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Food in the world of Red Rain
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Author:  Captain Nemo Marlene [ June 10th, 2014, 11:29 am ]
Post subject:  Food in the world of Red Rain
This may seem like a rather strange topic but... I'm writing a fan fiction of Aubrey Hansen's book Red Rain. If you're familiar with it (which I know many of you are), what types of food would they be eating on Mars? What types of food would they be eating in the camp? Would current foods and delicacies still be valued, or would there be new foods invented? If some people, but only a minority, liked the "old" foods, would it be weird to eat it like if we ate foo from the Middle Ages? How would food be prepared?

I'm curious to see your answers. I think I'm starting to formulate an opinion, but I'm still thinking it through.
Author:  Varon [ June 10th, 2014, 11:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
Well, Aubrey is the only one who can really answer the question, but I can give some ideas.

Probably a lot of dehydrated and enhanced foods to ensure all the nutrients are being eaten without having to import from Earth.
Author:  kingjon [ June 10th, 2014, 11:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
On Mars:
For the same reason---avoiding the high cost of importing from Earth---I would say that unless the setting includes molecular-level manipulation ("replicators"), it'd mostly be what can be grown in greenhouses, especially hydroponically or in poor soil. Meat (unless "vat-grown") would be a great extravagance, except perhaps the meat of "pest" animals that would have stowed away on the colony ships (like mice and rats).

And because I got the impresion that the Mars colony was primarily a research lab, with very little in the way of "support staff," I would think that dishes would most often be simple, easy, and quick to prepare and eat---something an absent-minded scientist can fix and eat to get back to work as quicky as possible :). Or, if there is enough support staff to have (a) communal cafeteria(s), then dishes that are simple and quick to eat, and easy to prepare in bulk.

On Earth:
We aren't givven much information about the economic system. My own extrapolations lead me to imagine something like Soviet Russia on a global scale---which is to say frequent famines, sometimes deliberate. But the atmosphere of the opening scene seems intended to suggest something rather like "present-day small-town America."
Author:  Captain Nemo Marlene [ June 10th, 2014, 11:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
Okay, that makes sense. I know Aubrey was saying to me that Ephesus is turning out to be quite the cook in book 2, but I think that's on Earth.

On a side note: If Mars was planning on becoming it's own independent colony separate from the Union, wouldn't they probably be experimenting with having livestock and good plants so they wouldn't have to get them from Earth? In that case, wouldn't "Earth" food be possible?

Also, you know how air pressure can affect cooking? I'm wondering if you would have to figure out all new ratios and even ingredients to cook with on Mars.
Author:  kingjon [ June 10th, 2014, 11:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
Captain Nemo Marlene wrote:
On a side note: If Mars was planning on becoming it's own independent colony separate from the Union, wouldn't they probably be experimenting with having livestock and good plants so they wouldn't have to get them from Earth? In that case, wouldn't "Earth" food be possible?

The reason I think plants grown hydroponically or adapted for poor soil would be the main source of food is that every cubic centimeter of good soil has to be imported from Earth somehow (either as soil or as food which becomes solid waste after it's eaten which is processed into soil), and space in a non-hostile (normal pressure, non-extreme temperatures, normal air mixture, liquid water available ...) environment is also tight (materials and especially labor have to be taken away from something else), so less-adapted plants are a waste of resources, and one cow (for instance) would eat as much expensively-grown food (grain or vegetables) as a large number of people every day while providing comparatively little benefit. Take a look at the economic/ecological arguments that vegetarians make sometime; I don't think they're strong enough to be convincing here on Earth, but in a small colony on Mars the economics would be very different.

Captain Nemo Marlene wrote:
Also, you know how air pressure can affect cooking? I'm wondering if you would have to figure out all new ratios and even ingredients to cook with on Mars.

