Food

Paradise Lua’s food culture is, of course, aggressively inspired by Earth’s vast food culture, but the ingredient availability is dramatically lower and there are a few key substitutions.

First and foremost, the matter of meat: only a handful of animals are raised for meat on Paradise Lua.

Skrimp

One is a genetic offshoot of the cricket, colloquially called “skrimp” because they taste quite a bit like shrimp, but with a slightly nuttier, smokier aftertaste.

Skrimp-meat can be cooked in a great many ways, although one of the more common ways is to extract it, form it into a paste, and artificially flavor it to seem more like hamburger or ground pork.

Eggs

Chickens are kept, but only for eggs. The chicken meat is a rare delicacy, although it is usually so old and tough that it needs to be slow-cooked to be edible.

Florin’s greenhouses and hydroponics can work some legitimate magic, and a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms are available, although (obviously) the tendency is towards high-yield subsistence crops. Lots of corn, wheat, and soy at the bottom of the food pyramid. Rice is available but rare, as it is very water-intensive to grow, and recipes that might have called for it often substitute quinoa or pearl millet instead.

Sugar is available, but it’s not from sugar cane: it’s high-fructose corn syrup.

Soy Milk

There is no dairy or cheese - although soy farming has gone quite well and there is ample soy milk, tofu, and soy byproducts, including a vast array of fermented soy products such as soy sauce and gochujang.

Salt

Salt is necessary and does not exist in abundance, which means it must be… recycled. We don’t like to think about it too hard - but in order for Paradise Lua to be sustainable a lot of its systems must approach a closed loop. Sometimes container ships of salt are shot to the moon.

Spice

Spices are very hard to come by, so a lot of the moon’s potent flavors also are the ones that are also easiest to synthesize:

Banana
Almond
Butter
Grape
Cinnamon
Orange
Pear
Vanilla
Wintergreen

Things that are a complicated mix of expensive and hard-to-grow spices - Cola, Pumpkin Spice, Chai, Curry - are extremely uncommon or simply unavailable at all.

To make up for the lack of rare spices, though, “heat” and “fermentation” do a lot of heavy lifting, here, with fermented hot pepper sauces common and well liked.

Coffee, Tea, & Chocolate

None of these are grown on Paradise Lua, they’re much too expensive and difficult. (There are rumors that one of the wealthiest families on the base have a secret tea plant, but nobody has seen it.)

Chicory is available, so many on the station enjoy a hot cup of brewed chicory with powdered synthesized caffeine added directly. With caffeine added, this beverage is colloquially just called “caff”. (Obviously, when it’s just brewed chicory without anything added it’s called “decaff” or just “chicory”.)

(Did you know: caffeine can be synthesized with urine, vinegar and chlorine? Now you do!)

Alcohol

Complex alcohol production is, again, very expensive and a large drain on necessary food resources, so most of what is available is just, essentially, diluted food-grade ethanol, which is inexpensive and mixed into juices to make alcoholic beverages.

With the availability of fruit and wheat, small amounts of beer and cider are available on the station, but in general they are considered quite expensive and highly sought after.

So What Might We See People Eating?

Eggs, toast, hashbrowns, a slice of “bacon” (guess what: mostly pressed skrimp and anchovy), and a big mug of caff.
A Skrimpburger (with mayo, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a slice of soycheese) and fries with a lemon soda.
Burrito (catfish, smoked jalapeno powder, shredded lettuce, onion, tomato, lime, cilantro, chickpea, garlic, tofu sour cream) and tater tots.
A “clear soda” (diluted ethanol and plain, unflavored soda), beverage of choice for the depressing day-drinker.

Remaining Teenagers: Zero - Player's Guide