>Tali leaned forward, the ghosts of her eyes narrowing as she
>squinted at the wrapper. "'Lemon Surprise'," she read. "What's lemon?"
>"It's a fruit from Earth. But this doesn't taste anything like
>one. That's the surprise," Gryphon replied.
>"Does it taste like rat?" she asked impishly.
>"Even after 67 years as a galactic fugitive, I'm pleased to say
>that I have no way of knowing," said Gryphon. He peeled the wrapper off
>the bar, revealing it to be a slightly crumbly but mostly waxy yellow
>substance, bit the end off, grimaced, chewed, and swallowed. "Ugh. Our
>Salusian friends used to claim that people would eventually choose to
>starve to death rather than keep eating these things."

I'm reminded of a passage in John Ringo's The Last Centurion in which emergerncy rations are being discussed, and the new type they concocted to keep a large portion of the population from starving were deliberately designed to taste as bad as possible, so that people didn't try to eat them unless they were REALLY, REALLY desperate. Which might be the original intent, if rat bars were first created to be survival rations. Someone along the way just forgot to improve the taste.