NEOPIA CENTRAL - After my successful investigation on the story behind Cheese
and Onion Baked Apples, I discovered I really liked the job, and decided
to do some more research on another weird food. This time the chosen one was
Fish Flavour Ice Cream.
As I had done with the Cheese and Onion Baked Apples, the first step in my
investigation was to buy the food. The Shop Wizard found a can of the odd ice
cream for 200 NP in a shop in the Haunted Woods, and so I swiftly headed that
way. The shop had some very spooky decoration, and all it was selling was spooky
and gross food. The Werelupe shopkeeper greeted me with a spooky deep voice,
scaring me to death, but somehow I managed to take the can of ice cream, pay
for it and leave. Definitely, the Haunted Hoods are not the best place for easily
scared people to go to.
After recovering from the scare, I turned my attention to the can I had bought.
It was a regular orange can with a yellow top that had 'Fish Ice Cream' written
in black letters and a sticker with a fish skeleton. Not too appealing, in my
opinion.
I took a bowl and a spoon out of the cupboard and put them on the kitchen table,
next to the can. I sat down and prepared to taste the strange ice cream. As
soon as I opened the can, an intense smell of fish invaded the kitchen. It wasn't
a pleasant smell, and neither were the looks of what was inside the can.
It was ice cream all right, but it was grey and smelled of fish, and there
were these little things in it that looked like nuts, but I wasn't able to identify.
I was starting to regret having chosen this food to investigate, but I swelled
myself with bravery and dropped two spoons full of the ice cream in the bowl
in front of me.
Slowly I put a bit of the grey icy substance in my mouth and tasted it. It
was very cold, so my first sensation was not regarding the taste but the temperature.
It was cold, but it was ice cream - what was I expecting? It wasn't sweet, which
was a surprise, because ice cream is usually associated with sweet stuff. And
it didn't taste like rotten fish, or anything, it was more like grilled fish
with lemon, but very cold and with a creamy texture.
Having mixed feelings about the ice cream, I tasted it some more. Not my idea
of a good snack, but it was bearable. The smell, however, was still bothering
me, so I closed the can and opened all the windows afterwards.
Once the horrible fish smell was gone, my brain was able to work again, and
I began to wonder about the ingredients in the ice cream. There wasn't any information
on that on the can, and I could not identify them just by eating the ice cream,
so I had to go out and search for someone who would know.
But who was that someone? Being classified as 'gross food', I figured the creator
would probably have been an Alien Aisha. Now, where could I find one?
I walked to the Alien Aisha Vending Machine, and when I got there, an alien
Aisha greeted me and said, "My great machine will give you the loveliest foods
in the world."
"Hi, I'm researching the Fish Flavoured Ice Cream," I told her. "Can you help
me?"
"Fish Flavoured Ice Cream, yummy!" she said, nodding her head. "What
do you want to know?"
"Who created it, when, where and how?"
The Alien Aisha thought for a moment, and then answered, "I don't know
about that, human, I just supervise the machine. The food is made back in Mevers."
But the Aisha was willing to help. After searching in one hidden drawer in the
back of the machine, she showed me a galaxy map. "Right there," she
said, pointing to a square planet not far from Neopia.
She smirked and I thanked her, rushing my pace heading for the Space Station.
It wasn't hard finding someone willing to rent me a spaceship for cheap, the
only trouble was - I can't pilot them.
Even though the instructions manual was clear and simple, I still had a messy
journey. I could tell you about how I landed twice on the wrong planet, how
the internal gravitational system stopped working or about the alien thingies
that fined me for going under the limit for low speed, but that would be a whole
new story, maybe even a series! So let me get back to the point.
I landed on Mevers, and left the spaceship, being greeted immediately by an
Alien Aisha. "Ga blorg hymuuv!" the Alien Aisha said, handing me a
portable translator. I turned it on just in time to understand the Alien's next
line. "Welcome, human. Please visit our Neopians' help booth for tourists'
information. Enjoy your stay!" He then proceeded to greet another visitor
and give them a translator.
I approached the information booth and asked about the food from the vending
machine.
"You want to know how the exported food is created?" the Alien inside
the booth asked, suspicious. "That's new - no one ever asks about that.
But I guess you could just go to the factory and ask there." He gave me
a couple of direction on how to get there, pointing the Food Factory in a map,
always giving me suspicious looks. I guess their food isn't much of an attraction.
The factory was just like any other factory. I entered it and told the lady
at the reception lobby about my research. With a few calls and paperwork, a
quick tour around the factory was arranged for me. X-32561-TS would be my guide;
he was one of the managers.
"Hi, are you the human researching our food?" an Alien in a deep
red suit asked me, after a couple minutes wait. I nodded and greeted him. "I
am X-32561-TS, I'll be your guide. Please, follow me."
He gave me a badge with the word 'Goysajut' and I attached it to my shirt.
