Food in Stargate Fanfiction

I read a lot of fanfiction.  I read it because I can continue to immerse myself in a fictional world long after I am done reading the book or watching the movie it belongs in.  I read it because I love that when fans sink their pens into an established canon, they feed off each others' creativity and the world they're playing in grows and develops into infinity.

One of the fandoms I read frequently is Stargate. For those unfamiliar with sci-fi, Stargate: Atlantis is a television show about an international expedition of soldiers and scientists who travelled to the Pegasus Galaxy and were promptly cut off from Earth.  Although they knew their trip was likely to be one-way and packed accordingly, their supplies were limited. As a result, finding allies and trade partners was of high priority to them as they explored the galaxy, even after they reestablished contact with Earth at the end of the first season.

So when fans write in the Stargate fandom, they spend a lot of time talking about food, even more than in the show, if I recall correctly.  When fic authors write missions for the teams, they often choose to make them trade missions, with bartering for vegetables, grains, or animals.  They write about visiting other planets during their harvest seasons and the feasts that follow.  They write about joining hunting parties, and social faux pas when dining with another planet's king, and foods that taste like something on Earth and foods that taste like nothing we've ever dreamed of before.

One of the main characters, Rodney, is hypoglycemic and allergic to citrus, and is not shy about telling the world these things, though the creators of the show generally leave it at that.  The fans went further.  They write about the precautions his team takes to avoid letting his blood sugar drop too low, about people who don't believe him, about hypoglycemic attacks in the field.  They write about how do you identify citrus fruits in a galaxy where all of the plants evolved independent of those on Earth? Is there citrus at all? Is citrus in fruits still, or is it in vegetables or grains? How do you ask about something when the people who are serving you dinner may not have any word for citrus at all?  They write about his team members carrying epipens and tasting everything for any hint of citrus before letting him eat. They write about taking no chances, about Rodney starving because he's been taken hostage and has no way of knowing if the strange food he's served will kill him.

The authors write about how foods are different in Pegasus than on Earth. The characters describe foods as being "almost" and "nearly" and "sort of" and "not" like Earth foods.  They eat almost-carrots and nearly-chicken.  They eat foods that taste like something familiar but look alien and vice versa. They bite into fruits that look like bananas but taste like broccoli.

As the characters become more at home in Pegasus than on Earth, their descriptions of food change.  Whenever they return to Earth, they begin comparing Earth foods to Pegasus foods.  Instead of "X Pegasus food tastes a bit like Y Earth food," they think in terms of "Y Earth food tastes a bit like X Pegasus food."  Through the characters' relationships with and thoughts about food, the authors show the characters' shifting loyalty from Earth to Pegasus. The ideas of "food" and "home" are closely linked, so it is an easy and subtle way to show that the expedition members no longer consider Earth their home.