krait: dark-skinned alien in armour (Foreigner - security)
[personal profile] krait
If you have discussion points you wish to bring up but which include spoilers, please post them here. Then link your comment in the general post, so those who want to avoid being spoiled can do so!

delectable tea!

Date: 2011-06-03 12:10 am (UTC)
cheyinka: An ateva riding a mecheita through the snow. (atevi)
From: [personal profile] cheyinka
So, in Book Two, Section II, there's a line which, knowing Bren's experiences with cuisine, is... well, it's very something:

There was, in their reliance on food from orbit, a most pressing reason to identify grasses, and dissect seeds, and figure out their processes and their chemistry, where it was like Earth's and where it was different: ecologically different, the Guild had said, probably full of toxins, not to meddle with.

But the Guild was going to be wrong on that one, if the results held—God, the tests were looking good, down to the chemical level where it really counted: there were starches and sugars they recognized, no toxins in the seeds that, the Phoenix histories informed them, could be processed and cooked in ways human beings had done for a staple food for thousands of years.



I really, really wonder when the humans first discovered that plant life, animal life, and atevi food and drinks were the All Alkaloids All the Time Channel. Was it the first meal Ian shared with Manadgi? I mean, if Bren had to worry about not being poisoned by accident, Ian didn't even know that there were foods that would be deadly poison rather than delectable tea. (On the other hand, Ian might have tested everything to make sure he could eat it...)

Re: delectable tea!

Date: 2011-06-03 12:42 am (UTC)
feuervogel: photo of the statue of Victory and her chariot on the Brandenburg Gate (Default)
From: [personal profile] feuervogel
You make me wish I could draw, because that needs to be fan-art-ed.

Re: delectable tea!

Date: 2011-06-03 03:10 am (UTC)
cheyinka: An ateva riding a mecheita through the snow. (atevi)
From: [personal profile] cheyinka
Right, it's possible that the grasses and their seeds are safe, and he'd scan whatever he drank that wasn't water... also, it might have been remembered by Bren if the human to make first contact died of poisonous tea or pickles, now that I think about it. Still, it's an interesting thing to wonder about!

Re: delectable tea!

Date: 2011-06-03 07:22 am (UTC)
pebblerocker: A worried orange dragon, holding an umbrella, gazes at the sky. (Default)
From: [personal profile] pebblerocker
Doesn't Bren usually choose plain bread, as well as unsauced, unspiced meats, when he's unsure of whether the cook knows how to cater to humans? It could be definite fact that grains are always safe for humans. Or am I remembering wrong and he chooses eggs when unsure?

Re: delectable tea!

Date: 2011-06-03 02:27 pm (UTC)
cheyinka: An ateva riding a mecheita through the snow. (atevi)
From: [personal profile] cheyinka
No, I distinctly remember him telling another human, in one of the newest books, just to eat dry toast, so I think it really is true that grains are safe - it just seems like the biologists are in for a huge surprise when they discover that grains are safe, but some of the most delicious things are poisonous!

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