Alien Dishes

One of the fanfilm scenes (literally) “reels around” ceremonial reception. Important emissaries from Alpha and Beta quadrant are guests and naturally, they need to refresh themselves before demanding diplomatic negotiations start. Eva Železná (Barvička) took care of catering and she prepared incredible feast, see for yourself:

How many different dishes have you prepared and are all of them really edible?

I have brought about seven kinds of alien dishes on the stage. All of them were edible, I think that most of them were actually eaten at the end of the second filming day. Well, only the green and blue dumplings were left behind at the end of the shooting as nobody was brave enough to eat these.. And... I've almost forgotten, all food was of course vegetarian.

What ingredients are necessary for alien looking (and tasting) food?

Food dyes :-) The taste was, I am afraid, ordinary Earth-like.

Where did your inspiration come from?

I rather followed assignment of good-looking, durable and at least partly edible food. Then I took my time-tested recipes and played with colors. I was positively surprised with the results myself.

How long did the preparation take and which food was the most difficult to prepare?

What drinks did the oddly shaped bottles contain?

It might be a disappointment, but it was just a water with food dye. Bottles which were used for actual sipping contained blue energy drink.

Can you reveal to us some recipe for alien looking food which can be easily home-made?

The food which turned to be the easiest and the most effective was the pancakes. Add food dye (e.g. violet one) to the batter, fry the pancakes, spread very red jam on them, roll up and cut obliquely. Some actors were sick just to see them, but I've heard that they were the most tasty food in the end.

Can you tell us some funny story from the food making and/or preparation for filming?

I suppose I have one form the preparation. When I prepare the food for theater rehearsals or for film making, my boyfriend always whines that the others will stuff themselves and he will stay hungry. When I was cooking for the Star Trek: Secret Games, he sneaked into the kitchen lured by the smell. He looked on the food spread on the plates, cried out in horror “Jesus Christ, that's disgusting!“ and fled away. When I wanted to show off with the result, he did not even want to look, much less to taste.

Ceremonial reception is not the only moment for the crew and the guests to eat something interesting (and let's hope tasty too). The next food which appears in the film is Andorian tuber root. This one was baked by Jan Gruber (Zephram) and I have the following question for him:

How did the baking of “Andorian tuber root” proceeded and how did you accomplish Andorian blue color?

The whole process of Andorian tuber root baking and preparation was a combination of exact procedure according to ancient recipe, possibly from the previous millennium, inexact approximation of the right amount of dye, and improvisation in the case of unavailable raw materials. At first, it was necessary to cook, peel and shred the beetroot. There was no single information about the necessity of cooking the beetroot in the recipe, neither was there any information about the time and procedure. There was only “cooked beetroot” simply stated as an ingredient. However, beetroot really is not sold in this condition. You do not have to watch the beetroot during cooking, though. Poppy, well that is completely different story. Poppy cooked in a little bit of milk needs to be watched and stirred constantly. Furthermore, I had no poppy for the first attempt, so I replaced it by shred coconut.

Preparation of dough was greatly simplified by home bakery. Simply put all the ingredients in, select appropriate program and wait. Blue color was achieved with help of common food dye E133:

ethyl-[4-[[4-[ethyl-[(3-sulfophenyl)methyl]amino]phenyl]-(2-sulfophenyl)methylidene]-1-cyclohexa-2,5-dienylidene]-[(3-sulfophenyl) methyl]azanium

which should be mandatory equipment of all unecological kitchens.

It is a synthetic dye manufactured from coal tar or from crude oil and it is common knowledge that such stuff descends from pure nature. Some sources say that up to 95% of this dye survives digestive process unharmed. I have approximated the amount of dye, really small amount is necessary and it is difficult to weigh by milligrams.  After kneading of dough in home bakery was done, wonderful Andorian blue shade indicated  that the right ratio was indeed used. I would not recommend eating all the tuber root at once by a single person, though.
Rolling out the slightly sticky dough, filling with filling and rolling up into some form of strudel was a prerequisite for the last step. Here we finally come to the baking itself. This part was rather uninteresting, except regular photographs of the process. Andorian color on the surface started to intermingle with the color of baked pastry and the whole formation assumed unexpected and unintended shapes.
After removing Andorian tuber root from the bakery, cooling down and cutting them to pieces, they were more than prepared for their big role. And they were quite tasty too.