Introduction

The Dominion doesn’t have the cultural context to talk about food the way we do in a contemporary way, ie you don’t get Italian or Malaysian food in the Dominion.  The Dominion’s reduced biodiversity also makes food a lot more homogeneous than we experience. 

 

Dimensions of Classification

Broadly, food is commonly classified as follows:

 

Regional

Despite the above, there are some regional influences, though they are rarely as distinct as what we experience in contemporary life.  Regional distinctions are usually influenced over time by natural capital.  For example, worlds with habitable biospheres are more likely to have local food production of foods suited to that biosphere and consequently develop dishes over time that reflect local abundance.

 

Fresh/ Processed/ Farmed

Fresh food

Fresh food refers to living things that are grown and then used as or sourced for food, like wheat, goats and grasshoppers.  It is considered a luxury in many places – think the strawberry scenes in Firefly between Book and Kaylee – because of the difficulty of growing it.  Fresh food requires life support and food of its own while it matures.  Some food requires symbiosis to flourish, for example, many plants need insect pollinators or a suitable artificial alternative. 

Even for fresh food, organically farmed or free-range food is almost unheard of. 

Fresh food that has been preserved or packaged is, paradoxically to contemporary ears, usually still referred to as ‘fresh food’.  Fresh fresh food is commonly referred to as ‘virgin’.

  

Processed Food

Processed food is just that.  Protein, nutrients and flavouring combined together in factories.  Many of the population live only on processed meal packs. 

  

Farmed Food

‘Farmed Food’ is an in-between category of the above.  When discussing ‘farmed food’, think less of free range chickens wandering outside a red barn near rows of grain, than a sterile factory where things that are derived from living plants and animals are grown in vats or on culture trays.  For example, blocks of vegetable matter or bulbs of genetically-engineered muscle tissue.  Farmed foods are often served just like fresh and usually need to be prepared or cooked.
  

Composition

The usual classifications by composition or source of food, eg:  Chicken, lime. 

Of note, many people in the Dominion are vegetarians,  because meat is a luxury item in most places that don’t have a biosphere, and plenty of places that do.  The most common form of meat is Goat, followed by Chicken and Pork.  Likewise, most milk is goat milk.

  

Alien-sourced Foodstuffs

The majority of the Dominion’s food sources come from Companion plants and animals.  However there are a few common exceptions:

• The Spidons of Arachnea are extensively farmed, though the majority of their meat winds up as basic protein in processed foods, some Spidon meat can be eaten fresh, and is as a local delicacy.  Fresh Spidon food products remain a niche export industry, much to the disappointment of the Trade Bureau at Arachnea. 
• A few species of native plants from Felline are beginning to enter human food chains (this is slow though, as, being carnivorous, there is a limited established body of knowledge from the Felline themselves on food agriculture, only for livestock, textile and pharmaceutical use.)  The Felline had well-established domestic animal farming at first contact, but human consumption of fresh native meat products remains rare, despite research showing that there are some suitable species.  Instead the Felline are beginning to experiment with adapting Dominion food processing technology to use on their native species.  
• Several local species of plants and animals on Zargonia are edible, and some are now even confused as being Companion species.
• AlpCows are hunted on Pristine, though mostly for their fur, claws and teeth, the meat is usable for protein (it can be eaten fresh but it is not generally considered a pleasant experience to do so.)  However, the offal is considered a tasty local dish when properly prepared.  Industrial-scale AlpCow husbandry is still in its infancy as the beasts do not take well to domestication.

  

Notable differences between Dominion and Contemporary food availability

Common Dominion Foods

• Food packs in various flavours made from don’t ask
  • There’s a slight distinction in ‘premium’ food packs being sourced from or flavoured with fresh food sources 
• Mixed dishes – it’s uncommon that a whole meal will be fresh food, more likely it’s farmed (and/or processed) and highlighted with a few fresh ingredients
• Wheat remains a common crop and so breads and cereals are probably the most common fresh food
• Corn too, though as corn is one of the least efficient crops in terms of weight/harvest it is less common than wheat
• Chicken eggs (sometimes known as ‘cheggs’) remain a very popular fresh food, scale production of Farmed Eggs remains a distinct disappointment and egg flavour for processed foods is common
• Sugar – the Dominion’s preferred sweetener
  • Sugar cane grows well across a wide band of Russell’s World and it is the sugar capital of the Dominion
• Milk
  • usually goat
  • popularity of Farmed Human Milk for broad consumption varies with time and place, but remains a staple for infants
  • various plant-based milks are common, though usually identified by the term ‘nush’ rather than ‘milk’, which is usually reserved for the product of animal lactation 
• Meats (always a bit of a luxury):  Goat, Chicken, Fish, Pork, Grasshopper
  • Also, less commonly:  Rat (apparently once quite common, popularity has declined in recent times), small bird species, cat, various alien delicacies

 

Beverages

Non-Alcoholic

• Water, of course
  • Most artificial habitats don’t experience actual water scarcity, but a conservationist mindset and water use monitoring and restrictions is common
  • Some planets, such as Captree and Zargonia, export water
  • Ice mining occurs in some systems where main worlds may not have water present
• Fruit juices are common, with fresh juices a luxury item
  • Carbonated versions are equally popular
• Coffee and Tea are both present, but are usually Farmed Foods with fresh-sourced beans or leaves a luxury item

   

Alcoholic

Most alcoholic drinks in the Dominion are beers and spirits.  There are a limited selection of wines that matches the limited selection of grape varietals and usually preferred by the upper classes.  Basi is a more common fermented drink (made of sugar cane) for the middle and lower classes. 

Most spirits are rums and vodkas, and rarer drinks to our contemporary world such as Cachasa (fermented and distilled sugar cane).  Rye Whiskeys are available and vary in quality, availability and popularity.

Beers in the dominion are generally quite different from our contemporary ones, being made mostly of rye, wheat or breadfruit rather than barley. 

  

Some beverages

• Wine
  • Whites, Reds, Rose
  • Sundome
  •  Tall Grass from Russell’s World
• Spirts
• Cocktains
  • Rum Funzer
  • Bieber Pretension (‘virgin and pretty’, a proper one has real fruit)

   

Common Contemporary Foods Absent from The Dominion

Most notably:

• Beef
• Oranges