- what type of foods do people eat kind of curious what you think the majority of people eat.
- Food on ships would tend to be pretty basic fare intended for very long shelf-life. (And I had some notion of growing high-protein genmod fungus in vats but not sure if I slipped that into a description anywhere.)
While I don't think the details are really spelled out anywhere, it's worth noting that most stations, ships and even planets in the sector do not grow their own food. (There are lots of inhabited planets in the core, but very few of them are conventionally "habitable".)
If the description of the "food" commodity item in the game is indicative, that implies that the vast majority of food is made with a long shelf-life in mind. Commercially produced food is largely certified to have a minimum shelf life of five years. Also, you can loot perfectly good food off of derelicts. If this is to be taken as canonical and not merely for the sake of having more varied loot, this indicates that "five years" is a lower bound, not an upper one.
If this food resembles anything we are familiar with today - which seems likely given the existence of "bread basket" worlds -, it would resemble the stuff used in military, survival and emergency rations. This could indicate a surprising variety in terms of ingredients and taste, though the distinctions in texture and shape of the food wouldn't be as varied, as I'm guessing it would usually be heavily processed and chopped into small chunks. Most people in the sector are more likely to be accustomed to dried apple and banana chips as opposed to the fresh fruit. Chocolate preserves really well and can be consumed in various ways and is probably the most common treat in the sector.
Meat is probably a rarity, and David said as much already. We know Volturnian lobsters are a delicacy across the sector, but they're presumably far too expensive for the average person or family to afford, except maybe on special occasions. So most protein for most people probably comes from pulses and beans, with nuts being another useful source.
As far as drinks go... We know (from the descriptions of bars in Tri-Tach space) that rich people drink fancy cocktails, still. Beyond that, ordinary alcohol (particularly in distilled forms similar to moonshine, made from potatoes or rice or some other widely-eaten staple crop), tea, and coffee are probably all widely available. Dairy products might exist but would probably be uncommon for the same reason meat is - if anyone's adding creamer to their coffee, it's probably made from oats or soy or something like that. Ice cream? Probably made from rice. It's probably a safe rule of thumb that any kind of animal product is most commonly replaced with a purely plant-based substitute.
Fresh produce (such as aforementioned fresh apples and bananas), fluffy bread, dairy etc. could be a lot more accessible on the breadbasket planets. Since those are controlled by the Luddites, that might well be a large part of the Luddic appeal.
This is all speculation, of course, but that's the kind of feel I get from the world of the game as has been presented to us so far? It's two-hundred years after the Collapse. Terraforming isn't really a thing people do anymore, and probably most people spend their entire lives in pressurized rooms.
