Food and Drink in Space

Many times throughout history, futurists have predicted wild and unrecognizable changes to human food culture. There has certainly been no lack of experimentation and innovation in the pleasure aspect of food, but for day-to-day nutrition requirements there has been very little change outside of preservation and preparation techniques. With the advent of artificial gravity, space cuisine had no need to differentiate from planetary meal presentation. Most food you will find aboard spacecraft will resemble airline meals of the early 21st century on Earth.

Galley

The galley of a ship is a compact and efficient space. There are cabinets for food and tableware storage, inbuilt appliances, and dispensers for most common needs. Some galleys sport miniature hydroponic cabinets to provide the occasional leafy greens, fresh herbs, or small luxuries that make week-long spike jumps more tolerable. A passenger can often get a sense of the captain's home planet's culture from the plants cultivated in galley hydroponics.

Meals and Preparation

Based on the level of accommodation aboard a spaceship, crew and passengers can expect to find a range of packaging and presentation. The less expensive the passage, the less care is generally put into the food.

Passengers booking High Passage and fancy accommodations can expect to have high-quality meals prepared fresh and presented in a very appealing manner. Ships offering High Passage often have extensive galley facilities comparable to small commercial kitchens.

Passengers in Middle Passage accommodations enjoy pre-packaged meals such as those seen here. The standard tray design and vacuum-sealed plastic covering make it easy to stock a surprisingly wide selection in a standard galley. Preparation mostly involves reheating in a standard microwave oven or similar device. A few food suppliers may offer seemingly steep discounts on proprietary food preparation devices, but then gouge captains on the back end with expensive specialized meal packets; neither can be used without the other, and the quality of the food can vary.

  Other times, especially on owner/operator ships, a Middle Passage passenger can expect simple "home-cooked" meals from bulk-stock ingredients. Such meals are not the finest quality available, but the personal touch often more than makes up for it when prepared by a skilled steward.

Steerage passengers can expect very little in the way of flavor, texture, and presentation of their food, but at least it's fast and convenient, and some varieties can keep for decades at room temperature. Some captains keep these meals at room temperature for decades regardless of the package instructions. A common example of such rations is the self-contained rehydrated bowl meal. The food itself is a single-pot style of meal that is rehydrated by pressing the bowl onto a hot water nozzle in the galley. After the allotted rehydration time, the vacuum-formed plastic cover can be peeled off, and the food stirred to complete the preparation. The bowls are generally manufactured from a stabilized corn plastic that can be fed into the ship's biorecycler.

Drinks

The available drink selection aboard a spaceship has more to do with the operator's tastes and the expected clientele than actual practicality. Drinks are much easier to store than many foods, and serving is simply a matter of matching the drinking vessel to the environment.

  In a rugged work situation, drinks may be prepackaged into sipping pouches to prevent spillage. Alternatively, powder can be stored in pouches and reconstituted on either a hot or cold water nozzle in the galley. Other possible containers are bioplastic cups from the galley dispenser, personal reusable water bottles, or the captain's favorite insulated coffee mug (with a loop of duct tape on the bottom, so it sticks to the command chair if the grav plates give out).

  A more enticing technology for Middle Passage is the molecular drink printer. By simply replacing the ingredient cartridges, the MDP can replicate hundreds of types of drinks, including caffeinated and alcoholic. Such devices are often installed aboard large-capacity ships or corporate fleets under contract, and users pay per drink. When the cartridges are depleted the supplier replaces them for free. Besides the per-drink expense, the downside to an MDP is that a refined palette can probably taste that these drinks are not the "real thing."
High Passage is an entirely different beast. The galley will often stock "real" drinks in liquid form, carefully curating a selection of bottles to appeal to passengers. Sometimes special drinks will be procured prior to travel as part of a contract. Such passengers are served with high-class tableware and drink glasses--a high transport expense, but an expected luxury for the prices that High Passage commands.

Emergency Rations

Every ship carries emergency rations in the event of becoming stranded. They are generally unpalatable and dry, but functionally last forever. Some spacers say that the emergency rations are intentionally created to be disgusting, since there's no way a manufacturer could arrive at that particular flavor of chemically-treated cardboard on purpose. The rebuttal from the manufacturers is often couched in the need for preservation and complete nutrition, but captains are secretly glad, so there isn't a temptation for crew to sneak a snack between shifts.

Space Food Brands in Leo Omega

• Just Like Mom's brand packaged foods
• Pouch-a-Noodles
• Everfresh sandwiches, from Meshullam Foods and Plastics INC
• TubeSnak, from Meade Food Products LLC
• Salome Vinyards, located on Garjuan 
• Groate Hydroponic Systems
• High Passage brand (low-quality Mid food trays)
• Hungry Human ("Unbuckle your asteroid belt!")
• Louis Wu's Bento Boxes
• Tofu Helper