Space Barbecue
One may wonder how or better yet, why would people even attempt to barbecue in Zero-G.
Isn’t it safer to consume sealed ration packs, and do not risk setting your spaceship on fire? Indeed it would be a much risk-less, yet rather boring and not to mention, bland space trek.
I can only give you the standard Terran answer:
“Because yummy food is essential to success!”
All space installations and vessels in the Starshatter Universe make use of one ingenious device – the grav-oven. It was designed during the late 1960s, shortly after the first wave of space exploration and it changed pretty much everything. If before, all starship mess halls had to be constantly monitored while cooks juggled clunky, dangerous self-heating pots, with the grav-oven they could prepare food even in Zero-G.
Even after all Terran spacecraft were fitted with efficient floor plating and no longer beholden to unreliable rotating sections to create gravity, having one big grav-oven aboard is of paramount importance.
This device is derivative of the floor plating technology; micro-gravity generators are employed to “float” your meals. As they cook, the ingredients are contained in a bubble created by finely tuned gravity waves, and bask in focused thermal radiation. The low-yield force field transformed the hermetically sealed oven into a truly safe cooking device.
It didn’t take long until grav-ovens were labeled super barbecues by many, and especially the avid barbecue fans.
Fiddling with the device’s controls is not for everyone, however. Only cooks who have years worth of experience and possess basic engineering knowledge, could efficiently tweak these ovens and turn them into proper space barbecues. Harder still is to make use of burning wood and smoke the meats without ruining the oven’s otherwise highly efficient air filtration system.
If, however, your starship is blessed by the presence of a proper chef – the end result is more than worth it. Succulent smoked meats; perfectly cooked and incredibly moist since they were sealed in their own juices. Veggies fried in fat, loafs of bread with golden crust, crispy, tasty burnt ends...
So many recipes, never enough time to cook and eat them all!
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This is part of the Starshatter WholesomeBites community post chain. If you liked what you read, give the book series a try - The Starshatter Series or the Anthology - A Mandate Of Sword And Railgun.