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"I think we're still on that topic, still trying to figure out what computers are, how they change us, why we use them."
- Neal Stephenson

Sheep's Lozenge  
  The nutritious portion of an entire sheep, in one pill.  

As far as I know, the first reference to the idea of a food pill.

"...Why, in those days they had not even discovered the art of preserving the surplus food in one country to supply the lack of another. Waste ruled in Australia and Want in England. The art of concentration was almost unknown...”

"You are referring to that ridiculous story of the sheep's lozenge, I suppose," said Mr. Raymond, looking just a trifle sheepish himself."

"What was that?" inquired Lotty mischievously.

"Well, it was a little mistake of my dear husband," answered Mrs. Raymond. "As soon as the lozenges were advertised, he ordered a box for the parish poor, and before issuing them he was so rash as to venture upon one himself. Moreover, he actually took a whole one, as though it had been a cough lozenge."

A roar of laughter broke through the occupants of the air-waggon, causing a tremendous acceleration of speed.

"He forgot, you see, that each lozenge was the concentration of an entire sheep (with the trifling exception of the wool and teeth), and the consequence was he became so enormously strong that he was positively dangerous...

“Well, well,” it might have been worse,” observed Mr. Raymond complacently; “suppose one had taken a pork lozenge, for example, and gone the whole hog.”

Technovelgy from The Fatal Curiosity, or, A Hundred Years Hence, by James Payn.
Published by Belgravia, A London Magazine in 1877
Additional resources -

Compare to the compact food pastilles from The Senator's Daughter (1879) by Edward Page Mitchell, nutritious pellets from Looking Forward: A Dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999 (1899) by Arthur Bird, food tablets from John Jone's Dollar (1915) by H.S. Keeler, concentro from Armageddon: 2419 A.D. (1928) by Philip Frances Nowlan and dainties from Prelude to Foundation (1988) by Isaac Asimov.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Fatal Curiosity, or, A Hundred Years Hence
  More Ideas and Technology by James Payn
  Tech news articles related to The Fatal Curiosity, or, A Hundred Years Hence
  Tech news articles related to works by James Payn

Sheep's Lozenge-related news articles:
  - Never Eat Food Again - Just Soylent
  - AeroLife Inhalable Food Powder

Articles related to Food
Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
Robochef Robotic Food Prep
Drone Deliveries Instead Of Waiters In Restaurants?
SliceIt! Why Not Teach Robots To Use Knives?

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