The Galactic Gourmet

✍ Scribed by White, James

• Book ID: 106878312
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: en-GB
• Weight: 157 KB
• Series: Sector General 11
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780812562675

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

On the 384 levels of the far-future Sector General Twelve Hospital, a staff drawn from dozens of races treats the ailments of hundreds more, and also devises treatments to help newly discovered intelligent species. In this first hardcover entry in the Sector General series, popular since 1962, a gourmet chef celebrated throughout the galaxy is appointed Chief Dietitian of Sector General. Gurronsevas is a Tralthan (imagine a smallish, six-legged elephant), talented enough to substantially improve the hospital's food but somewhat accident-prone. Exiled to the medical team of a First Contact expedition, he saves the kangaroo-like Wem by concocting ways of cooking vegetables that overcome their cultural taboos, which had condemned them to starvation on a planet whose ruined environment no longer produces meat. White, a retired British physician, tells the story entirely from Gurronsevas's viewpoint, with realism, a delightful dry wit, compassion and an intimate knowledge of the technology, philosophy and politics of the medical profession. Fans can look forward to an above-average installment in a series that, perhaps more than any other of comparable longevity, has survived with grace the changes in both the SF readership and the larger society.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Sector General, a 384-level space station on the galactic rim, can handle the medical problems of all known species. In the latest installment in the 35-year-old series, self-assured master chef Gurronsevas, a six-legged Tralthan, is hired on to make hospital food palatable. Soon finding himself in trouble and banished from the ship, he travels covertly with a special emergency medical team to convince a starving, decimated population to accept help. Told from the chef's point of view, this story serves up dry wit and a glimpse into alien psychology. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.