NaNoWriMo update: failure!

[tuftears]

I got about 8.5k words done on the proposed Genies: Rocking the Cradle story.

I kind of bogged down though... The real world is too depressing for writing about a bunch of psychopaths. I'm trying to think of a replacement writing project, something that will be just more silly fun.

What do you guys think of the idea of a Starfleet Cooking Academy?

Comments

[tuftears]

I'd have to think about that one. :)

James White's Sector General stories introduced a set of classifications of aliens by broad types, i.e. oxygen breathers, hydrogen breathers, aquatic species, etc. but when it comes to cooking, I need to think about how far I want to go. It implies:

1. Attending species will share a similar general metabolic basis, so we aren't faced with the problem of 'how do you cook for a species that eats rock.' Some species might have greater tolerances for various chemicals i.e. heavy metals, cyanide, so chefs *would* have to learn to deal with handling chemicals that are toxic to themselves.

2. Attending species will consider the acts of cooking and eating to be meaningful and of cultural value, i.e. we are unlikely to see Hudlarians which absorb free-floating microscopic organisms from the atmosphere. There could be exceptions but I think it's more important to figure out the 'majority races' first.

3. That said, it is still feasible to have a wide range of biologies, i.e. on Earth alone we have species which can breath water, which can fly, which are stationary and which are mobile, etc. Different races might flourish at different levels of oxygen, require trace atmospheric content, etc.

So that's good food for thought, and I should think about adding in races with different requirements, and how the school itself would be structured to handle those requirements. It'd be silly to have all races flourish under Earth-standard conditions.

Might be interesting if humans, as the newcomers on the block, were the ones who normally had to wear breather masks or goggles to adjust their vision to station normal, et cetera.

[archangelbeth]

I desire StarFleet/Sector General Cooking Academy, yes.

[tuftears]

Well, I started working out the worldbuilding notes for this. :) It's definitely more fun working not-stranded-at-the-bottom-of-a-desolate-world.

[archangelbeth]

SO TRUE. Sometimes a good survival-porn epic is what's wanted. Sometimes GIVE ME THE ECONOMY OF PLENTY.

[jordangreywolf]

Hmm. Alas, I don't have any sort of scientific background, so anything I come up with is likely to be embarrassingly absurd, but ...

1) Fuel as food. Perhaps there's some alien race that "eats" combustible materials. Never challenge one to a drinking contest: alcohol isn't inebriating to such a creature, but rather just another sort of food. :D

2) Texture vs. flavor. I think of the fun we had with the "naga" on SinaiMUCK -- what priorities there might be in cuisine for a creature that uses its tongue to smell the air rather than to taste its food, and is more entertained by the tactile sensation of whatever it is that's going down its gullet, than by flavor (since it doesn't chew).

3) Sugar fiend. Perhaps this sort of alien is biologically similar in some ways to what life might be like on Earth, but it has adapted to plants that yield sugary syrups, and hence it doesn't need to (or CANNOT) process carbs? So, this alien might be able to appreciate human foods, but skips STRAIGHT to dessert.

[tuftears]

One of the races written up so far IS a bunch of sugar fiends because they have fast metabolisms. :) I'll have to keep the texture-preferring idea in mind for the two remaining races, which are both aquatic. What kind of taste/texture sense would dolphins and squids have?

[zhora]

Nothing dry. Along with raw fish, they'd probably go for things we would consider oily and slimy, possibly with a lot of salt. They'd probably be salt connoisseurs, able to distinguish various brines like wine tasters.

[tuftears]

Interesting thought on salt. I figured they probably wouldn't be able to cook over a fire, but they would certainly be able to go in for pickling things-- just need water-tight containers for that. I dropped the other aquatic race in favor of a plant-based race that, yep, eats with their feet. :)