Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Money to me is freedom, and freedom is essential. Money allows me to say that I will now devote my life to being me, rather than putting on my shoes and tie, and going to an office every day."
- Robert Silverberg
 |
| Compact Food Pastilles (Food Pill) | ||
| One small tablet is a month's worth of food. |
A very early instance of the concept of the "food tablet" or the "food pill", which later became an sf standard.
| He took from his waistcoat pocket the small gold box, scarcely larger than a watch, and opened the cover. In the palm of her white hand he placed one of the little pastilles.
"Eat it," said he. "It will satisfy your hunger." She put the morsel into her mouth. "I would do as you bade me," she said, "even if it were poison." "It is not poison," he rejoined. "It is nourishment in the only rational form." "But it is tasteless; almost without substance." "Yet it will support life for from eighteen to twenty-five days. This little gold box holds food enough to afford all subsistence to the entire Seventy-sixth Congress for a month." She took the box and curiously examined its contents. "And how long would it support my life- for more than a year, perhaps?" "Yes, for more than ten- more than twenty years." "I will not bore you with chemical and physiological facts," continued Wanlee, "but you must know that the food which we take, in whatever form, resolves itself into what are called proximate principles- starch, sugar, oleine, flurin, albumen, and so on. These are selected and assimilated by the organs of the body, and go to build up the necessary tissues. But all these proximate principles, in their turn, are simply combinations of the ultimate chemical elements, chiefly carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is upon these elements that we depend for sustenance. By the old plan we obtained them indirectly. They passed from the earth and the air into the grass; from the grass into the muscular tissues of the ox; and from the beef into our own persons, loaded down and encumbered by a mass of useless, irrelevant matter. The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form- here they are in this little box. Now shall mankind go direct to the fountainhead of nature for his aliment; now shall the old roundabout, cumbrous, inhuman method be at an end; now shall the evils of gluttony and the attendant vices cease; now shall the brutal murdering of fellow animals and brother vegetables forever stop- now shall all this be, since the new, holy cause has been consecrated by the lips I love!" |
| Technovelgy from The Senator's Daughter,
by Edward Page Mitchell. Published by Not known in 1879 Additional resources -
|
Food pills are also mentioned in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, a 1913 Oz novel by L. Frank Baum. The Jetson family would sometimes eat convenient pills for dinner in the 1960's first showing of that cartoon series. Compare to the wine pellets from Redmask of the Outlands (1934) by Nat Schachner.
For more modern examples that are more like real food, see synthetic food from Unto us a Child is Born (1933) by David H. Keller,
syntho-steak from Farmer in the Sky (1950) by Robert Heinlein,
vat meat from The End of the Line (1951) by James Schmitz,
Chicken Little from The Space Merchants (1952) by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth,
animal tissue culture vat from Uller Uprising (1952) by H. Beam Piper,
carniculture plants (factories) from Four-Day Planet (1961) by H. Beam Piper,
butcher plant from Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) by Clifford Simak.
Compare to the chemically produced food from Mizora: A Prophecy (1881) by Mary E. Bradley Lane.
See also the sheep's lozenge from The Fatal Curiosity, or, A Hundred Years Hence (1877) by James Payn, the food pills from A Strange Trip (1885) by John Baker Hopkins, nutritious pellets from Looking Forward: A Dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999 (1899) by Arthur Bird, food tablets from John Jone's Dollar (1915) by H.S. Keeler,
concentro from Armageddon: 2419 A.D. (1928) by Philip Frances Nowlan, wine pellets from Redmask of the Outlands (1934) by Nat Schachner and dainties from Prelude to Foundation (1988) by Isaac Asimov.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Senator's Daughter
More Ideas
and Technology by Edward Page Mitchell
Tech news articles related to The Senator's Daughter
Tech news articles related to works by Edward Page Mitchell
Compact Food Pastilles (Food Pill)-related
news articles:
- A Beautiful Visualization Of Compact Food
| A Beautiful Visualization Of Compact Food |
| Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype) |
| Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch? |
| Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
'The greatest problem of all was the elimination of the human element of braking together with its inevitable time lag.'
