Alpha Complex food and drinkSo, I'm thinking about serving my players some setting appropriate refreshments. The goal is to capture the combination of weird and bland that would characterize red clearance food and drink without making it disgusting or indedible.
Current ideas: Hot fun ™: Either weak instant coffee with just a bit too much artificial sweetener or some sort of broth. Since a significant portion of Alpha Complex nutrition is derived from mushrooms and algae, I'm thinking mushroom broth, dashi or miso would capture that well.
Cold fun™: The easiest option is the cheapest, blandest ice cream imaginable or some sort of home made slushy made with some particularly artificial tasting flavoring. But I'm thinking about taking it a step further; my current plan is to make semolina pudding with skimmed milk and artificial sweetener and just serve it really cold. I'll probably add some flavoring too, probably vanilla or almond (cheap and artificial of course).
Bouncy Nubbly Beverage ™: The easiest option is to find the blandest and/or most artificial tasting soda or concentrate out there. I'm thinking about finding some sugar free drink concentrate with the dumbest possible flavor, add a bit of beet juice to it for color and weirdness and mix it with carbonated water. Hopefully I can make it weird but also kind of sort of good.
Algae Chips ™: I found some quinoa based baked crisp thingies that look like they should capture that feeling of inauthentic, mass produced blandness while actually tasting quite good. For that next level experience, I tried baking a sheet of nori seaweed and it worked like a charm.
Soylent Red ™: Mashed potatoes colored red with tomato paste and mixed with some beans, lentils and/or chick peas, blended into a chunky puree. Bulgur or couscous could be used to give it all some texture. I'd love to add some sort of soy product for that authentic "soy-lent" feel, but I'm unsure what the best option is, since the beans themselves are bright green. The easiest option is to use soy milk for the mashed potatoes, but that's unlikely to be noticed so I might just go with bits of tofu instead.
Bonus content: I'm planning on serving both the players and the characters a round of Hot Fun before a mission, with the implication that refusing is not an option. However, one of the cups has accidentally been filled with a toxic mutagen instead, while the canister they're supposed to deliver to a lab now contains a lukewarm beverage. In order to serve something that evokes that classic cartoonish bright green radioactive sludge I'm planning the following: Take a green bell pepper, a tiny bit of green chili and perhaps a bit of spring onion and some liquid and blend it thoroughly into a smoothie of sorts. Just before serving, mix with Mountain Dew. How does that sound?
Comments and suggestions would be appreciated!
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