Is it just me or does the crew get all orgasmic about all things food? Trip and pecan pie, Archer and tea, Porthos and cheese, and T'Pol and her damn breadsticks. Every episode has scenes with the crew shuddering over some of chef's food. I'll admit. It works and makes me hungry every time I watch. Makes me want to have orgasms while eating like they do.
I guess it was to show there food resequencers worked well lol For being a ship that explored the unknown they sure ate well and had alot of stores for quality food.
Not just that, I remember that (unlike a lot of other shows) the actors really got to eat a big steak, or a real homemade chili. A lot of shows serve something that looks like food, but is basicly a cold mush. Problem is, I remember reading that on Drexler's blog, which is sadly gone. I even had the recipe for the chili they once ate.
TOS used to do that all the time. They had these colorful blocks of stuff that were always on everyone's plate. And the novels even came up with an explanation for the stuff later on (it's called 'gristhera').
I always notice that they are drinking iced tea, and how oddly formal and uncomfortable the meals in the captain's mess look.
I found it a welcome relief to the fetishizing of replicated food that happened over the previous seven years. Forget the alpha quadrant: Janeway should have set course for the nearest McDonalds!
I think they were trying to reproduce something that was a popular element of the earlier series - the colorful food cubes of TOS, Picard's specific tea from TNG, the raktajino from DS9. People wanted to try the TOS food cubes and drink raktajino, and the way Picard ordered his tea not only inspired people to try it, but the exact phrasing became a bit of a viral meme. Maybe Janeway would have been more successful with it if instead of just going on about coffee, she had always wanted "Red Eye over ice" or whatever?
I think the pet food love is a cheap way to build a character. It is often awkward. Very common though. As to the salt and pepper shakers I always wanted them, and a while back they went up on ebay and someone pm'd me about it but I had been away from the forum and didn't see it and missed it
I have no idea how Archer doesn't weigh 400 pounds. Every episode opens with him eating in his quarters or having dinner at the captains table with 2 crew members and having some poor crewman bring his lazy ass some food and tea. He's just grinning the whole time taking long pauses between dialogue and turning his back and talking as well to make it sound more important adding weight and gravitas. I actually like Archer.
I always thought that the reason they had that colorful stuff in TOS (later retconned as gristhera) was so they wouldn't actually have to use food to film the scenes. If they had, they'd have to get the filming done faster, or the food would spoil. So they used colored props which was probably just made of plastic. Real food could be used in ENT because they'd gotten better at filming scenes quickly. Plus if necessary the actors could just eat the food if filming took too long.
I dont know about food porn, but what strikes me most in Enterprise is that they never get to finish a fucking meal, I mean every time they settle down to some well earned nosh the Suliban/Andorrians/Klingons are charging weapons. The crew must have sat down on a daily basis and thought, "I hope I can get time to shovel this Pan Fried Catfish down before that Klingon pain in the arse opens fire on us"
^that is common on a lot of shows. I always laugh when people order drinks and then just get up and leave it, untouched. Scull it man!
I recall there was a decent amount of food porn description on Voyager, but that made sense since they were far out, homesick, and had to depend on limited resources and rations. Harry Kim's description of a prime rib dinner was superb. I also noticed that the gang in the Big Bang Theory would almost always eat take out at Sheldon and Leonard's, sometimes twice an episode.