Enzyme Scooped Salad

By Dewdrops on the Grass

Applejack peered suspiciously at the mixture of leafy greens, purples, and golds in the round glass bowl. It looked innocent enough. There was a bit of arugula, some spinach, romaine and iceberg lettuce, even some chard and kale. A small jar of dressing sat atop the table next to it, a goopy mixture of blues, whites, and specks of grey and yellow that didn’t look the least bit appetizing.

“Now hold on a minute here, sugarcube,” she said, glaring at Twilight. She pointed a hoof at the table. “You’re swearin’ this is real salad.”

Twilight flashed her a cheesy grin, brimming with the kind of slick snake oil smarm that the Flim Flams loved to utilize whenever they strutted on into town. The sight caused Applejack to take a short step back, her hackles rising.

“Of course it’s salad!” Twilight insisted, adding in a laugh that grated on Applejack’s nerves. She reached up with one wing and scratched at the back of her head while using the other to gently push away an odd piece of laboratory equipment into a nearby closet.

“Uh huh.” Applejack narrowed her eyes as she continued to glare. “Ah know it’s salad. That weren’t my question.”

Twilight swallowed audibly, the air visibly squirming down the front of her gullet as she continued to laugh. “Well it’s real! It’s not fake, see?” She reached over with her magic and pulled out a leaf of spinach, waggling it in the air. “See? Not plastic. It’s real leaf.”

Applejack inclined a single eyebrow. “Ah don’t believe you.”

Twilight’s face fell, her magic drooping as she let the leaf fall to the floor. “Oh… okay, you’re right, Applejack. It’s not real salad. At least, not in the sense that it grew from the ground.”

A smug half grin formed on Applejack’s muzzle. “Ah knew it.”

“But!” Twilight’s head shot up, her eyes wide and manic as she thrust a hoof towards the salad bowl. “It’s still salad! It’s still perfectly edible.”

“Really now?” Applejack rolled her eyes and dug a hoof into her mane. Rummaging around she brought out a piece of paper which she smacked with her other forehoof to unroll. “Ahem. ‘Dear Applejack, please come to the castle right away. I’ve got something experimental that’ll really knock your shoes off!’” She stuffed the paper back into her mane. “Ah’m guessin’ this salad is it.”

“Well, okay, yes,” Twilight admitted. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve managed to figure out how to make perfectly edible food out of nothing but enzymes!”

“Enzymes?” Applejack repeated, tasting the unfamiliar syllables. “Ah don’t know what those are.”

Twilight’s eyes sparkled with glee as she launched into a thorough explanation that sent Applejack reeling, her own eyes glazing over within a minute. Soon she nearly drifted off standing upright, drool running down her chin in a sticky little rivulet.

“Applejack, are you listening to me?”

“Huh?” Applejack shook her head fiercely. “Uh, yeah, sure Twi. Ah understand. But uh, why don’t you dumb it down for me anyhow. Ya know, in case Ah’ve gotta explain it to Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight took to the air long enough to slap her forehooves to her hips, flashing Applejack an exasperated look. She blew out a huge sigh then said, “Okay, fine. Basically, enzymes are a product of biochemical reactions. I found a way to grow them in my lab, through cultivating a form of algae.”

Lowering herself to the floor, she trotted over to a nearby shelf and pulled out several jars full of what looked to Applejack like different colors of carpet fuzz. She started naming the kinds of algae until Applejack coughed, forcing her to stop. “A-anyway, the point is, this is where I get my enzymes. What I do is I take this algae and I process it with this.”

She zipped back over to the closet and pulled out the laboratory equipment she’d tucked in there before. It resembled nothing short of a huge microscope to Applejack’s eyes, albeit with grabber arms and a spinning disc and several other random accoutrements and gizmos that made no sense to her whatsoever. Every bit had been assembled by hoof, with various scorch marks and misbored screw holes dotting it.

“This is my own creation,” Twilight said proudly, stretching a wing out around it like she was giving it a hug. “I call it the Enzyme-O-Matic 3000.”

Applejack grimaced, her lips curling back. “Ugh, Twi, do you have to put a number in it like that? Makes it sound like somethin’ the Flim Flams came up with.”

“Well, yes, of course I do,” Twilight said, rolling a forehoof as she spoke. “I mean, obviously I have to put a big number into my fancy sci-fi magitek machine. It’s got to have a snappy name to appeal to the masses.”

“Appeal to the… what in tarnation are you talkin’ about?” Applejack snorted, shaking her head. “Ah tell you Twi, Ah love you ‘cause you’re one of my best friends, but sometimes Ah don’t get what goes on in that head of yours.”

Twilight let out a high-pitched giggle that scrambled down Applejack’s spine like a spoonful of spiders. “Oh Applejack, that’s okay. Sometimes even I don’t know what’s going on inside my head!”

