Spoo

Bo and Mack eating Spoo.

“

"Would you like some spoo? It's fresh."
"Fah! Get that away from me. Spoo needs to age. It takes time to cultivate its flavour. To eat fresh spoo is to insult a Centauri."

– G'Kar and Londo.

Spoo is a meat based food product produced by the Centauri Republic and is a staple of the average Centauri diet. It is a favourite of Londo Mollari. Cherished by the Centauri, it can be quite expensive, costing the average non-wholesale customer as much as 10 credits an ounce outside the Republic.

The Other Grey Meat

The Spoo itself is a small, pasty white mealy creature that is ideally raised in a damp, moist, somewhat chilly environment and is generally considered to be among the ugliest animals in the known galaxy, except by the pak'ma'ra, who think spoo simply look like they don't get enough exercise. They travel in herds, usually moving approximately 15cm in a given direction during the course of the year, and are noted for emitting a sound rather like a collective sigh, which has been known to induce unparalleled bouts of depression in spoo ranchers. Uniquely, the Interstellar Animal Rights Protection League's official policy towards the treatment and well being of spoo is simply "Kill 'em."

There are various methods of serving spoo as a dish, though most start with slicing the meat into small cubed sections to ensure it bears as little resemblance to the animal it came from as possible. Centauri prefer their spoo to be aged and kept at an optimum temperature of 18°C/62°F to cultivate its flavour. Narns prefer to eat fresh spoo, though it's often unclear if this is out of genuine preference or simply due to the disgusted reaction it often provokes in Centauri. Indeed, Centauri consider it an insult to be offered fresh spoo, which appears to be indigestible to most known species except Narns.

The Human digestive system itself is known to have an unfortunate and sometimes violent reaction if spoo is eaten without first being properly treated and even then, few find the taste to be as appealing as the Narn or Centauri, let-alone palatable.

“

"Oh, man...this stuff is awful."
"Ten credits an ounce, if you can believe that."
"The Centauri love it?"
"They go nuts for it."
"Man, no wonder their hair stands straight up."

– Bo and Mack

History

A Spoo dish on the cover of 'Dining on Babylon 5'

While indigenous to Centauri Prime, live Spoo has been exported to several colony worlds, including Narn where they are raised on specialised Spoo ranches.

In 2259, after unwisely provoking the techno-mage Elric, Londo Mollari found his data system possessed by holo-demon which, among other things, gathered the pieces of his personal financial account and cast an equation spell, leaving Mollari the owner of 200,000 shares in a spoo ranch. That same year the IARPL's Justifiable Mortality for Spoo sub-committee inspected the spoo ranch pens maintained by Babylon 5's Fresh Air restaurant, after which the chairman filed a complaint with the Earthgov Humane Society because it was found that the creatures were not being harmed enough.

In 2271, ISA President Sheridan had the Minbari crew of the Interstellar Alliance One prepare some spoo for the Centauri Prince Regent Dius Vintari. He claimed to have only tasted it himself but likes to refer to it as "the other grey meat".

Notes

• Spoo is Oops spelled backward.
• Babylon 5 was not the first place spoo appeared. Straczynski had previously been a writer on the 1983 cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and its spin-off She-Ra: Princess of Power. During the She-Ra episode Gateway to Trouble, the villain Skeletor is offered a bowl of Spoo, to which he responds:"No, I don't want any SPOOOOOOO. I *hate* Spoo. (beat) And I don't even know what Spoo IS."

Appearances of Spoo

TV Series

• Midnight on the Firing Line
• The Geometry of Shadows (Mentioned Only)
• Point of No Return (Mentioned Only)
• A View from the Gallery
• A Tragedy of Telepaths
• Meditations on the Abyss (Mentioned Only)

DVD Movies

• Babylon 5: The Lost Tales (Mentioned Only)