The Goose Farm
“Coffee Sir?”
Kohwak turned to the shuttle hostess, who stood leaning against her refreshments trolley, gently rattling a half-full pot in his direction. The smell of roasted beans pushed itself into his olfactory organ, and he did his best not to grimace.
“No thank you,” he managed to squeak out, while internally fighting the urge to launch back toward the wall of the craft, covering his face with his arms whilst screaming at her to 'GET THAT FILTHY HUMAN SLUDGE AWAY FROM ME!'. It was a diplomatic balancing act
The waitress shrugged and moved her cart on, and the selvulsian returned to picking at his in-flight meal. It was, like the previously rejected beverage, a disgusting human concoction, pre-prepared and packaged days prior, then heated through and served to him in its polymer container. He'd made a decent go of it, having eaten some of the vegetables and grains, only to find the flavour drowned out by the various spices applied to them, and had even taken a bite out of a meat-like side-dish that he immediately spat back out, but as for the main, he had eaten every last morsel. The main was the only reason he bothered to order a meal, heck, it was the only reason he was on this flight.
The meal in question, which Kohwak would have described as roast Dappled Swampfowl, but the humans insisted on calling Selvulsian Goose, had just eighteen months prior been classed as a rare and expensive delicacy, available only to the most affluent and higher class members of the galactic elite. Today, it was available at every cut-price delli in the quadrant, and even served up as convenience food on third rate shuttle services.
Finally pushing the tray away in disgust, Kohwak settled back in his seat and activated his retina-interface to review the files his employer had provided. The device flashed, and the case-file was beamed directly at him, taking up the entirety of his vision. A few flicks of his eye shuffled through the cover letter and other padding to bring up the first relevant doc, an invoice from his clients on Selvulsa to the Earth-Ophiuchus Trading Conglomerate. According to the invoice, they supplied the conglomerate with five thousand dappled swampfowl eggs some fifteen years ago, in exchange for long-term access to certain lucrative trade routes.
The next few pages of the dossier contained various memos leading up to the deal, the selvulsians had not been able to believe their luck, all this potential custom for a few measly eggs, and ones that would have been destroyed otherwise! The eggs were considered to have no value as a foodstuff; no sentient species could stand the taste, even humans, who had rapidly gained a reputation as the most omnivorous race in the galaxy, had been unable to prepare a dish they considered edible.
There had been concern, of course, that the humans intended to use the eggs for farming, and to enter into direct competition in the swampfowl meat market, and to that end there were a great many attached charts explaining why this would simply be economically unfeasible. As well as being a non-existent source of egg revenue, the feathers were ruled to hold no use in textiles due to their extremely coarse nature. The only usable product of the bird, the report concluded, was for its meat, and considering the standard swampfowl required at least four hundred square foot of swampland to farm effectively, took several years to reach full maturity, and only produced 4 ounces of breast meat at slaughter, it was considered that swampfowl meat was only viable as a niche, exclusive commodity, with no possibility of it being upscaled for mass-market sale. If the humans wanted to waste their time trying to compete with the far more experienced and respected selvulsian farmers in this market, they were more than welcome to try.
A more recent memo, produced a few weeks ago, concluded that the findings of the previous report had aged poorly.
The final document was dedicated to his assignment, which was to investigate the farms out in the swamps of Earth III, gather any available intel on their farming methods and return them for implementation back on Selvulsa.
Kohwak ejected the cartridge containing the casefile from its reader and returned it carefully to a pocket of his shawl. He turned his head to gaze out the shuttle window, and saw Earth III looming ever closer. While it was true that the humans and selvulsians were on friendly terms, and the former had become well known for their hospitality, this visit was no mere pleasantry, and he wondered for the upteenth time what kind of reception lay in store for him.
“Hi, welcome to New Vasyugan Farms, are you here for the tour?” the man at the front entrance beamed from behind his desk. Kohwak nodded (Travellers Tip #8, humans respond well to physical gestures) and handed over his credit chip for payment. While his expression gave nothing away, inside he was struggling to retain his facade. Surely they wouldn’t just give their secrets away? A moment later, and a slot in the desk dispensed a bright blue ticket.
“There you go, the tour will start in about forty minutes, feel free to visit the gift shop or the food court while you wait.” The alien took the ticket and, after a quick ‘Thank you’ and another nod, scurried off before his intentions became known.
After deciding to go with the restaurant over the giftshop, he took to scouring the menu, curious to see if there was a swampfowl dish that hadn’t been completely butchered by the human’s signature cooking techniques. There were the usual deep fried (yuk), sweet chilli (double yuk), and curried (repulsive!) offerings, each offered with a side of fries (another ghoulish creation), alongside others we was unfamiliar with. Willing to take the chance of obtaining anything edible, he opted to approach the main counter.
“Hello, I was wondering if you could help me? Would you be able to tell me what the ‘Selvul Nuggets’ are please?” After the initial look of confusion, the young girl behind the counter smiled, reached out for a colourful box behind her, and presented it to him.
“These are nuggets,” she explained, opening the box for him to view, “they’re made up of all the leftover goose-meat.”
“Leftover...meat?” several images flashed their way into his mind as if by retina-interface, none of them particularly appetising.
“Yeah, you know, all the scraps? After you take away the breast and drumstick, you get what’s left, press it together, and voila, a nugget!” Using a gloved hand, she gently squeezed one to demonstrate. Kohwak grimaced at the sight of it.
