Oden was a traditional Human soup of Japanese origin.
In 2152, Hoshi Sato asked to take over the galley aboard Enterprise NX-01 when Chef fell ill. Instead of sticking to the food on the dinner planner, she decided to cook her grandmother's recipe for oden. (ENT: "Singularity")
According to the shooting script, page 12 act 10, Reed and Tucker were actually eating "oden" in the mess hall.
Appendices[]
Background information[]
The recipe translation reads as follows, explanations in brackets:
Seasoning
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Daikon [giant radish]
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Konnyaku [a gelatinous food made from devil's-tongue starch]
- Grilled tofu [yakidofu]
- Kamaboko [fish paste, sausage]
How to make the soup
- Pour 5 cups of boiling water (hot water) into a big bowl
- 1 tsp of chicken stock or bouillon
- 2 tbsp of sake
- 1 tsp of sugar
- Make the soup from the bouillon [dissolve] and then add the seasoning to the soup.
From the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 2, p. 100, "Oden became Hoshi's grandmother's dish at the suggestion of Mike's mother, Patsy Okuda. Star Trek food stylist Dorothy Duder made the delicious-looking bowl of oden seen in the recipe screen photo."
A similar dish called odeng exists in Korea. Linda Park uses the Korean pronunciation when she mentions it by name in the episode.
It is also worth mentioning that the in-screen ingredients of Japanese recipe avoids use of any kanji characters in favor of hiragata and katakana exclusively, which is uncharacteristic for a "traditional recipe".