Star Wars Cuisine

Science can be seen as the discovery of the stories behind reality. In popular culture, there is also a somewhat reverse discipline; seeking to unveil the reality behind our stories.

Even academics sometimes join this venture. One saga that has thus been thoroughly analysed is the epic of Star Wars. I have seen numerous analyses of the evil empire's economics, politics and - obviously as the depicted world is mysteriously permeated by The Force - its theology.

For example, it can be deduced that there is some form of trade, and money plays a role in dealings between all the celestial creatures. There is a market for droids, and theft of them, there are slaves bought and sold and bars, where drinks are vended.

Money exists, and clearly it is the motive of many a villain, like bounty-hunter Boba Fett and his father Jango Fett. Heroes too have pecuniary motivations: As the very first film from 1977 begins, Han Solo is drawn reluctantly into the skirmishes with the promise of payment for smuggling rebellion and their valuable secrets across deep-space enemy lines. Heroism follows a later revelation.

The saga also shows quite clearly how econo-politics lie behind the creation of the evil empire. A powerful but unknown evil Sith Lord conspires with a trade federation to bring about dictatorial powers to Senator Palpatine, who later turns out to be the mysterious Sith himself. What trade exactly the trade federation is in remains a mystery, but certainly it has lots of weapons and star ships.

The feebleness of democracy in the Senate in the face of conspiracy and The Dark Side (of the The Force) is clear and well analysed, including some obvious analogies to the Bush administration's legal machinations in the early 2000s.

All this, and much more, can be rather easily deduced and so it has been vastly documented, with varying degrees of seriousness and humor.

It was in this spirit that I set out to write a culinary guide to Star Wars. I thought it would be appropriate for the most ardent enthusiasts to watch next week's premiere of the Episode VII: The Force Awakens after first enjoying a Star Wars dinner at home. They would need to know what to cook.

Furthermore, in our era, anything that has either Star Wars or enticing photographs of food on its cover has an excellent commercial outlook. Combine the two and just imagine the future prosperity of the author of the first Star Wars cookbook!

However, it turned out that the anatomy of taste in Star Wars is too well hidden for easy compilation.

I may have missed a meal or two, in which case some wookie-looking hipster surely will correct me, but it seems clear that in the entire saga - spanning what we on earth would experience as decades - the meals are few and, literally, very far between.

For the sake of good taste, my gastronomical listing shall exclude two things. First, disregarding the flop Episode I: The Phantom Menace needs no explaining if you cared to read this far. Second, I also exclude such meals where the eating consists of a monster-fighter ending up in the jaws of his antagonist.

Following the Machete order of the tale (IV, V, II, III, VI), the first meal does however come early on. As begins Episode IV: A New Hope, young Luke Skywalker is living on the desert planet Tatooine in the foster home of Owen Lars and his wife. Soon after some initial extra-atmosperic shooting, the first sight of the dreaded Lord Vader and the escape of the epic's pet droids R2D2 and C-3PO, the Tatooinean family gathers for a meal. As Luke voices his frustrations over being an errand boy and droid-repairer in a forsaken desert, they are scooping something, but what it is eludes me.

From there begins an adventure almost completely devoid of solid or liquid nourishment. Perhaps, given the central role of The Force in the story, it should come as no great surprise that all the travelling and fighting may be sustained by mere holy spirit. But it certainly is not a hopeful starting point for my cookbook.

While there is soon some boozing in a bar in Tatooine's spaceport Mos Eisley, it is not until (what is said to be) three years later, in the next film Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back that protagonists have their next food intake.

Luke Skywalker's quest to become a jedi knight takes him to the planet Dagobah. There he is served some goo by a little green midget with pointy ears who turns out to be the powerful jedi master named Yoda, whom Luke has been looking for.

It has been noted many times before how the character Yoda bares many resemblances to archetypal buddhist monks or devoted yoga gurus. It is perhaps a less remarked upon coincidence, that Yoda's cuisine may be as alien to Luke as is the cooking of vegan yogis to many of us. That may, in fact, be the only plausible explanation for why Luke does not eat what he is served although, by that point, he must be starving.

By my recollection, there is no kitchen in the rest of that film, so the next meal comes in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. That snack, however, is not feeding the group of heroes seeking energy for the next battle, but chief gangster-villain Jabba the Hutt slurping various rat-like vermin, amid violent entertainment. His manners are what one might expect from a creature that looks like the cross-bred offspring of a toad and Garfield.

In the original trilogy, that is pretty much it as far as food is concerned.

However, it is later unveiled that at least once in an even more distant time ago in that galaxy far away - as the adventures of the previous generation are told in Episode II: The Clone Wars - there was food on the table.

Over on the planet Naboo, Anakin Skywalker turns The Force to serve his carnal motives at dinner. Attempting to seduce the love of his live - the beautiful Senator Padmé Amidala - he magically levitates a mangoesque fruit to his plate, slices it and floats an airborne sliver of it back to Amidala's fork. She then has a piece of it and does, no wonder why, remain rather slender throughout the film.

Thus we learn that there was a point in time when fruit was eaten.

I have no recollection of any eating at all in the follower, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. And I have no particular reason to expect that The Force Awakens that I shall see next week should be any closer to Babette's Feast than its predecessors. I am therefore sad too say that all this makes too meager material for a cookbook and I had better stick to my day-job.

Following, as I did, Star Wars from the perspective of a curious gourmet is a disappointment. However, it does revoke my earlier comments about the politico-economic analyses of these space adventures: Perhaps it is so, that the evil empire is so fiercely hated by the rebellion because, in some untold confiscatory turn, the dictatorship converted all fruit farms into factories of war machinery and has its peoples' starving or choking slowly on porridge.

So sorry all you Star Wars fans out there, the culinary guide will not be out anytime soon! The good news is that you can spend the money saved on toys and figurines.