If Mars was terraformed sufficiently to let people live outside without spacesuits, yes ... but otherwise the buildings have to be airtight and pressurized anyway so they would most likely be "normal" pressures.
Author:  Jessie Quill [ June 10th, 2014, 11:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
((Ever since I watched The Waters of Mars I've felt uneasy about using the words hydroponics and Mars in the same sentence. xD))


Farming is a very interesting topic. In reality, there are actually quite a few ways to make soil viable to grow foodstuff in. To keep it fertile, you can:

-Set up a drip system that circulates irrigation water between a fish tank and the soil, whatever water doesn't get absorbed by the plants drains back into the irrigation. The fish release whatever they release into the water, then that goes into the planters and the plant/soil filters it to make it clean and go back to the fish. You can do this with hydroponics or soil.
-(This might seem obvious but is effective if you know what you're doing.) Make compost by having a bin for organic waste and fill it with a ton of Earthworms. They'll break the garbage down into soil. You can do it without Earthworms but it takes longer for the garbage to break down and isn't as nutrient-dense, as far as I know.
-If you were to use animals for compost--and you let them roam around the garden--you can easily just use small animals like chickens and turkeys.
-BUGS. Those are easy to import. ;-)

Just a few examples, but I have lots of Youtube videos I can find that talk about taking very poor quality soil and building it up into rich topsoil on a large scale.

*steps off of soap box* xD Hope that helps.
Author:  kingjon [ June 10th, 2014, 11:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food in the world of Red Rain
Jessie Quill wrote:
Farming is a very interesting topic. In reality, there are actually quite a few ways to make soil viable to grow foodstuff in.

The question I was trying to keep in mind is, what ways are there to make Martian soil viable. Which is like if you had a volcanic island that had just risen out of the ocean and was immediately enclosed in a force-field that kept all life out except what you carried in on your boat, including plants, animals, birds, and even bacteria and fungi. Except that Mars is millions of miles away, and you have to pay to get anything up to Earth's escape velocity before you can even aim for Mars. :)
Jessie Quill wrote:
To keep it fertile, you can:

-Set up a drip system that circulates irrigation water between a fish tank and the soil, whatever water doesn't get absorbed by the plants drains back into the irrigation. The fish release whatever they release into the water, then that goes into the planters and the plant/soil filters it to make it clean and go back to the fish. You can do this with hydroponics or soil.

While interesting ... it doesn't seem like this would scale all that well. The more soil you're trying to treat or plants you're trying to grow, the more water you need ... and the aridity of Mars is one of the main constraints.

Jessie Quill wrote:
-(This might seem obvious but is effective if you know what you're doing.) Make compost by having a bin for organic waste and fill it with a ton of Earthworms. They'll break the garbage down into soil. You can do it without Earthworms but it takes longer for the garbage to break down and isn't as nutrient-dense, as far as I know.

I've been presuming that this has been going on essentially constantly (though I'd not thought to mention earthworms, which are indeed notable), or that maybe even some genetically engineered microorganisms (or worms) were doing the conversion even more efficiently than we usually get here-and-now. But on Earth, we have marginally-viable soil to start with; the Martian environment is essentially actively hostile to life.

Jessie Quill wrote:
-If you were to use animals for compost--and you let them roam around the garden--you can easily just use small animals like chickens and turkeys.

Another constraint that I brought up before that is extremely relevant here is environment-controlled space. A "garden" has to be heated, pressurized, oxygenated (and otherwise gas-balance-corrected :)), radiation-shielded, and artificially lit, even before you start thinking about soil and fertilizer. And letting an animal roam around the garden on its own---an animal you've imported from Earth (or descended from animals imported from Earth; as with most things in economics, what's at stake is the cost of replacing it, not how much it cost) at ruinous expense, around a garden that was similarly ruinously expensive ... :)

Jessie Quill wrote:
-BUGS. Those are easy to import. ;-)

But tricky to import just the ones you want, and then keep those alive. Technology has advanced since the Age of Sail, when bees (and silkworms) were shipped across oceans at great expense, but the distances are orders of magnitude greater and the dangers more perilous.

Jessie Quill wrote:
Just a few examples, but I have lots of Youtube videos I can find that talk about taking very poor quality soil and building it up into rich topsoil on a large scale.

One of the points I've been trying to make is that Mars makes "very poor quality soil" look like "rich topsoil" in comparison, while every such process I'm aware of uses resources that are freely available on Earth (sunlight! heat! air rich in oxygen and nitrogen!) or fairly cheap to purchase and transport in bulk ... none of which is readily available on Mars except at very great expense.

Though I willingly admit everything I say comes from what I've read in bits and pieces over the past decade or so and has gotten rolled around in my brain, so it's quite possible that I'm wrong on some or all of my points.

(On the other hand, I'd be interested in some links, because I use this sort of thing in the development of my strategy game, Strategic Primer.)
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