Food, as with all matter within the Matrix, is a program simulating reality by sending electrical signals directly to the human brain (that is, a person eating in the Matrix is given the full sensory impression that it is real food). In the real world, food is of limited availability.
Simulated food in the Matrix gives humans the illusion of taste, smell, and nourishment. Even redpills who know they are not actually digesting this food often still enjoy the sensation of it. However, sometimes specially coded food items are created that function as basically "power ups" within the Matrix.
Simulated solid foods found in the Matrix and their significance.
A cake filled with codes to offer taste and pleasures. Typical food in the Matrix.
- Candy: The Oracle carries small, individually wrapped pieces of candy when outdoors and comments on how much she loves it. After changing form, she cites the comment as evidence that she's still the same entity.
- Chicken: Mouse cites the common saying that different foods taste like chicken in connection with his point that sensory specifics cannot be taken as a given.
- Tastee Wheat: Mouse cites a brand name of a healthy-sounding snack as an example of how Artificial Intelligence may have gotten sensory specifics incorrect (he reasons there is no guarantee that the taste of Tastee Wheat is right).
- The Oracle frequently bakes cookies while at her apartment home. On different occasions, she alternately offers her associates the pleasure of assisting with their preparation and the finished product as a comfort food. [1]
- Steak: Freeway billboards advertise "STEAK" to passersby. Cypher comments on how thoroughly he enjoys the steak he's eating during his secret meeting with Agent Smith.
- Noodles: Upon his return to the Matrix for the first time following his extraction, Neo points out an eatery that serves noodles he was particularly fond of. He bemoans that he'll always have false memories.
- Orgasm cake: At Le Vrai restaurant, The Merovingian sends a custom-programmed dessert to a female patron. Visually, it appears to be an innocent slice of gourmet chocolate cake. Upon consumption, hidden lines of code trigger a powerful orgasm in the woman. The Merovingian then furtively makes himself available after she gets up, in the mood for followup, sexual pleasure.
Forms of Sustenance found in the Real World.
- Fare in Zion: In the city proper, the foods seen generally appear to be globular and brown, suggesting either a kind of fungi (which does not require sunlight to grow) or grain[2].
- Liquefied human remains: Unconscious humans in pods are intravenously force-fed the biological matter of the deceased in liquid form. (Critical viewers everywhere have pointed out that this type of nourishment alone could not sustain the population.)
- Shipboard rations on Hovercraft: In galleys, a white, semi-translucent, gelatinous substance can be found in dispensers with spigots and eaten from suitable dishes. Its composition is given as a single-celled protein, vitamin, mineral, and amino acid colloid. Reviews are unfavorable due to its consistency. It's compared to "runny eggs" at best and "a bowl of snot" at worst.
See also
References
- ↑ In real-world Earth, a cookie is also a term to describe a saved setting on a user's computer that allows a web server to quickly identify a user that has previously visited their site, or to input additional information to the user's web browser and the article they are reading. If taken to the context of the Matrix, food could be a means of augmenting an avatar's programming.
- ↑ A graphic story from "The Matrix Comics" tells the story of one early Zion inhabitant that learned to cultivate grains for the city in a very risky venture. One of the characters in the story is a very young boy named Morpheus.