Protein resequencer, food synthesizer, replicator. In Star Trek, food production technologies are far more advanced than what we have here in the early 21st century. While we still need to devote acres upon acres of land to crops and animals for human consumption, the future that is Star Trek has mostly eliminated that need. As an added bonus, as all of the food that comes from these devices will technically be vegan, that should settle the ethics debate of eating animals [Note 1]. I personally welcome this future - not just for the ease of preparing meals (especially in a hurry), but for helping solve food production and distribution issues, eliminating food waste, and a host of other issues [Note 2].
It had occurred to me a few months ago that replicated food is probably rather boring to eat unless one puts effort into what they are eating. That’s not to say that the food is either delicious or disgusting, as those are not mutually exclusive with boring; that is just saying that the food is boring to eat. See, replicated food is a mathematical equation, a pattern. It is literally molecules that have been resequenced and arranged into whatever you ask, for the replicator to have it in its database, one of two things needs to happen first:
A sample of the item needs to be scanned into the replicator’s database.
The specific molecular structure of the item to be replicated needs to be coded out, line by line.
So if the replicator only has one egg in its database, then it will reproduce that same egg over and over again whenever someone requests eggs. You will only get that specific egg, made in that same way, with no variation at all. Now of course, the person asking for the egg can ask the replicator to add something or take something away, as long as the database has the other ingredients in its database and is told how to apply them (or replicates them separately and you add them manually). But if only that one egg is scanned in, without some coding, you're gonna get that same egg out every time. It'll taste the same every time. It won't have the minute differences that happen when we make food because the particular chicken that laid the egg ate a different blade of grass, or because the particular cook that is making the egg used an extra grain of pepper. The little things, those bits here and there that are the variations that naturally occur are gone because math is an absolute.
Now, let's take that same egg. Because this is science fiction (for the time being, if we’re lucky), and it’s evidenced on the show, we can say that the replicator has been programmed to know the difference between frying, boiling, and mixing. The computer will do each one of those to the egg in the exact same manner every time as well. Again, it is a computer, and unless it was programmed to add in variations within specific limits, it will only provide the exact same results time and time again. If the variation was unlimited, one is likely to get something totally inedible - the egg could end up being on fire or in a block of lead. When I was talking to friends about it, I used a bacon cheeseburger as an example of getting something that a person wouldn’t want: radioactive beef, cheeses made out of granite, bacon in the form of a flash of light [Note 3], and La Croix water [Note 4] - not a very edible meal.
Replicators have databases full of options, of course. In the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Tom Paris attempts to get some tomato soup, and of the fourteen varieties available to him, he demanded the baseline tomato soup. No frills, no added seasoning, just whatever the programmer put in there. Now, if 50 chefs made 50 versions each of tomato soup and fed them all into the replicator, there would be 2,500 varieties of tomato soup that could have been randomly chosen.
I mentioned coding as the alternate option. That’s how Kathryn Janeway keeps burning replicated foods - she is entering her instructions improperly. It could be something as simple as [oven temp = 450°], [oven time = 35 minutes]. Or it could be something more complex, like:
#Import Baking Modules
From Refrigerator import Butter
From Cupboard import Sugar
From Cupboard import Flour
From Refrigerator import Eggs
#Create a connection to Mixing.Bowl
Add Egg
Add Flour
If Flour<4, add Egg
If Egg<5, add Flour
When Egg=4, GoTo 14
#Execute program Mixing.Bowl until parameters equal smooth
And so forth. Enough lines of that, and it would be easy to miss something. Also, that is the beginning to a recipe that my Granny taught me and my Mom retaught me.
But that’s why replicated food is boring. It’ll be the exact same taste time and again, unless the person ordering food finds a way to get a little variety. After all, variety is the spice of life.
Notes:
I am not versed enough in religious matters to say if replicated foods would meet religious dietary laws. However, I am certain that there would be different schools of thought within each religious community.
That is, as long as there is the distribution is given to people in an equitable manner. If the rich continue to hoard and the poor continue to have to scrape to get by, then having replicators would be pointless.
This is a Parks and Recreation reference - apparently, there is a wrong way to consume alcohol.
I personally strongly dislike La Croix water - it tastes like flat carbonation with a memory of fruit flavor. I’m not alone in this opinion, as there are memes about it.
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