I had an interesting thought on cultural world-building the other day. Here are some of the bits and pieces.

If the transporter in Star Trek is essentially a highly complex copy and paste notion, with the information of those transported being saved on a sort of "clipboard" while in transit (which seems reasonable, given that malfunctions with the transporter have resulted in many people being trapped on planets below while the geeks try to restore someone lost along the way), it stands to reason that the food synthesizers would be essentially the same technology. In a way, it might be like an old clip art disk with all of the entries previously copied, and only in need of pasting. Essentially, the desired food items might be scanned and coded into the computer with only the need to be selected for materialization later. Synthesis might lead to the produced food not tasting quite as good as the original, or occasionally off if it is not synthesized properly due to glitches, but as long as it isn't turning water into hydrogen peroxide, that's only a cafeteria food problem rather than a safety hazard.

Anyway, that got me thinking on what the technology might be like starting out. The programming was created and the team working on it scanned and uploaded perhaps ten or twenty different dishes. A bit dull to start out. It's when it's open sourced that the technology really takes off. Then anyone can cook a meal they love, upload it to the cloud, and those with synthesizer equipment can download any number of "cookbooks" from any number of restaurants, nationalities, and households. What a great morale boost when you're away from home for five years and can now have your mother's meatball curry again. Maybe the synthesis can't copy it exactly (or maybe it can) but at least it's something. Home cooks might like the idea of their food being eaten far and wide. More business-minded individuals might sell their compiled cookbooks, not wanting to harm their bottom line if they run a food business. Then certain ships might be eating better than others.

It may not be a thought with many grand implications, but the notion of the process struck me as interesting, so I thought I would share.

That's a great worldbuilding consideration for science fiction stories that have similar technology. It could add a lot of small but important details to make the world feel real, perhaps including humorous incidents involving food that didn't quite turn out like it was supposed to.

Or everyone on shore leave cramming into this hole in the wall restaurant because they want to taste the real version of meals that are from the only free "cookbook" they could find that could get them away from the twenty generic meals offered with the basic mess synthesizer.

On a related note, I'm still not sure why everyone in OS eats giant Gushers...

Yes. Or a favorite meal a character has made can lead to learning more about the character's past.

Apparently it synthesizes alcohol very poorly, based on Scotty's comments. I wouldn't be surprised if the tea is lousy too. Maybe Picard has low standards or has been in space too long.

Perhaps the next generation's technology is better.