FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #1, Spoiler Edition

[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!

Comments

Re: delectable tea!

[krait]

Me, too! (Someone with fanart skillzz totally needs to draw Ian spitting out a mouthful of tea after scanning the berry it came from!)

I'm guessing that he scanned everything he was offered except perhaps the water, since presumably he would have been involved in the plants/native pollens scan, so maybe he already had an inkling that the local plants sometimes contained Bad Stuff?

Re: delectable tea!

[krait]

That is to say, even if the seeds didn't?

Re: delectable tea!

[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!

[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!

[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!

Re: delectable tea!

[krait]

I'm pretty sure you're right on all counts -- i.e. he opts for toast if it's available, and leaves sauces off meat, when uncertain.

And/or opts for eggs; though I mostly remember them being mentioned as being alternatives for whatever the kabiu meat of the season is; don't recall whether Bren asks for them, just that he mentions them being an alternative.

It does make sense, sort of - after all, a grain is essentially a seed, i.e. a baby plant and all the nutrients it needs to grow. Baby things might not be able to handle some offensive chemicals, or might need alll the seed-space for their food source, more than they need a protective chemical. (Like how, on our world, you can eat the leaves of a young nettle plant, but an older one will be toxic -- the toxicity increases over time as the plant ages, it's not "inborn" except in the sense that the plant has the genes for making or uptaking that compound.)

Actually. Terran vegetatiom sports a number of examples of toxic plants that have edible fruits or roots -- pretty much every part of a potato except the tuber, for instance, contains the neurotoxin solanine; and while rhubarb stalks are edible, the leaves are not.