"It's so other workers will know you are a visitor," X-32561-TS explained.
The first place he showed me was the Control Room. One of the walls was covered
with screens, each showing a different section of the factory - I could see
the workers, all the machines, food processors, and all that stuff that a factory
usually has. There was also a huge panel full of buttons, levers, and instruction
keyboards, that two busy-looking Alien Aishas were operating. There were also
two desks, each with a computer and huge piles of papers, where two other employees
were working.
"This is the Control Room, where the factory's brain is," my guide
began. "Over there," he said, showing me the big panel and the screens,
"is where workers and the machines are supervised. Those two buddies here
have lots of work, making sure all the machines are on and working perfectly.
This is also where the financial part is dealt with, and exportation to Neopia
are resolved. Payment, hiring, buying and building are all taken care of on
those two desks."
The workers in the room smiled at me briefly and then returned to their work.
X-32561-TS wished them a good day of work and proceeded to show me the next
room. It was attached to the Control Room, it was the Ingredients Room.
It was very small, and wallpapered with lists of food items and their pictures.
They were even glued to the ceiling, too! A panel with buttons and a keyboard
was also on one of the walls - it looked like a computer, but it had an opening
instead of a monitor. In the middle of the room there was a table with many
half eaten foods, of diverse types. There was no one in the room.
"Oh, looks like GSCD-92716 is having a brake..." he said, walking
in the room, to show me the lists on the walls, "He works here, and it's
up to him what foods are used by our machines. Very tough job - has to go through
all these lists and try the items then decide which ones are good for our machines
to use."
"So he makes your recipes?"
"Not really. He just picks the items he likes - the machines mix them."
"The machines? You mean, the recipes are created randomly?" I was surprised,
it was nothing like I expected.
"Well, yes. He asks this machine here," X-32561-TS said, patting the machine
on the wall, "for the item he wants to taste, and if he likes it, he adds it
to the list of ingredients."
Suddenly, a hurried alien entered the room. "Hi, X-32561-TS! A visitor?
Welcome!" he said to us, while picking up one of the lists on the table.
Several names were underlined.
"Mister GSCD-92716?" I called to the Alien, now pushing some keys on the machine.
"I was wondering, do you follow any special criteria when picking the foods
for the factory?"
"Criteria? Um, no, I just pick the ones I like." A sun dried techo claw popped
out of the machine's opening, and the chubby Alien quickly took a bite out of
it. "Yumm..." He pushed a green button and the machine beeped and replied 'Item
added to list'.
"Come, he has a lot of work, we shouldn't be bothering him." X-32561-TS pulled
me out of the Ingredients Room, and went downstairs to show me the machines
and the food processor.
It was the biggest room of the entire factory. Dozens of machines, many workers,
food processors, machine that blend food, machines that pack food... But there
was this smell... Rotten vegetables and old eggs...
"Here is our recipes computes," the guide said, showing me the computer
in a corner of the room. "It will randomly add a random number of food
from the list edited by GSCD-92716, to a new list and make up the amount of
each used in that recipe. Then the information is sent to the workers, who will
supply one of the machines with the items needed. Then it does all the rest,"
he continued, while showing me the processing machine. There were many of those,
for each of the different recipes that were done at the same time in the factory.
"Can you tell me what the ingredients for Fish
Flavour Ice Cream are? I'd like to include that in my article,"
I asked X-32561-TS.
"Sure..." he checked on the computer. "Fish, ice, grubs and
gooseberries."
I tried my best not to puke, and asked my next question, "It's the computer
that names the food, too?"
"Oh, no, that's GI-82362-192's job. Her office is our next stop."
We went upstairs again, and I was introduced to GI-82362-192, the elegant Alien
Aisha who names their food. Her office was just like GSCD-92716's, but she didn't
have her walls covered with food lists.
"How I name the foods?" GI-82362-192 said, thinking about my question. "It's
quite easy, actually. I just taste them, see what they look like and then write
it. Like for Fish flavour Ice Cream - It was ice cream and it tasted like fish,
so what better name than that?"
It was the end of my tour around the Alien Aisha's Food factory. X-32561-TS
offered me a cardboard box full of fish flavour ice cream's cans, and he did
it so politely that I couldn't say no. He thanked me for visiting the factory
and waved goodbye as I left.
I went back to the spaceport, delivered the translator, and after a long hazardous
journey like the first one, I was home
"It's about time you came back!" HS said, opening the door for me.
"What was that delicious thing you left on the kitchen table? It was amazing!
I want more!" she pleaded.
"You liked it?" I asked, stunned. "Well, good for you, because there's plenty
of that in this cardboard box here."
HS grabbed the box as if it was the biggest treasure in Neopia and carried
it to the kitchen where she stuffed herself silly with all the alien stuff.
Well, it's good to know someone appreciates it... why don't you try it and let
me know what you think? | 
