TNG - A Matter of Honor

[Thebestoftherest]

One of the things that really amazes me is how white bread and boring Starfleet is. Most of the food the Klingons eat isn't that weird compared to some human foods.

There are cultures where eating bugs or squid is common place.

[Nealithi]

Nothing wrong with white bread. The humble white loaf has probably done more to decrease childhood mortality, ensure basic nutrition for adults, and combat starvation, than any other invention in history. And that is before it came presliced and fortified with vitamins. White bread is awesome.

But I would argue fortified rice maybe or immunizations have been more beneficial to the overall health of humanity. But really that's irrelevant.

Because you know what I meant!

Well I can see that there is quite a bit of human cuisine that is just not explored. Klingons should love the idea of cajun food for example. But white bread is given a decidedly undeserved lack of respect. And while there are very rich foods out there. Why ignore the mild ones? Egg salad or tuna salad, best served on a mild bread to allow the flavour of the filling to stand out.

But guess what? This also highlights something about why a similar Star Fleet vessel is worth two or three klingon vessels. How? Logistics. Klingon ships with the cultural blindspot demanding fresh food is laid out more like a wooden sailing vessel of old than a modern vessel with prepackaged foods. Let alone replicators. So klingon life support has to keep the animals alive as well as the crew. Hold food for said animals, etc. Lots of space and resources. Star Fleet vessel? Storage tank. Press a button and say what you feel like eating. A little buzz and hot food is served. Static amount of space, no or not much additional equipment. Meals are as needed. If I had a replicator the only length of a meal is the actual eating. Not several minutes to hours of preparation.

[Scififan]

IIRC, most of the technology that Klingons have are stolen from other races. In fact they learned about extraterrestrials when they were invaded by them.

[RobbyB1982]

REally, that makes it harder to laugh at him for sitting weird.

Yup. He's *able* to sit down but doing multiple take after take would take its toll on him. So he straddles over chairs and sits the way he does throughout the series because... that's how Frakes actually does it, not just what he has Riker do.

Once you know to look out for it you'll also notice that he leans against walls and stuff all the time if he's not the main focus of a shot.

[RobbyB1982]

. Meals are as needed. If I had a replicator the only length of a meal is the actual eating. Not several minutes to hours of preparation.

It's pretty well established that while the replicators can make food that tastes okay and fills you, the actually cooked stuff with real ingredients tastes better than what the replicator can provide.

Why we see so many characters regularly cooking, owning restaurants, liquor isn't usually replicated, etc.

So in sheer terms of necessities the replicator will certainly do the job, but if you want a real pizza you gotta cook it.

[Madner Kami]

I rather recieve the claims of "Real tastes better" as the simple fact, that everyone fails to season their food. The replicator needs to provide feasible meals for literally everyone, so it makes sense that at low flavour/seasoning baseline is chosen as the default.

[clearspira]

As Chuck noted with the self-replicating mines, it makes far more sense that the replicators operate more like 3D printers with some kind of material that it draws from rather than magic boxes that conjur shit out of thin air. The protein resequencers from ENT definitely do.

That being the case, it kind of makes sense that replicated food is incapable of matching real food. A glass of 20 year old Picard wine is not actually 20 years old.

[CrypticMirror]

I rather recieve the claims of "Real tastes better" as the simple fact, that everyone fails to season their food. The replicator needs to provide feasible meals for literally everyone, so it makes sense that at low flavour/seasoning baseline is chosen as the default.

Kinda like a tv dinner, or microwave meal, really. Even the new low sodium heinz tinned soups all need extra seasoning now.

[Fianna]

One of the things that really amazes me is how white bread and boring Starfleet is. Most of the food the Klingons eat isn't that weird compared to some human foods.

Well, there is the fact that they eat all their meat raw and preferably alive. Also, who knows what the stuff smells like?

[Makeshift Python]

I like the retcon that food replicators have their limitations, rather than the early TNG S1 conceit of them being able to make food that tastes even better than the real deal.