This follows up on some comments of
Sally's, mentioning the "dining room" offhand
(and asking if Avon could get the computers to
produce decent coffee--I'd say this is a two-part
question--I'm sure he could, to his specifications,
but I don't think extra-dark-roast espresso is
particularly popular with anyone else in the crew).
I do tend to think of Blake at least trying to establish
regular meals in the interest of crew cohesion.
There are a couple of problems with that,
including the crew. In canon, there are an implausible
number of instances when they're all awake at once--
although of course it's all hands on deck during a
space battle, wouldn't the normal pattern be two
people on watch, two sleeping, and two having a
rest session (or one, post-Gan)? And that means that
whoever just woke up probably wouldn't feel like
tucking into steak-and-kidney pie even if it IS
dinner time for four other people.
I don't know why, but for some reason I always
think of the kitchen and dining room as either
being behind Zen or on the right,
mirroring the corridor that we can see to the left of Zen
in the usual flight deck shot.
In Horizon, we learn that the ship has enough concentrated
food for a thousand person-years, but that doesn't mean
that that's what they eat--those could be just back-up
emergency supplies. Actually, considering the size of the
ship, not only could they have a hydroponic farm, they
could probably keep livestock--chickens or rabbits, at
the least.
BTW, I think it's significant that there are many
instances when the crew are shown consuming
beverages, but at no time are they having a proper
sit-down meal, although the bad guys do at least
twice I can remember (Moloch and Traitor).
-(Y)