As Twilight laughed and laughed, nearly doubling over in the process, Applejack found herself taking several steps back. Her heart hammered in her chest, pony instincts clamoring at the back of her mind to flee. “Riiiight, okay, Twi, you can uh, you can calm down now, sugarcube.”

Twilight slapped a hoof to her mouth, silencing her giggles. “Oh, sorry. I’ve been up for about ninety-six hours now. Stimulants sure do keep a mare going, haha!” She coughed into her forehoof. “A-anyway, the Enzyme-O-Matic scoops the algae, letting me make salad, bread, any kind of food you can imagine. And it looks and tastes just like the real thing, with the same level of nutrition. This could revolutionize the planet, Applejack. We wouldn’t have to grow food anymore! We could just grow algae!”

“Uh, that’s great and all,” Applejack said, feeling like it was anything but, “but it ain’t like Equestria’s hard up for food. Or anywhere else, really. Ain’t many creatures out there starvin’.”

Twilight sighed. “No, no, Applejack, you’re not thinking about this the right way. This could completely change our society. If earth ponies don’t have to farm, you could dedicate your lives to manufacturing and scientific pursuits instead. Think about it. There’s so much we could do with food like this.”

She took several steps forward, picking up the bowl in her magic to float up into Applejack’s face. “Imagine ponies going to space! We’ve already started experimenting with rockets that can take a pony to orbit. But they’ll need food up there, right? O-or what if they have to travel to other planets? To the stars? Think of how useful this’ll be!”

Applejack reared back even as the enzyme salad came dangerously close to her mouth. The odors of it filled her nostrils with a scent that left her feeling… hungry. “Just imagine, Applejack! Imagine how easy it would be to food-proof Equestria. The windigoes themselves could return and we’d never even come close to starving. You can grow algae indoors. And just one jar of algae can produce enough food to feed a calorie-starved alicorn like me for a week!”

“Twilight, would you get outta my face?” Applejack grunted as she pushed Twilight back, trying desperately to get away from the smell of that salad, which had grown far more tantalizing to Applejack’s taste buds than it should have. “Ah’m really not sure Ah buy into this whole thing.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be good!” Twilight insisted. She held up the bowl once more, offering it to Applejack. “Come on, try it. For me. Please?”

As Twilight’s eyes ballooned, welling up with tears and a sense of sheer cuteness that an adult mare like her didn’t have the right to pull off, Applejack sighed… and gave in. “Alright, alright, fine. Ah’ll try the salad.”

“Yesss!” Twilight cheered, her magic almost tossing the bowl of salad into the air before she caught herself. “Here, here, don’t let me stop you.”

Applejack approached the bowl, hesitation evident in every movement, even though the smell called to her. She opened up her mouth ever so slightly, feeling it water up like Rainbow Dash had just emptied a cloud all over her tongue. Her eyes brushed over the salad, taking in every different shape.

Then she lowered her mouth and took a bite, and the taste slammed into her like a heavyweight boxing champion, sending her crumpling to the floor. “Oh mah Celestia!” she groaned as she spat out the remnants of the leaves, raising her forehooves to try and brush it all off her tongue. “That’s… that’s horrible!”

“What?” Twilight gasped, tears filling her eyes anew. “But, but… but it smells so good.”

Applejack gagged, feeling her whole digestive system reel as it tried to reject what she’d almost put into it. She coughed and sputtered several times as she crawled up to her hooves. “Ah’m tellin’ you, Twi, it’s bad. It’s like the most fake, most lyin’ piece of pretend food Ah ever saw. Like eatin’ a plastic sandwich bag, only worse.”

“But… what?!” Twilight’s tears vanished, replaced by a stern anger that overtook her as she stomped towards the bowl. She snatched it up and pounded over to the Enzyme-O-Matic, running the bowl through several tests. Then she fell back onto her haunches. “Oh no. Ooooh nooo.”

Applejack’s heart sank at the sound of that tone in Twilight’s voice. She hated making the mare feel that way, even if it was deserved. “What is it, Twi?”

“The salad, it’s… it’s natural, alright.” Twilight scowled down at the bowl before abruptly flinging it into the wall. “More than 100% natural, in fact. So much so it overflowed all the way back into fake.”

“Uh, what’s that now?”

“It means, Applejack,” Twilight said as she picked up her machine in her magic, “That this damned thing doesn’t work at all!” With a few quick twists and pulls, she wrenched it into pieces and threw them into the closet. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

Applejack trotted over and placed a hoof around Twilight’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay, Twi. Sometimes your experiments don’t work out. It ain’t so bad.”

Twilight sighed and sank into Applejack’s touch. “If you say so.”

“Here,” Applejack proposed, giving Twilight a smile. “How about Ah make it up to you, take you out to lunch.”

Twilight looked up at her, all traces of disappointment vanishing. “You mean it?”

“Sure do!” Applejack gave her a big wink. “Long as there ain’t no salad.”

Both of them burst into laughter as they left the laboratory together, shoulder to shoulder.