Why Is ‘Mickey 17’ So Obsessed With Sauce? | Eater

"The vessel's communal dining area is defined by strict calorie rationing and utilitarian food: gray, unidentifiable meals are measured to the calorie to save energy on the four-year journey, and sexual intercourse is forbidden because it would expend too many calories. This stark scarcity contrasts with the private dining described elsewhere and makes the absence of sauce especially conspicuous; the writer notes the crew would have welcomed a béarnaise or similar luxury as a reminder that life extends beyond intake and expenditure of calories and that the lost Earth once offered the flavors of French bourgeois tables, Mughal emperors, and Chinese banquets to more than just the rich. In this setting, sauce becomes a shorthand for hope and a possible signal that a more inclusive culinary world might be rebuilt." - Jaya Saxena