Food Fixations - Season Four

The Gift

• Neelix and Kes drink a bottle of moon ripened Talaxian champagne, a particular favourite of Kes's, in celebration of her evolving mental powers. Neelix apparently tucked a bottle of it away for a special occasion, and they recall the last time that they drank it: three years before, when they first arrived on board Voyager. Neelix's toast on that occasion - "to the adventure" - is repeated now.
• When trying to figure out the reasons why he and Kes split up, Neelix suggests that perhaps it was because Kes always hated his cooking. She laughs and agrees. So much for Kes's gift for bolstering the egos of those in need of constant reassurance...

Day Of Honor

• B'Elanna Torres misses breakfast, due to a combination of oversleeping and her sonic shower blowing out. In consequence she's in a really bad mood and is proposing to skip dinner as well - or at least her dinner date with Tom Paris.
• Voyager spends most of the day making charity donations of food and medicines to the Caatati, who are less than grateful for their sacrifices.
• Neelix makes B'Elanna Klingon blood pie, the traditional meal served for the Klingon day of honour.
• When B'Elanna somewhat grudgingly goes through the day of honour ceremony on the holodeck, she is invited to eat from the heart of a sanctified targ and drink mot'loch from the grail of Kahless. From the way she grimaces, neither is particularly appetising, and may in fact be part of the endurance ordeal.
• Janeway offers Seven a choice of tea or coffee when she summons her for an interview. Seven declines, as ingesting liquids is still irrelevant. According to the Doctor, however, her altering body chemistry is almost far enough advanced for her to begin eating food again.

Nemesis

• The Vori soldiers don't have much luck with their cooks either. Rafin offers Chakotay provisions, but warns that they're not particularly savoury. To be fair though, the food Chakotay gets at Lahana Settlement seems to be rather better.
• It is the Doctor's considered medical opinion that Chakotay was so brainwashed by the Vori that they could have convinced him that his own mother was a turnip and he would have believed them.

Revulsion

• The HD25 isomorphic projection that the Doctor and B'Elanna Torres go to assist on an alien ship offers her rations. He seems somewhat amused by her eating action, comparing it to the nibbling of a fish.
• Tom Paris, left in sole charge of Sickbay in the Doctor's absence, finds it's a quiet enough day on the injury front that he can put his feet up in the Doctor's office and work his way through a big jug of coffee.

The Raven

• The Doctor, deciding that Seven's digestive system is ready for re-introduction to real food, sends her to Neelix with a shopping list. Neelix reads her requirements - 250 grams of glycoproteins, consisting of 53 per cent polypeptides and 26 per cent glycogen (and presumably 21 per cent of something else, although it's not mentioned) - and decides that what she really needs is a pleasurable culinary experience and a plate of his chadre'kab. Steamed, out of deference to her stomach, although he's also willing to prepare it boiled, baked or stir fried.
• It's either that or the thought of the soothing cup of tea he offers to bring her to wash it down with that stimulates Seven's Borg implants to start growing back. Talk about overreacting...

Scientific Method

• Chakotay orders hot black coffee, just before all his hair falls out. It appears that the two are unconnected however, which will no doubt come as a great relief to all the ship's caffeine addicts.
• Neelix offers Tom Paris and Harry Kim scrambled eggs for breakfast.
• Harry declines the safer food offer in favour of begging Neelix for left over pleeka rind casserole from the previous night (see also Real Life). It turns out that he's acquired quite a taste for it.
• Janeway says that when the current crisis is over, she plans on spending a few days at a little inn in holodeck Renaissance Tuscany. Tuvok promises to join her there for a glass of wine.
• Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres celebrate the ending of the crisis with a private dinner à deux in his quarters - with a salad he replicated himself, and a bottle of 2282 Ktarian Merlot.

