Raptures Food Supply

* See also Rapture_Agriculture
* See also Rapture_Economy
* See also Neptunes Bounty
* See also Businesses
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Fish Yesterday, Fish today, Fish Fucking Tomorrow :
Good thing that Sofia Lamb's minions were into the whole 'self-sacrifice' thing, and would put up with ( or be compelled to put up with ) the limitations of the wholesale disorganization, loss of ability, breaking/failing infrastructure, and an uncaring tyranny.
Maybe if you ate fish every day YOU would be generally ready to be 'done with it all', and sacrifice yourself to "Build the Utopian". "Long Pig" might be served afterward ( 'Waste Not, Want Not' - as Sofia Lamb would say ... Her second most popular book : "To Serve Family" Twilight Zone Episode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29 )
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Handy, that we have the plots to all those old Twilight Zone episodes to tap into for some of the weirdness the Players can have as stories in the MMORPG game.
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Frozen foods and TV dinners were a 'thing' after WW2. Clarence Birdseye, in the 1920s developed a quick-freezing process that launched the modern frozen-food industry. The term "TV dinner" was first used for a brand of packaged meals ( "TV Brand Frozen Dinner" ) developed in 1953 by the company C.A. Swanson & Sons.
Rapture might easily have pushed this form of food earlier than in the Surface World. The Technology existed in the 1920s to do it and by 1940s household refrigerators were in a majority of homes.
Apparently, the gamemakers copied their frozen TV dinner advertisements directly from a real Swanson ad. One advantage of 'Nostalgia' as a factor in a game is : You don't need anywhere near as much of your own creativity or design skill to copy things.
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Farmers Markets :
They exist today, yet so do Supermarkets next to them. People go to 'Farmers Markets' for the atmosphere and possibly to get stuff (hopefully fresher) directly from the Producers ( or stuff Grocers don't stock ). Rapture is not a small place ( Novel suggests 20000 ), and Farmers Market would hardly handle the daily consumer buying you would have in a 'city' a fraction of that size. Neither does everyone have much time to shop in busy Rapture. In that era (1940s/1950s) there were many small local groceries ( who got produce shipped to them from a central produce market ) which offered convenience. No doubt there would be an attempt at some kinds of supermarkets ( one-stop shopping ) in Rapture as well.
At 'Farmers Market' adjacent to Arcadia, we see a very limited evidence of typical 'Produce' - Fruits and Meats which would be only a fraction of the real 'produce' sales (as in Real Life). This still may be understandable as Rapture is trying to recover after Atlas's Terrorist army has been neutralized, but is still plagued by half-insane people wandering about.
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Tasty Tasty Krill :
Krill is : Small surface floating Crustaceans found in great masses in cooler parts of the World's Oceans. Krill feed on plankton at sunlit water surface. Below the light level they are not much found. Large formations are where nutrients in protected pockets in the middle of the North Atlantic.
Krill Harvesting - but you have to go where the whales do -- long distance/seasonal (at least Rapture IS near the cold water part of the North Atlantic).
Such less savory (semi- edible) protein sources still can be processed for animal feed to help produce more conventional food animals ( Chickens, Pigs, Mini-Cows, Rabbits, Goats ), as well as additives for 'synthesized' foods (Krill-dogs etc...).
Krillburger ... Yum !!
The Disrupted Ecological Area around Rapture's accumulation of pollution waste ( didn't exist before the start of Rapture's building ). Krill grows in cold water ( and where there is lots of oxygen ), so only in specific places where nutrient rich water exists for the algae/plankton the Krill organisms feeds on.
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Fresh Fish :
With all the crates/boxes/piles of fish ( and living ones flapping around ) seen in Neptunes Bounty (BS1) it seems fish harvesting operations were still ongoing -- Probably resumed/restored after "Ryan's Peace" was established by suppression of the Atlas's Splicer Violence using the Pheromone Control system.