“Eeac, erm... what about the soup, what is that comprised of?” He asked, gingerly.
“Our soup is made of fresh selvulsian goose breast and vegetables, cooked and served in goose stock.”
Even before asking the question, Kohwak could feel himself regretting it. “and what is this Stock?”
“Ah, the stock is, you know, what you get after you boil the bones?”
“Boil the bones?” he repeated, as his slate grey complexion grew ever-so-slightly paler. This sounded more like some twisted horror story than a mere cookery technique! His disgust must have been quite apparent, as the server’s expression started to change from one of intrigue to one of mirth.
“Oh boy, they really don’t serve soup where you’re from? Well I already know you aren’t going to like the sausages then?” Her eye twinkled, as if almost daring him to ask. Just as luck would have it, that had been next on his list of inquires.
“Go on then,” he resigned, having come too far to back out now, “what are sausages?”
“I am so glad you asked!” the girl exclaimed, grinning from ear-to-ear, “well, sausages are all the extra bits: leftover meat, fat, blood and organs? Mix it up with some bread rusk, wrap them up in a bit of gut, and you have a sausage!” Kohwak had by this point adopted a thousand-yard stare, trying to process the horror that had been presented to him. To make matters worse, the girl had grabbed a pair of nearby tongs, and displayed sausage from the near-by heating shelf as a visual aid. His mind flashed back to the object he had sampled in his in-flight meal, and it took all his willpower to not have his entire digestive system reverse course on him right then and there.
“Are you okay?” The girl enquired, clearly milking this interaction for all that it was worth. Kohwak nodded, that being the great multi-purpose response he had in his repertoire, and shuffled over to a free table to regain his composure.
By the time the tour started, the selvulsian native had mostly recovered, and was digesting (no, don’t think about digestion!) the information he had gleaned from the food counter. It was clear that, in food scavenging, the humans had been underestimated. Even at a conservative estimate, they must be producing three times as much ‘food’ as their contemporaries, if their barbaric slop could be described as such. While this efficiency clearly offered some advantage in the cost-effectiveness of their operation, it couldn’t begin to cover the gulf in prices their two species offered on the actually palatable meat. If he was to get to the bottom of this, it was obvious that he would have to stick with this assignment at least a little longer.
The tour took them out in a group of twenty on a hover-vessel across the expanse of swampland, to show off the fowl’s grazing habitats. The swamp was truly vast, and stretched off far beyond the horizon, miles upon miles of water, hillocks, and shrubs, broken up only by silos and small circular worker droids; it was unclear if the environment was natural or man-made, nothing would suprise Kohwak. He started to speculate as to how many birds were housed in this area.
“As you can see here, all of our birds live in a completely free range atmosphere, with enough space for them to form unique territories without the risk of excessive fighting that might stress them out and harm the meat, or stop them from laying eggs. As you may know, selvulsian geese are quite prolific layers, producing on average an egg every other day. In order to keep a steady and sustainable population, our worker droids locate and harvest excess eggs and bring them back for processing.” Had Kohwak possessed ears, they would have perked up at this moment. He raised a hand in inquiry.
“Excuse me, but what are the eggs used for? Aren’t they useless for cooking?” The tour guide turned and fixed him with a smile.
“Why yes, the eggs are very well known for their... imposing taste. They are, however, a large source of protein, and so are of great use in many other fields, and particularly for us, in the cosmetic industry. Anyone buy any of our all-natural products in the gift shop?” Many hands went up. “Well thanks to our state-of-the-art egg location and retrieval algorithms, cosmetics are able to make up about twenty percent of our business.”
Kohwak’s mind reeled at this new information; cosmetics? He had heard about the human race’s fascination with various salves and face paintings, but he had no idea that they could use so much of the stuff. And to make it out of eggs? Crushing up a species unborn just to decorate their faces? Just what barbarism was this?
The hover-vessel brought them closer to one of the silos, where upon closer inspection there appeared to be two separate units. Up close, one could more clearly see the worker droids arriving and exiting in a steady pattern, first to the left unit, then to the larger one on the right before zooming off in every direction.
“Here you can see our collection system at work. The first unit is where the collected eggs are stored, and the second is for the much larger payload; the guano. Thanks to its incredibly rich nitrogen content, selvulsian guano is highly sought after for use as a fertiliser. After being collected here, it is sent to be sifted, filtered and processed, and the final product accounts for over forty percent of our domestic gross.
The grey-skinned alien was floored. Forty percent of their business was literal shit? And with eggs and guano comprising most of their income, the meat was… just a by-product?
The tour had moved on to a processing centre, but Kohwak had barely been able to focus for the last part of the presentation, too busy in his mind drafting the report for his employers. It appeared that the majority of the human’s business was for non-food related commerce. When you also factor the trade routes his employers had bought the rights to were had been for food retail and distribution only, he felt they would be none too happy with his findings.
“…which leads us to right here, where the guano is separated out and sent for further cleaning. Next, the contents of the filters are sorted and sifted to remove any pieces of stone and other debris, leaving us with what is our most valuable commodity by weight…”
The alien snapped out of his thoughts, and craned his neck to hear of this treasured resource.
“…selvulsian goose-filtered coffee beans!”
Kohwak fainted.
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