Bribe GM with Food (6/30)

We're almost at the end of theme week 1. I have no idea whatsoever as to the theme of week 2.

Tonight I'm going to cheat a little bit and write about games. And food. games and food. games with food! It's actually something I've been thinking about for a while, food (and other necessities) in gaming. At first blush, it's textbook simulationism, really: in real life you have to eat food or somehow get nutrients into your body or its game over. I was even going to say as much, but it struck me not too long ago that that's a very limited view. There's a lot of potential for narrativist use of food in gaming as well! I remember that in a D&D game run by Etarran, he described in elaborate detail this spiralling restaurant table, where the further in you went, the more you paid and the better you ate. And indeed some of the players ate there, but it was never "where are your characters going to eat tonight?" so much as "are you going to engage with the world?". Or I can imagine a very roleplaying heavy game in a medieval court, in which banquets (and doubtlessly poison) play a very important role, but for their social - rather than nutritional - aspect. And of course, one must remember that food is one of the easiest ways to bribe your GM to let you take that super-broken feat.

Some videogames that take the simulationist route with food are STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Sims 1-3, The Ship (I think?), and...the Oregon trail, I guess?. I guess food is also a healing item in STALKER, but you can and will get hungry and die of hunger if you're not careful in game. Maybe our generation was so traumatized by the Oregon trail that they decided never again to force a player to eat to survive in a game? I think perhaps that no one has thought of a compelling reason why food for food's sake would make a game more compelling. Think about it: Videogames tend to convey information by way of sight and sound. Sometimes touch if you have force-feedback. Food is taste, smell, and texture. There's essentially no overlap, unless you can figure out how to make an xbox controller rumble like you're holding a sandwich! STALKER doesn't even have an animation or sound effect for eating, and I think it's fairly obvious why: slowing the game down for food would likely be intolerable, even to a player hardcore enough to want to have to eat in a survival-horror game. There's just no possible REWARD for taking the time to eat. And don't give me this "but NOT DYING is your reward!" crap, either - that's the kind of game design philosophy that leads to quicktime events! Shooting a gun in a shooter is fun not because it helps you live when your enemies are dead; it's fun because there's visceral feedback. If you can't provide that, then go for some kind of intellectual fulfillment ("I outflanked/outwitted/outfought him! How daringly clever of me!"), but if neither is attainable, just leave it out. And that's what most game designers seem to have done.

Food as a nonessential stat boost shows up in a couple more places, like Bethesda RPGs, really. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines if you think blood=food (also =mana in that game, hence why it's not in category 1). Or any RTS which has "food" as a resource. Alchemy is a pretty important part of Morrowind, and I realized once when I was crafting potions out of "kwarma eggs" and "saltrice" that I wasn't really brewing a potion so much as making fried rice! Remember when I was talking about rewards in games? A cooking/alchemy mechanic which rewards patience and study with stat boosts is a pretty good way to give players both intellectual and visceral pleasure from doing food-related things in a game. Especially if killing some enemies gives you ingredients ("woohooo! dog meat!"). There are two food-related quests in Mass Effect 2, which reward you with XP and ingratiate you with some minor characters/members of your crew. The food is entirely inconsequential by way of game mechanics, but having Shepherd bond with Dr. Chakwas over a bottle of brandy is one of my favourite moments in the game...and one of Shepherd's most human. As much as the whole "stat boosts" thing bothers me in a game like Fallout 3 (it's too lighthearted for the dire tone of the world, especially when you compare with something ACTUALLY dark *coughSTALKERcough*), I think that on the whole it's a reasonable compromise (I think Etarran may have even given characters some minor bonuses for eating at that cool restaurant, now that I think about it). The world seems all the more real for having food in it, but the player is rewarded for being engaged, rather than penalized for being negligent. On a final note, Team Fortress 2's Sandvich, Bonk!, Crit-a-cola, and Dalokhs bar are pretty much the embodiment of "food-as-stat boost", but they're weird in that they occur in an intentionally stylized gameworld where no one even NEEDED to ask "where's all the food?" in the first place.

Food as decoration or pure flavour is probably in a lot more games than I remember. Counter-Strike has a map with fruit-filled market stalls, there are watermelons in Half-Life 2 (and the Vortigaunt chefs from Black Mesa East! Squeeeee ^^!), You have to knife a watermelon in the tutorial for CoD4...I'm sure you've seen it. There are, after all, a lot of games that don't really need to include "sustenance" into their respective paradigms. It doesn't really add much to the run-and-gun shooter, after all. But there's sort of a trend toward treating more and more objects as "real" in a gameworld. Physics are all the rage now, but I can't imagine that's the be-all and end-all of it. It seems funny to think that every game might someday include an eating mechanic...but perhaps stranger still is the molecular-level simulation of matter that will let you shoot a gun with ultimate fidelity, set fire to whole forests, hurl boulders, run through grassy fields, watch the sunset over the ocean with the sand running over your fingers...but won't let you eat?

