I recall Kyle (Transporter Technician) giving Cptn. Christopher some selection cards, which when stuck in a wall slot resulted in Chicken Soup being 'delivered'. I was never sure whether it was pre-prepared, frozen and simply being thawed, cooked and delivered, or whether it was being synthesized when requested.
I would think the former, since the tribbles which arrived with Kirk's chicken sandwich would hardly have been munching on raw replicator stock - nor would they have survived long in a replicator.
Also, in 'The Undiscovered Country' we see a rather busy galley - and food being prepared. This would reinforce the idea that food is cooked and stored, rather than synthesized.
Comment?
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In our Trek roll-playing game... I established that replicator tech was created from Genisis technology, therefore not avalible during TOS.
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my mind was set on the existence of TOS replicators at an early age, the first Trek computer game i got was "The Promethean Prophecy," it stated that the Enterprise's food synthesizer raw material was contaminated by coolant, they needed to find food.
My theorem i had before even fits the facts of the post-Enterprise Trek universe.. basically, after seeing the galley in ST6 and hearing the 'no replicator' comments in "Flashback" i formed the opinion that the NCC-1701 depended on food synthesizers.. machines that used raw material, protein and carbohydrates, prehaps, and synthesized foodstuffs from them. These primitive replicator analogues could not synthesize hot food, nor combine different types of food.. basically, they could 'replicate' flour and sugar and eggs, but they could not produce a baked cake.. they needed to synthesize (or replicate) the food, because the raw stock was probably inedible or unpleasing as food, so it was synthesized into an ingredient and then it fell to the galley and chefs to cook the ingredients into meals.
i think this theme probably applies to both the NX-01 and the NCC-1701.. their synthesizers can make piles of imitation chicken, beans, and flour, it takes the galley and Mr Chef to make them into bread and cuts for my chicken salad sandwich and coffee.
thats my theory anyway, it fits the facts...
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posted
My thinking is that the food on the E-nil & E-A is a combination of synthesized foods made from a raw and unprocessed food base, probably based on textures wheat husks (like what us vegetarians eat ). There would probably be a limited amount of fresh food and I doubt that there would be any left after a few years in space without re-supply, but I'm sure there's some refrigerated units on most large ships. The galley we saw was probably responsible for preparing the slightly more elaborate meals that we saw appearing in the slots, since the set in ST:VI was designed with a set of lift tubes. While I'm sure the simple stuff like chicken soup is made automatically by machines, there is still a staff in the galley to deliver it from the preparation unit to the lift tube. Which is a logical practice since it frees the mess of the noise and crowd of waiters/porters and allows it do double as a recreation room.
posted
I'm not sure about this but i think it's mentioned in the TNG Tech manual somewhere that they didn't appear to have replicator technology in the TOS era. I think it might be one of the asides written by Rick Sternbach or Mike Okuda, and it seems they're of the same opinion as everyone else here, that they have some kind of basic synth tech or protein resequencer that can alter certain base materials into slightly more complex materials. Nowhere in TOS does there appear to be a replicator as we know it from TNG, just advance recycling technology.
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"Flashback" from Voyager actually said outright that there were no replicators in the TOS era.
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Thanks. I see there is a general consensus - rare in Flare: (?)
- Freezers for complex prepared foods - Vats of raw stocks (amino acids and carbohydrates) for resequencers - Resequencers - Galley with staff for cooking resequenced/recycled items into prepared foodstuffs - Delivery System to Lounges/Mess Halls
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of course, ENT is probably going to be fitted with rep;licators nxt year, destroying all semblance of sense this makes.
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Unless they were doing what Kirk referred to as "intra-ship beaming" (and its implied that its a crazy idea*), then I'm not sure what delivery system would be sufficiently fast to allow for the delivery times we've seen.
(Of course, given Enterprise's fastness and looseness in matters technological, I'm sure we'll have the crew just beaming from their quarters to their stations next season.)
The mess halls I'm not so concerned about . . . one would reasonably suppose that the food preparation equipment was nearby. What I'm mainly thinking of would be the food slot in the transporter room, as seen in "Assignment: Earth"[TOS2].
Unless that transporter room just happened to be extremely close to the food synthesis doohickeys, I don't see how the old idea of a microelevator system would work. (Besides which, unless it employed some hardcore inertial dampeners or high-g gravity generators, one would expect such a system to involve a lot of spilled drinks.)
I therefore think that the food is synthesized right there at the food slot, with the necessary materials either piped to the location when the proper tape for the order is inserted, or else the materials are just generally available in advance (piped in or filled by a crewman with a tank of the stuff).