Year Of Hell: 2

• Annorax throws a banquet for guest-prisoners Chakotay and Tom Paris, at which he treats them to a selection of delicacies which are otherwise pretty hard to find - since his temporal weapon ship has erased from existence the races that created them. Chakotay approves of the Malkothian spirits, which are a particularly excellent wine, but Paris looks suitably revolted upon learning that his meal is all that's left of the Alsuran Empire. Annorax really knows how to kill a party.
• Neelix serves up the Elixir of Endurance to the seven crew remaining on Voyager. Essentially it's a creative reinterpretation of their ration cubes, pureed and mixed with water, with a few Talaxian spices thrown in for good measure. Seven of Nine pronounces it offensive. Fortunately, taste is irrelevant.
• Janeway decides to celebrate the unveiling of the new Astrometrics Lab by replicating herself a bottle of 2370 Saint Emilion (see also The Cloud).

Random Thoughts

• Neelix falls in love with a market trader on the Mari homeworld, and uses the pretext of restocking Voyager's food supplies as a way of segueing into a little dinner, dancing and whisker-tugging. He compliments her fruit, despite the fact that she says that it's been their worst water plum season for years... and even Neelix acknowledges that they're somewhat tart. He thinks they'll do for preserves though.
• Later, while being interviewed concerning the attack in the marketplace, Neelix claims to be thinking about how he could bake a delicious pie with those water plums. Although he does seem to be a little distracted by thoughts of Talli and whisker-tugging.

Concerning Flight

• Amongst the other things snatched by the technology pirates are a month's worth of emergency rations. No great loss, according to Tom Paris, although Janeway does charge him and Neelix with the task of trying to get them back. I can't think she's entirely serious though; it's much more likely she's just trying to put her helmsman in his place.

Mortal Coil

• Harry Kim is need of a potent stimulant to keep him awake while he pulls an all-nighter over his monthly Ops report. Neelix offers him a constant stream of his latest fire nut coffee.
• Seven complains that her nutritional supplements are unacceptable. Apparently the sense of smell isn't irrelevant, and Neelix has been adding some particularly pungent Talaxian spices to her food in order to broaden her palate.
• Tom Paris puts in a plea to Neelix for pizza. He doesn't see the difficulty in making something that is essentially just bread, tomatoes and cheese. Neelix points out that the process of cheesemaking is a complicated one, so Paris suggests that he replicate the cheese instead. That's probably a good move, considering what happened last time Neelix tried to make cheese (in Learning Curve). Paris does wear him down eventually though (see Survival Instinct).
• Neelix has been ageing fruit compote and moolt nectar for weeks, in preparation for Voyager's annual celebration of the Talaxian holiday Prixin. Janeway requests that he not ferment the compotes for quite so long this year, since on the previous occasion they rather went to her head!

Waking Moments

• Late for his duty shift after a wild nightmare about a shuttlecraft crash, Paris stops by the Mess Hall on his way to the bridge for that all-essential cup of coffee to clear the fuzz out of his brain. Unfortunately, what Neelix actually gives him is a steaming cup of cooking oil.
• Since he is late, Paris passes on breakfast itself, although Neelix is offering a choice of eggs - prepared scrambled, sunny side up, or over easy.
• Neelix's own nightmare involved him being boiled alive in a pot of his own leola root stew. Talk about poetic justice! He derives some comfort from the fact that it was perfectly seasoned, however...
• Neelix offers a soothing cup of tea to fellow insomniac Chakotay.

Message In A Bottle

• While the Doctor's away, Tom Paris has to treat a sudden outbreak of acute functional dyspepsia. Neelix has been brushing up on his marketable job skills in case Voyager does make it back to Earth, and experimenting with classic American cuisine. In this particular case it's Rodeo Red's Red Hot Rootin' Tootin' Chilli... or perhaps it's just the excess of jalapenos (which Neelix pronounces "ja-lah-pee-nohs") which our Talaxian cook has used in his eagerness to perfect the recipe.
• Paris suggests to the hapless heartburn victims that they might be better off ordering the chicken salad next time.

Hunters

• Paris is far more interested in identifying the ingredients of the dinner mystery dish than in whether he'll get a letter from home. According to him it tastes vaguely like chicken, but has the consistency of corn husks.
• Janeway invites Chakotay to take coffee with her. According to her, it's her fourth cup of the day and won't be her last. She claims she beat the Borg with it, and who are we to argue?

