Compound P108

"What's in it?"

"...Preservatives.... and government secrets."

"Okay then... Cool. Cool."

— A student of Academia Fourteen and their professor

  Compound P108 is a vaguely-not-quite-beef-flavored experimental preservative of unknown composition and an origin only known as "Eugenia Schwartz", who is a "lunch lady" (probably?) at Academia Fourteen. Compound P108 is a staple to the cafeteria of Academia Fourteen, though its lack of public approval or official testing ensure that it stays in Academia Fourteen. Despite its frightening profile, no student or faculty member has been harmed by or experienced any side effects from ingesting — or even inhaling, in one case — Compound P108.
  The largest quantity of Compound P108 put in any cafeteria dish was a whopping 1 gram per serving on pizza day in the year 1983. This also happened to be the day it was first introduced into the cafeteria food. Many still question why they ate the pizza, which obviously had a thick layer of neon, orange-to-the-maximum, still-burned-on-your-retinas orange powder on the surface.
 

Oopsies. That was meant for the chem lab. Oh well. It was safe for the rats.

— Eugenia Schwartz, 1983

  Despite the ungodly amounts of Compound P108 ingested on that day, no one showed any symptoms or side effects, except for a single student who had a stomachache, which was most likely caused by eating four slices of Cafeteria Pizza in ten minutes, and unrelated to the Compound.
  One notable feature of Compound P108 is that, while it smells like nutmeg to most people, it smells distinctly of cayenne to people with naturally red hair. It was thought to have been a prank at first, but as the difference continued to be reported over the years, it began to be accepted as a strange, but true fact of Compound P108.
 

Stupid spice. Cannot smell like nutmeg to everyone. Just had to single out the redheads.

— Eugenia Schwartz

 

Mysterious Origins and/or Suppliers

No one knows where exactly Eugenia procures the Compound P108 from. Her fellow lunchroom staff only say that she keeps it in a 55-gallon steel drum in the ingredient storage room, marked with a white diamond reminiscent of the bottom of a Safety Square and a large "E" as a glittery, just-as-neon-orange-as-the-powder vinyl sticker stuck below the (notably blank) diamond.
  As Eugenia is known to be an enigmatic figure associated with "the government" (although which government is unclear), there is some speculation that the Compound P108 stores Eugenia has accrued over the years is sourced from whatever government she serves as part of a testing process or even a government-sourced social experiment. What they would be hoping to accomplish, however, is beyond the speculations of the general populace of Academia Fourteen.