James White - The Galactic Gourmet

“Being ocean-dwelling water-breathers,” One-Thirteen broke in gently, “our people were late in discovering fire.”

“Of course, I’m stupid not to have …” Gurronsevas began when the voice of Hredlichli interrupted both of them.

“Whether or not you are stupid is not for me to say,” it called from the entrance to the Nurses’ Station. “At least, not out loud. It is time for our mid-day meal and the patients are hungry and, with the exception of the one you are talking to, are on special diets and require nursing assistance during feeding. So make yourself useful: draw One-Thirteen’s rations and let the poor thing eat while you talk.”

He followed Hredlichli into the Nurses’ Station, thinking how strange it was that the unpleasant Charge Nurse was telling him to do exactly what he himself would have wished to do. But before he could follow the thought to its incredible conclusion — that Hredlichli might not be as unpleasant as it seemed — the food delivery chute started spitting out large, brown-and-grey mottled globes into a waiting carrying net. When the net was full he towed it out to One-Thirteen.

“Keep your distance and push them at it one at a time,” Hredlichli called after him. “You don’t want to become part of the meal.”

Two Kelgian nurses, their fur rippling in dimly-lit silver waves inside their transparent protective suits, and a water-breathing Creppelian octopoid who needed no protection, passed him on their way in.

“What are they, eggs?” Gurronsevas asked as he pushed them one by one towards the patient’s open and waiting mouth. One-Thirteen’s jaws closed much too quickly for him to be able to see whether the material was soft and surrounded by a hard, uneven shell, or solid all the way through. His curiosity remained unsatisfied until the last of the objects had disappeared into the vast jaws and the patient’s mouth was again free for speech.

“Are you getting enough to eat?” he said. “Relative to your body mass, the meal portions appear, well, meager.”

“My tardiness in replying,” the patient replied, “should not be taken as an impoliteness. On Chalderescol the ingestion of food is an important and pleasurable activity, and to converse while eating is considered to be an implied criticism of one’s host for allowing a guest to become bored with what is being provided. Even here, where the food is open to serious criticism, the habit of good manners remains.”

“I understand,” said Gurronsevas.

“To answer your questions,” Patient One-Thirteen went on, “the food objects resemble but are not eggs, although they have a hard, edible outer shell enclosing a quantity of concentrated nutritious fibre, synthetic, of course, which expands to many times its original volume when exposed to our digestive juices, thus giving a feeling of physical repletion. As a species we Chalders have an educated palate, and well do we know that hunger makes the most effective sauce, but the taste of these food objects is artificial and unsubtle and …to describe them more fully my language would of necessity become impolite.”

“Again I understand,” said Gurronsevas. “But can you describe the differences in appearance and consistency, as well as the taste, between the natural and synthetic varieties? You will not offend me by using impolite language to describe foul-tasting or badly-prepared food because I have been doing so to my kitchen staff for a great many years …”

Patient One-Thirteen began by saying that it did not want to sound ungrateful to the hospital because the treatment it had received had, after all, saved its life. Medical and surgical wonders had been performed in the crowded and claustrophobic, to an AUGL, confines of the ward, and to complain about the food being unappetizing seemed petty under the circumstances. But on its home world there was space in which to eat, and to exercise, and to sharpen the taste sensors with expectancy and uncertainty by having to chase certain varieties of food which were not easily caught.

On the ocean world of Chalderescol, in spite of the civilizing influences of many centuries, the Chalders still felt a physiological as well as an aesthetic need to chase their food rather than have it served dead and, so far as their instincts were concerned, in the early stages of decomposition on a platter. To remain physically healthy they needed to exercise their jaws and teeth and massive, armored bodies, and the time of maximum effort and enjoyment, except for the brief period every year when they were able to procreate, was when they were eating.

The hospital food was hard-shelled enough and undoubtedly nutritious, but the contents were a soft, tasteless, disgusting pap that resembled the partially pre-digested and newly-dead material given to toothless AUGL infants. Unless immobilized by serious illness or injury, an adult Chalder was forced to concentrate its mind on other and more pleasant things if it was to avoid nausea while eating the vile stuff.

Gurronsevas listened attentively to AUGL-113’s every word, occasionally asking for clarification or offering suggestions, but always remembering to make due allowance for creative exaggeration on the part of a patient who was obviously pleased at having someone new at whom it could complain. But the constant discussion of food in its many unpalatable forms, to a Chalder, was reminding Gurronsevas that it had been four hours since he himself had dined.

“If I may interrupt you to summarize the problem,” said Gurronsevas when the other began repeating itself with only minor variations. “First, there is the shape and consistency of the food, which is inadequate in that it exercises only the jaws and teeth. Second, the taste is unsatisfactory because it is artificially produced with chemical additives and, to the discriminating palate of the Chalder, any such substitution is immediately detectable. And third, the water-borne odors which the real food animals emit when they are being chased are not present.

“In my recent study of similar problems as they relate to other life-forms in the hospital,” Gurronsevas went on, “I have discovered that the ward menu is under the control of the clinical dietitian, who acts under the direction of the physician-in-charge, rather than being the responsibility of the food technicians. Rightly, the primary concern of the physician concerned is to prescribe food that supports the clinical needs of its patient and is an extension of its medical treatment, so that the taste and odor have a low order of priority — if, indeed, they are considered at all. But it is my belief that they should be considered, and seriously, if only for the psychologically beneficial effects on convalescent patients like yourself who should be encouraged to eat and exercise.

“Regrettably,” he went on, enthusiasm for his subject dulling the pangs of personal hunger, “there is little I can do about taste and texture, at least not until I have had consultations with your physician-in-charge and the relevant food synthesists. But as a general rule most varieties of food can be made to seem more appetizing by varying its manner of presentation. An interesting combination of colors, for example, or an imaginative shaping and arrangement of food on the platter so that there is a visual appeal as well as …”

Gurronsevas broke off in mid-sentence, remembering that patient AUGL-113 did not use a platter and that the principal visual attraction of the food would be its ability to go scuttling all over the dining area. But his embarrassment was short-lived because Hredlichli had emerged from the nurses’ station and was swimming quickly towards them.

“I must interrupt this excessively long and, to me, less than interesting conversation,” said the Charge Nurse as it drifted to a halt between the patient and himself. “Senior Physician Edanelt is due to make its evening rounds. Please return to your sleeping frame, One-Thirteen. And Dietitian Gurronsevas, if you wish to continue the discussion you will have to wait until Edanelt has completed its ward rounds. Shall I contact you then?”