LOUD!

Grow Up! (5/30)

Carrying on from yesterday's introduction of vertical farming, I thought I would try to put together a little bit more of a primer for you.

First off, Discovery channel offers this video. Basic, but effective:

First and foremost among the reasons we "need" vertical farming* is that we have a growing population of humans what need feeding, contrasted with an ever-shrinking amount of arable land for farming. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's pretty much what Thomas Malthus was talking about a couple hundred years ago in England (minus the whole bit about vertical farms, and plus a whole lot of OH GOD OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!). We've had pretty good luck so far avoiding the direst of his predictions, and that's because - surprise surprise - people aren't actually that eager to die in droves, and we've been perfecting farming technologies that have allowed us to greatly increase the crop yield of our finite fields. Unfortunately, not all of these technologies are without cost: chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been contaminating water and animal tissues since their respective inventions, and the high-yield monocultures that we grow today are leaving us ever more succeptable to devastating blights, should they arise. I think I would argue that while these technologies have definitely served us well in the past, they're a bit of a misstep overall. We're looking at the problem a little bit backwards. In its early phases, agriculture was the creation of a controlled environment where before humans had to deal with the fortune that nature dealt them. As an extension of that control, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides seem more or less logical...but now that we can grow food indoors with hydroponics/aeroponics, we can leapfrog the whole problem of trying to reign nature in by building the ultimate controlled environment quite literally across the street.

*Ok, so we don't actually need it. We could just let people die or keep poisoning the Earth.

Hydroponics is probably a technology you've already heard of: you grow plants in nutrient-infused water, it saves space and doesn't require dirt, etc. Aeroponics is pretty much the same deal, except that rather than being immersed in water, the roots of a crop are sprayed with it. The water requirements of an aeroponic crop are comparatively much lower than that of a conventionally or hydroponically grown one. And once you've bypassed the need for dirt, you can pretty much stack your crops in racks on top of each other (with a little root space in between). I was ballparking the efficiency of a vertical farm much, MUCH too low when I guessed fifty times that of a conventional farm yesterday. Scientfic American puts the figure somewhere around five hundred times more efficient (they say a one-city block x 30 story building could equal 2400 acres of farmland, and it seems a Manhattan city block is about 5-6 acres)...and I missed another interesting point: a lot of these designs also include living space. I'm not sure there's anything necessarily superior about this configuration, but I'm a fan of the idea anyhow.

The million-dollar (well, probably 5 or 20 million in today's dollars) question is, of course, whether or not anyone is actually going to do it. On paper it's a pretty perfect solution: piles of local organic food without pests and presumably at affordable prices (even if the infrastructure's pricey you'll be killing the competition in volume and on top of that your growing season never ends!). It's a nice change of pace for your city skyline, and it reforges a lost connection between people and their food. Unfortunately, I think there's a potential chicken-and-egg problem: since that link has been severed, does anyone really care enough about food to support such an undertaking? Would vertical farming even win a few percentage points as a plank in a mayoral platform? Obviously I can't say, but I'm not holding my breath...

The closest thing I've seen so far is a planned eco-city in the UAE called "Masdar". It's supposed to be some kind of sustainable paradise. Solar powered, more or less self-sufficient, etc. Of course, the UAE is probably not the best place for conventional agriculture...but they do have the kind of venture capital to look into building a vertical farm. Even if it's just for show now, it should subsidize the startup costs of future iterations by getting all the kinks worked out beforehand. So while I may be a little too cynical to book my tickets for Abu Dhabi just yet, I'll be keeping my eyes on this bizarrely utopian project (set to open in this quarter, no less!)

That's all I've got for now. If I come across some more interesting material I will tack it on somewhere. Until tomorrow, goodnight

LOUD!

Nate the Great (3/30)

Nate the Great,as you may have read yesterday, was more or less the muppet-baby cousin to Sherlock Holmes. Three or four feet tall, with accordingly sized hat and trenchcoat. Somewhere between "Firefighter" and "Astronaut", I went through a period in which my aspirational career was "Detective". I can no longer remember whether this was inspired by watching dubbed episodes of "Les Intrepides" on TVO (and other detective shows of its ilk), or if that was a symptom rather than the cause. In either case, besides his vocation, there was one other talent possessed by Nate the Great to which I aspired: the ability to make onesself pancakes. Nate would, when pondering a particularly difficult case, often return home and make himself a batch. I was always a little jealous that he could just make them himself; it didn't matter that he was ficticious - I wanted to be able to do it, too!