Killing Game: 1

• As the proprietress of le Coeur de Lion, Janeway sends a bottle of Chateau Latour wine to Nazi Komandant/Alpha Hirogen Karr. She doesn't, however, feel that he merits the good stuff, so she saves the classic vintage '29 for another day and gives him the '36 instead.
• Neelix proves himself a competent enough cyclist to snatch up an apple from a market stall - to be put on his account - without stopping.
• In a little tête á tête with the Master Race, the Nazis examine - and destroy - the contents of Neelix's bicycle carrier: French bread and a bottle of wine. Fortunately, the all-important message he carries is on the label of the bottle, which survives the experience.
• Neelix's role in the World War Two holodeck simulation is as friendly French baker and secret Maquis sympathiser. He claims that the Gestapo just love his strudel.
• Trying to get her bearings in the holodeck program (and to disguise the fact that she doesn't know the lyrics to the songs she's supposed to be singing), Seven plays for time by claiming that she requires a glass of water.
• Meanwhile, outside the holodeck, Harry Kim is trying a little resistance of his own, holding a clandestine meeting with the Doctor under cover of trying to get the food replicators back on line. He tries to sell his alibi to a Hirogen by suggesting that the finest hunters in the quadrant must surely be getting bored of synthetic protein, since even he's tired of eating emergency rations.
• In the Klingon simulation, Neelix is all set to hunt down a Targ, claiming that there is no enemy as great as hunger.

Killing Game: 2

• In the Klingon simulation, Neelix and company are swigging back what looks like it could be blood wine. Janeway cautions the still-controlled Chakotay not to partake of it, describing it as twice as strong as whisky.
• The good wine obviously would have been wasted on the Hirogen. Turanj describes his drink in le Coeur de Lion as synthetic and undrinkable.

Vis À Vis

• The alien pretending to be Tom Paris decides to explore the replicator database and sample a few alcoholic beverages. Five, in fact, according to the computer logs. He offers Seven a Trakian Ale, but she's not interested. Presumably intoxication is irrelevant.

Unforgettable

• Neelix is serving up fried soy meal, buttered carrots, and an almond pudding which he describes as delightful. It sounds like he couldn't have picked a worse meal for Chakotay if he'd tried, since the Commander apparently hates carrots, finds that fried food upsets his stomach, and doesn't eat puddings either. And you thought that Tom Paris was a finicky eater.
• Chakotay and Neelix talk over recipes to counteract insomnia. Neelix says that, though he's heard that warm milk may do the trick, he finds the idea of it repulsive.
• Neelix offers Chakotay herbal tea. As well as some blends that he terms "more exotic", he apparently has a number of varieties from Earth, although it's difficult to imagine why or how as the crew presumably replicated their tea prior to arriving in the Delta Quadrant. I suppose it's possible that he's managed to confiscate the supply of some tea purist amongst the crew who preferred the real thing. Or did he get the chance to go shopping in 1996 Los Angeles while the crew were there in Future's End?
• Visiting Ramuran Kellin discovers ice-cream, and declares that she could eat it every day.
• Kellin and Chakotay drank champagne on her previous visit to Voyager, to celebrate her capture of the fugitive she was hunting down.
• Chakotay drinks coffee while he's setting down the details of his encounter with Kellin on paper before he forgets them. Presumably this particular night insomnia isn't a problem, since he wants to stay awake until he's finished his task.

One

• The Doctor creates a Mess Hall holodeck simulation for Seven to practice social interaction. In it, the holographic B'Elanna is eating potato salad, which she comments favourably upon.
• Neelix serves a soup with a secret recipe. This makes Paris nervous, since he declares that food and mystery don't go together, but it gets rave reviews from his companions. B'Elanna Torres pronounces it edible, and Harry Kim goes as far as to call it "great".

Hope And Fear

• Janeway speculates on whether the mysterious encrypted message from Starfleet is actually nothing more than Admiral Chapman's recipe for the perfect pound cake.
• Janeway's pulling coffee fuelled all-nighters while trying to crack the code on the Starfleet message.
• Being more than a little suspicious of the gift wrapped starship on her doorstep, Janeway comments to Tuvok that the only thing missing is chocolates on the pillows. Presumably she's half expecting the too-good-to-be-true gift to be from Q, who's already tried the chocolates stunt on her once...