What do we know about romulan cuisine and dishes?

[Unimatrix Q]

And what actually is "Gletten", the soup seen in "Unification, and Viinerine, the dish mentioned and apparently seen in "Face of the Enemy"?

From beta canon, especially in Diane Duane's Rihannsu books, we know that the Romulans are apparently very fond of meat, with a preference for venison.

In DS9 there was a mentioning of "romulan jumbo mollusks".

And in "The Last Best Hope" as well as in Star Trek Picard we learnt that they are very fond of sweets.

So, what do you imagine romulan cuisine to be like, compared to cuisines from Earth? And what do the mentioned dishes taste like?

And last but not least, why was Picard so much disgusted by the mentioned romulan soup? He never seemed to have this problem with Gagh and other klingon dishes...

 

[1001001]

From beta canon.

What does that mean?

 

[Timo]

Essentially "Included in Memory Beta".

If we're taking the novelverse tack, the other Diane stated that all Romulans carefully separate all the ingredients on their platter before eating them, the way certain <insert-non-offensive-word-for-neurotic> humans do. Not much supported on screen, I guess.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

I'd expect Romulan dishes to be .... insidious ....

 

[valkyrie013]

Its a secret..

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'd expect Romulan dishes to be .... insidious ....

Soylent Green is Romulans

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In "Face of the Enemy" there is a Romulan dish called 'viinerine', though we don't really know what it actually is.

 

[fireproof78]

we know that the Romulans are apparently very fond of meat, with a preference for venison.

Which is probably a reference to Spock's attitude of becoming like his ancestors in "All our Yesterdays."

 

[1001001]

I've heard they have an ale of some sort....

 

[fireproof78]

I've heard they have an ale of some sort....

It'll cure what ales ya.

~anonymous Romulan salesperson, probably.

 

[tesral]

Too little? We see very little attention to food in ST except for the Klingons and Ferengi, and it only touches on the more esoteric. Kirk has a chicken sandwich in "The Trouble with Tribbles" or tries to.

Romulans? Other than undefined dishes? Oh the novel was "Enterprise", on launching the Enterprise with Captain April. It was a Human Romulan saboteur. (There is a reason I don't re-read or re-watch much. It has been decades since I touched that book)

We do not know the content of Plomeck (sp) soup either.

It would be no surprise the Romulans remain omnivores. Vulcans are vegetarian by choice. (It is Buddhism, but with pointed ears.) So Romulans continue in the traditional pre-Surak Vulcan diet, with modifications for locality and the evolution of style and taste.

Side question: Do Vulcans go back to meat in the age of replication? No life was taken for this steak.

 

[Vger23]

Not much. Not much at all.

 

[dupersuper]

Didn't Jarok ask for something the replicator had no records on in The Defector?

 

[Maurice]

What does that mean?

Memory Beta is a "non-canon" Star Trek wiki that includes novels, games, et al, e.g. the game I worked on (link).

 

[NCC-73515]

Troi tried Viinerine in the Generations game and found it disgusting XD

 

[Henoch]

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

On Romulus, all recipes are secret recipes.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

When i made a thread about this on reddit at r/daystrominstitute, there was a interesting reply that most of the animals on Romulus may have blood based on copper instead of iron.

Think it's an interesting way to explain Picard's disgust for the soup, especially if it is a kind of stew with some meat in it.

But in the Rihannsu books, there is Terise Haleakala LoBrutto, a human woman disguised as a Romulan named Arrhae i-Mnaeha t'Khellian, living undercover on Romulus. She never had any problems with the food. In fact she was very fond of hlai, romulan poultry.

And in "The Last Best Hope" Picard was a dinner guest of a wealthy and influential romulan governor. Higher romulan cuisine was served, which Picard apparently enjoyed. Iirc meat was served.

 

[Timo]

Would Romulus have flora or fauna related to Vulcanoids?

If Romulus was the original home of the species, and Vulcan merely a colony that chooses to misremember its history, this might follow. And indeed both Vulcans in TOS and Romulans in PIC feel that Vulcans are not indigenous to planet Vulcan, although neither group ever claims that they would be indigenous to Romulus, either.

No credible character ever confirms the story that Romulans would have moved to Romulus after leaving Vulcan in a huff; it's merely implicit in the writing, not explicit, and might get contradicted later. But if Romulus is a Vulcan colony, it seems likely that only a select few species would have been introduced by the colonists, on a planet chosen for its preexisting flora and fauna. Are there "Vulcan-type" biospheres out there for such colonists to choose? That is, not desert worlds, but worlds with life biochemically close to the Vulcans themselves, and not to humans or Bolians or whatever? That is, is that a thing?

As for interspecies cuisine, there's plenty in the assorted banquets that, say, Sarek of Vulcan attends on various occasions. Is this deliberately neutral food, or can Vulcanoids eat whatever they want to, the exact nature of the hemoglobin* notwithstanding?

Timo Saloniemi

* Yes, it's hemoglobin, not coproglobin ("Obsession"). So the copper might be a mere spice in an iron-based compound after all, and not particularly relevant to anything much save for the color.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Would Romulus have flora or fauna related to Vulcanoids?

If Romulus was the original home of the species, and Vulcan merely a colony that chooses to misremember its history, this might follow. And indeed both Vulcans in TOS and Romulans in PIC feel that Vulcans are not indigenous to planet Vulcan, although neither group ever claims that they would be indigenous to Romulus, either.

No credible character ever confirms the story that Romulans would have moved to Romulus after leaving Vulcan in a huff; it's merely implicit in the writing, not explicit, and might get contradicted later. But if Romulus is a Vulcan colony, it seems likely that only a select few species would have been introduced by the colonists, on a planet chosen for its preexisting flora and fauna. Are there "Vulcan-type" biospheres out there for such colonists to choose? That is, not desert worlds, but worlds with life biochemically close to the Vulcans themselves, and not to humans or Bolians or whatever? That is, is that a thing?

As for interspecies cuisine, there's plenty in the assorted banquets that, say, Sarek of Vulcan attends on various occasions. Is this deliberately neutral food, or can Vulcanoids eat whatever they want to, the exact nature of the hemoglobin* notwithstanding?

Timo Saloniemi

* Yes, it's hemoglobin, not coproglobin ("Obsession"). So the copper might be a mere spice in an iron-based compound after all, and not particularly relevant to anything much save for the color.

Think it's quite possible for the benefit of the copper theory, that the exiled vulcans deliberately selected Romulus because of its fauna.