Fast-forward who-knows-how-many years, and I eventually learned from my father (as did he from his father before him) the process by which one concocts Dutch pancakes, or Pannekoeken. Since moving to Nova Scotia, I've run into more than a few people who insist on calling these "crépes", because "pancake" here seems to refer exclusively to the fluffy kind. Weird. What I am going to do today is teach you how to make your Very Own panekoeken!

First, let's talk equipment. You're going to want:

• A mixing bowl, and a sturdy fork

• A cast iron skillet

• Canola Oil

The ingredients you need are simple, ubiquitous, and few. You will need:

• Flour
• Milk
• Eggs

Ok, and we're on to the process. Follow closely, even if it's kind of stupid obvious:

• I was feeding myself and one other person when I made these, and I used one and a half cups of flour, plus three eggs. The rule of thumb as my dad tells it is about one egg per person, but an extra egg will often serve you well. A double recipe would probably be good for anything from four to six, depending on hunger and how much else there is for breakfast. Ok, the first thing to do is make some space for the eggs (it doesn't really have to be a "well" per se, like you see in cookbooks. Just put them someplace where they'll all stay together), and then beat them. Try not to mix in too much of the flour yet (or beat the eggs in a separate bowl if you like), because that will probably land you with some very lumpy batter.

• The next step is to add the milk. No, I don't have a measurement for you. The consistency you're aiming for is definitely runny, but with some lingering viscosity. If you're doing this for the first time, I think it's better to err on the side of thickness, because if you make this stuff too thin it's going to be hell when you try and work with it in the pan. If you've made the "other" kind of pancake before, try for a noticeably runnier batter than you're used to, and you'll be on the right track. Then, beat it with your fork until there aren't very many lumps left in it. Some lumps is fine; they'll cook out in the pan, by and large.

• The next thing to do is put some canola oil into your pan, which you should set to a medium-highish heat. On my electic stove here a 6.5 seems to be about right. On my gas stove in Ottawa I would heat the pan on high and then turn it down to a 7 or 8, which was probably a little hot. This one is really trial-and-error and I can't help you too too much without knowing the vagaries of your unique stove. When you see a pattern like this start to form, it is time to begin making pancakes!

• I was using a 1/3 cup measure, and it took about 2 or 2 and a half loads to get a full pancake. Probably a 2/3 or 3/4 cup measure is preferable

• You'll want to spread the batter out. Using an oven mitt (a good one!) pick up the pan and tilt it in a kind of rotating motion such that the batter pours around the pan in a circular motion. If you don't get full coverage, add more batter to complete the pancake and fill in any holes. It goes without saying that since you're waving around a hot block of iron that you should be extremely careful. Tell everyone else in the kitchen to go bugger off if you must, just don't burn anyone!

• Soon, you should find yourself with something resembling the above. It's not really ready to flip until the top is almost entirely dry (it will be changing colour, you will know when), but once the thing starts looking sturdy enough, start unsticking it from the pan. A note here on oil usage: you needn't replenish the oil in the pan after every pancake, but you should add at least a healthy dollop every 3 or 4 and slosh it around. If there's sufficient oil in the pan and you're not cooking at too high a heat, un-sticking the pancake should not be too hard. A spatula is good for this task, but I accidentally stumbled upon the humble kitchen spoon as an alternative. Again, if you're using a short metal stick next to hot iron, be careful! Now you'll want to do this slowly. Come at the edge obliquely, and sort of pry around wherever it yields most easily, and use the leverage to gradually unstick the whole thing. This will take practice, but you will improve. Probably start with the spatula, just make sure it's kinda slim/sharp. If your pancake tears too readily at the edges, consider thickening the batter with flour. About a quarter-cup at a time is the most I'd reccommend: there's a tipping point and you'll reach it quickly

• Now, here's the advanced lesson: flipping the pancake. The easy way is to use your spatula. Get it under the centre of the pancake and heave it over cleanly onto the other side. That's boring. Real pros do it like this:

• If the pancake is unstuck, it should shimmy about when you slide the pan forward and backward. This is sort of step 1: get comfy. Next is to gently, but firmly make a tossing motion that will send the pancake flipping end over end. You'll get a feel for the balance. The lighter-weight your skillet, the easier it will be. Heavier pans with high walls will take 2 hands, and are probably not ideal for beginners. If you don't feel comfortable with this, DON'T TRY IT. Also, even very good pancake chefs have their bad flips. Have a spatula and knife/spoon/fork handy to detangle any screw-ups (and there were many of these when I was learning. Don't get discouraged; they still taste good with syrup!)