Ryan had had to do alot to keep the people of Rapture alive while the fighting with Atlas's anarchists was ongoing. Fish 'go bad' very fast ( and you have no "ADAM fixes it" excuse, as you might for all the well-preserved corpses ), so all that would be from very recent fishing activity.
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Ecological Microcosm Around Rapture :
All the sewage dumped outside would leave Rapture in the middle of a cloudy bacterial mess if not for the constant ocean currents that keep the water flowing past Rapture. The extra nutrients do feed alot of organisms that cluster around and down-current of the sewage output vents ( which require constant cleaning to prevent fouling of the pipes ). The thermal output of the City keeping itself warm also has caused the forming of a bio-microcosm in this part of the Ocean, which is normally only a little warmer than the freezing temperature. Lights likewise allow the growth of small plants which do not normally exist at this depth ( and in turn bring/support animals which feed on them ).
In a zone far below where the sun penetrates, the extra input of these elements ( In combination with the Geothermal heating in the general area ) has attracted a variety of life to feast on the bounty the City's waste creates.
Unfortunately few of such organisms are edible, and any which are edible are not particularly palatable.
Fishing Fleets have to sail far and wide to obtain adequate 'catches' of edible fish. Rapture's Fish Farms, utilizing plant feeds from Rapture's inside farms and the available utilities, may supply some significant percentage of the Sea Food consumed in Rapture.
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Food From The Sea :
Peach(y) Wilkins ran Fontaine Fisheries for 'the City' after Fontaine was killed. Coerced (or convinced) into playing 'Stoolie' ( turning 'States Evidence') for Ryan/Sullivan to get the evidence proof needed to arrest and convict Fontaine. Consider that Wilkins was forced by Fontaine into virtual slavery ( Audio Diary - "Putting the Screws On" ), and into the Smuggling operation also. With Fontaine dead, the fishing operations would continue with most of the personnel who had previously operated it ( and any surviving Owners whom Fontaine had 'strong armed' out of their fishing businesses previously, might be back ).
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Plump Mussels "Delicious, Deep Diving Dinner" :
Good bacteria-fed Mussels fresh from near Rapture's sewer outlets ( To quote Fontaine - "Who's gonna know ?" )
Don't laugh, those small (popcorn) shrimp you get at the supermarket ( or in cheap shrimp cocktails ) are grown in human waste, mostly in places like Bangladesh. They are shelled because in the boats on the way over they have to treat them with industrial strength chemicals to get the sewage taste out of them. Supposedly the larger ones with their shells still on are OK, but the 'growers' may now be gluing the shells back on after 'the above' type processing (and origin).
One type of 'Sea Farming'.
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Happenstance - Idea from a Typo :
Nachinery - Machinery invented in Rapture to manufacture 'Nachos' ( nachos were invented in 1943 ).  Corn based foodstuff- so I guess we have Corn being grown in Rapture somewhere ( actually alot of it in some interesting dwarf strains - Corn can be  a high yield crop ... Including strains with significant Protein ).   This item became popular in more than a few restaurants and bars in Rapture especially after a machine was invented/manufactured to make them with minimal labor/fuss.  The machines are actually rented as the limited customer base would be rather small for a manufacture-only business.   Nachos Inc.
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Rats as Livestock ( by Splicers - 'Thats good eatin ...' ) :
Many Splicers ( and Sofia Lamb's minions ) are fed with worse stuff.
McGoohan's Rat Shack - "Real Tasty, and all sales are Final."
In parts of the real world, rodent is a delicacy ( Heh - Recent real-world 'Chicken' exported from China turned out to be 'rat' --- actually TRUE !!! ) .
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With many 'apartments' without kitchens, various small restaurants/eateries would have existed.
This was found in-game - someone is still cooking food ...
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Kelp can be an important source of food and food additives and other uses.
Rapture is located a few hundred miles off the coast of Iceland.
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