton, but their complaining about it makes it seem like a very difficult process that they just don't have the time to do. And since his rebellion is almost entirely ex-military, there should be a FEW engineers who could do that, "morale is cheap", after all.

Of course then they're depicted on Voyager as so effortless that resident kid-in-his-mum's-basement-Harry Kim can alter them at will, so who really knows. I'm just suggesting one makes more sense than the other xD

We already have these delineations anyway. "Not farm raised" trumpet the seafood restaurants whenever they can get their hands on local goods. And there will always be snobs who insist at the difference and those who don't care or can't tell.

I would have liked to see that the replicator menu is a little more interactive than it's given credit for. I imagine Picard's "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" is a series of drop down menus that he just knows, he's done it so much it's reflex, like ordering at a Subway.

[Dînadan]

Also, thinking about it, if there is a series of commands/drop down menus that could explain how Janeway managed to burn a roast that she replicated that one time; she screwed up the commands/selected the wrong drop down option and ended up unwittingly ordering a burnt roast.

[Independent George]

Honestly, programming a replicator to cook something sounds even more difficult than just cooking. Even if the replicator could reproduce protein structures perfectly, and simulate the final results of cooking methods perfectly, you still have to figure out how you want them prepared.

Another example: hash browns. Let's say the replicator has a perfect replica of russet potatoes in its memory banks, and can simulate shredding them to the exact size you want them. Does it simulate water content? You have to rinse the shredded potatoes to wash the excess starch away, and then press out the excess moisture from washing them. Does the computer simulate perfectly dried potatoes which would never exist in real life?

Then you heat them with oil on a metal surface - and with different amounts of oil, and at different temperatures, depending on whether it's cast iron, a carbon steel griddle, or a stainless steel pan. Onions & peppers? Some people put them in early to soften, others like them added late to remain firm. They also release water which changes the cooking time & surface temperature. If you stir them while they're cooking to brown each individual piece of hash, or do you let it settle to create a creamy texture in the middle? If you stir them, does the computer simulate browning the surface of each individual strand of potato? If you let it form a flat cake, does it keep the texture of individual pieces of potato in the middle, or does it average them out? If you want pepper, does it simulate individual grains of pepper sticking to individual pieces of potato? Pepper also undergoes a chemical change when cooked - are you simulating each individual grain, or taking the average of what a cooked fleck of pepper tastes like? What happens if you want a double portion - did you just double the processing power required to get each piece cooked properly?

Even assuming massive computing power beyond our current comprehension, the only thing that makes sense to me is that the computer will try to average things out instead of calculating each and every single piece of food - the equivalent of turning ham into spam.

[Dînadan]

Considering replicators are an outgrowth of transporter tech, my personal headcanon is that likely, unless you don’t have a sample on hand and would thus have todo trail and error programming, someone either scans or transports a ‘prime’ example of the food in question, records the transporter pattern and then that’s uploaded into the replicator. Then when you ask the replicator to replicate that food it pulls up the record of the pattern and builds it using that.

Of course this assumes that replicators use some sort of raw matter rather than just making things out of thin air (ie there’s a storage bay somewhere in the ship and when you replicate something the replicator beams away the required amount of matter and then instead of it coming out as a block of say carbon, it reconstitutes it using the recorded pattern).


Although as I type this that would make the give a string of commands to alter it idea less likely, unless there’s some poor sod in a room somewhere on Earth whose job it is to scan/beam every possible combination and upload them to a central database that’s e-mailed to every ship, space station, planetary database, etc.

[SuccubusYuri]

I find it more amusing to take Janeway's burnt potroast at face value, at some sap butcher is literally carving a pig and plopping the slices onto the scanner. and the replicator takes care of the cooking process.

[Durandal_1707]

The Star Trek universe has transporters that can, supposedly, recreate a human being 100%, with brain patterns and everything intact. If they can do something that complicated, then perfectly replicating a filet mignon should be a walk in the park. If they can't make a replicated steak taste exactly like the original, then I sure as hell never want to step into a transporter.