And, of course, they also have a proper galley aboard, or at least did during "Charlie X"[TOS1], when the galley reported that they'd put "meatloaf in the ovens", and (thanks to Charlie) the meatloaf was replaced by real turkeys. On the other hand, Kirk did identify the meatloaf as being synthetic earlier in the episode. At a minimum, we know they've got ovens.
The plates and cups could be organic, created at the same time as the order . . . but the forks, which generally appeared metallic as I recall, might suggest that the plates and cups (and forks) are dispensed and washed or something. I say that because I somehow doubt they'd have a dedicated silverware resequencer.
_______________________ * "Day of the Dove"[TOS3] transcript from www.voyager.cz:
"We can't get through the Klingon defenses in time unless-- Spock. Intraship beaming. From one section to another, it's possible? It has rarely been done because of the danger involved. Pinpoint accuracy is required. If the transporter should materialize inside a solid object, a deck or wall-- Even if it could work, she may be leading you into a trap. We're all in a trap. This is the only way out."
There's also another data point from "Day of the Dove" . . . Kirk says "Program the food synthesizer to accommodate our guests." The guests were Klingon.
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posted
We're more or less in consesus... I'm gonna go buy a lotto ticket.
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: I therefore think that the food is synthesized right there at the food slot, with the necessary materials either piped to the location when the proper tape for the order is inserted, or else the materials are just generally available in advance (piped in or filled by a crewman with a tank of the stuff).
I don't think this has been pointed out yet, but could a lot of the food just be freezed-dried, add water variety? Sure, they could be prepared onboard, but they are put through the FD process to make it easier to pipe them around. Once they reach where they need to go, just add hot water. Or just heat, if they're frozen, kinda like "Shudderpod One". Er, I meant Shuttlepod. The FD process is extremely common today, and the taste of the stuff is always improving, so I think this would be a good explaination.
Chicken soup is a bad measurement for whether replication technology exists or not, anyways. I get mine in powdered form, most of the time.
One question though... What exactly can the protein resquencers imitate? Taste is a given, but can they imitate texture? Shape? Does resquenced chicken breasts realy look like chicken breasts, or is it just one giant 50 cm by 50cm by 5 cm slab of meat-like substance? How well does it imitate tastes? Does everything really taste like chicken, now? Remember, people were still complaining about replicated food's taste in the 24th Century, and that represented an improvement in catering technology.
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I would say that at the NX-01/TOS level of technology, the synthesizer can approximate a block of raw meat (or potato) incluing texture - but it is up to the chef to cook it (with spices etc.) to create a meal. Therefore, synthesizing is done in wholesale batches - say enough for the ship's complement for a day.
One could program the synthesizer for raw Torg instead. Or carrots.
One would need a vat(s) for amino acids (the base stock of proteins - which would indeed require sequencing to create various programmed proteins.
The resequencer also takes wastes and breaks it down into the amino acids and basic carbohydrates?
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I do like the mini-turboshaft system. built-in inertial dampers (available in that era) would handle the sloshing danger.
Don't worry too much about the time for delivery. The long turboelevator rides were a plot device, so passengers would have time enough to kvetch. There were probably a few off-screen to on-camera trips which would seem rather sudden if we timed each episode. Besides, why couldn't a materiel-only turbo-delivery system be faster than one with live-passenger safety systems?
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
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posted
Especially if the galley was located, say directly below the mess hall? That would allow for very fast delivery indeed.
If course assuming that the mess is in the saucer section, towards the rim then they can't be much further apart than that, assuming those lifts only go straight up and down.
I agree with the idea that the galley staff would prepare batches of meals ready to super-microwave (presumably they have something similar yet quicker and more effective) and at the end of the day they simply recycle what is not eaten back into the protein vats.
This may or may not have any bearing on the discussion, but I recall there being a mention of "food concentrates" in "Charlie X", I think it concentred the transport that crashed (not the Antares). That could be a possible term for the generic food mass or then it might just mean emergency rations.
posted
Of course, it's also possible that the wall w/ the food slots on it is shared by the galley and the mess hall, and the slots open on both sides. The food just goes in one side of the wall and comes out the other.
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posted
There was a replicator like thing in Kirk's quarters in ST VI though. Although it almost certainly there because of set reuse, it still had plates in it.
And ST VI had bunk rooms in it, so there was clearly something odd going on with the Enterprise-A in that movie.
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I get mine in powdered form, most of the time. 
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