• If you've made it this far, you're doing really well! At this point the pancake doesn't need to cook for much longer, usually no more than a minute. Check the underside: once you see little circles of browned pancake, it's time to get this thing on someone's plate!
• Maple Syrup is an obvious topping, but by no means stop there. A friend of mine once called my pannekoeken "lacking" in comparison to his brand of sweetened, fluffy pancakes. If your Dutch pancake is lacking in flavour, YOU are lacking in imagination. Fresh or frozen fruit, chocolate shavings, cinnamon/sugar, yogurt, fresh vegetables and cheese/cheese sauce/bechamel sauce/hollandaise sauce, etc - anything's a topping!. Since these are unsweetened, they can be paired with sweet and savoury toppings alike.
• The final step, of course, is to find a grateful, hungry person to feed these to. Enjoy!

LOUD!

Thought for Food (2/30)

I think I always have it in the back of my head to post more regularly than I do. That said, I didn't actually decide to do this until fairly recently, so while I want to practice my writing and move outside of my normal topic zone...I don't have a lot of time for research. So what do I do?

Well, it turns out that for a guy who cooks (and is proud of it), I don't actually write about food all that much. At least, not outside of the economy/ethics of food production - and that's really more of an environmentalist analysis. I do ever so occasionally look at food blogs for a recipe or two, but I'm not really into that scene. I think EK is friendly with the author of It Ain't Meat, Babe, a vegan cooking/journal blog. There's that and Not Quite Nigella, from which I got a phenomenal chili spiced brownie* recipe this one time...and, well, that's all I know about food blogs. Guess it's time to spend a week learning some more!

*If you've never tried a chili-chocolate hybrid of any kind, do so ASAP! Chocolate flavour with the burn of chili is a pleasure not to be missed. If you're kind of a spice wuss (as was I, once upon a time) I think a good place to start is with the chili-chocolate bars you can find at the supermarket. They have a pretty mild burn, but they'll give you a good enough idea of whether or not you'll like anything stronger.

Since I am committing to a whole week of posts on a theme (I guess this will be six days because I cheated with a statement of intent on day 1), I'll try to pace myself. Today's post will be a sort of précis, a rhetorical answer to the question "why write about food?".

To that, dear reader, I answer: "Because food is a pretty integral part of the human experience. Part of the experience of being anything living (technically only anything chemohetrotrophic). It has a sensual appeal (both in that we have the sense of taste/smell which is engaged by food, and that there can be an erotic dimension to food and to eating. Furthermore, I enjoy cooking, but I don't recall ever writing about it in particular detail. And finally, because although I'm trying to stretch my boundaries a little here, there are still ethical, economic, and political aspects to the growing, distribution, sale, and consumption of food.".

Being raised in a family of some privilege even within a society that is by and large itself quite well to do, my perspective on food has never really been shaped by scarcity - or even the threat thereof. I might have once missed a meal for misbehaving exceptionally poorly. Maybe I slept through one once, for all I can remember. As a child I recall that I used to watch cooking shows in the morning before Theodore Tugboat or somesuch; there was this jovial man who would always cook his guests a sit-down meal, but I cannot for the life of me remember his name. I don't think I can recall a single dish he ever served. I think the mindset of the cooking show/food column is however illustrative of my relationship to food: one essentially of leisure more than need. Sure, when I'm hungry I'm hungry...but when I think about cooking it's quite often "what would be an interesting challenge to make?" that I'm concerned with. I'm by no means the most pretentious person I have ever met with regards to food (that honour might go our former housemate from Maine?), but even so, recognizing and accepting the privilege that I have had makes holding certain views on food...problematic. I tend to believe that people should eat real food. I'm not a huge fan of things like "artificially-soured" sour cream. Sure it doesn't taste much different, but if we want to follow this path, we might as well just eat a watery sugar/nutrient paste with a plethora of flavour shots in it. I understand that some things lend themselves more readily to industrial processing/manufacture - and thus are likely to be lower in price, hence more affordable. And I get that in the choice between artificially-soured cream and no sour cream at all, you shouldn't go without because someone's paying you too little. But as long as we're on the crutch of artificial flavours and industrial-scale processing, I don't think anyone is going to put a lot of thought or effort into making real food affordable. It still annoys me that "organic" food is a boutique item, rather than a viable choice for anyone of any income who has health concerns about pesticides.

Something that I do belive, and that I intend to expand upon tomorrow, is that everyone should learn to cook. And cook at least something well. It's not only a measure of self-sufficiency, but - like I said - food is an integral part of being human. Not learning how to cook is a little bit like short-changing yourself on sleep; you're probably going to enjoy your days a lot less if you do. Tomorrow, I'll tell you how my role model in this regard was the [fictional] Nate the Great.

Until then, goodnight and good eating.

LOUD!