Hey yall! I’m stoned af and watching star trek on a weekend, naturally. I lost my place since last weekend in TNG season 3, but I knew that I wasn’t far in so I just watched all the intros until I found where I left off. Episode 8 “the price”, Troi gets frustrated with the replicator for wanting a “real” chocolate sundae. This raised a question for me, wouldn’t food replicators be intelligent enough to simulate the process of “the standard” ingredients being processed into the recipe? Like I thought that was the point of being able to say “Earl grey tea, hot”. Like wouldn’t she just have to say “betazoid chocolate sundae” or whatever?
EDIT: SECOND QUESTION: Say you have a family recipe cookbook or whatever and the comfort food is in that cookbook, couldn’t you just say “simulate the process of making the recipe from this cookbook”?
Not all replicators are created equally.
Starfleet standard-issue food replicators won’t produce unhealthy foods, true alcohol, etc. If you ask for a hot fudge sundae you’ll get something that resembles a hot fudge sundae, but which has the nutritional value of a balanced meal. If you ask for whiskey, you’ll get synthehol. The psychological impact (sugar high, intoxication, tryptophan sleepiness, etc.) of replicated food is muted or absent compared to the real thing.
That’s why people go to places like Quark’s. His replicators produce real food and real booze, with all the psychological effects that come with them.