Antarctic Food

Antarctic Food

I don’t know how to start this blog. When I originally wrote about the food on the ship I was lauding the amazing taste and presentation. We were all planning our gym routines and making jokes about getting fat because of overindulgence on the food and the desserts. Those were the good times. They lasted 3 weeks. Then the “freshies” ran out and we were left with canned vegetables, canned fruits, and cheese smothered meats and pastas. What would you like today? Carbs as potatoes? Carbs as bread? Or carbs as pasta? If you don’t like any of those, then we have carbs as corn! Your pick!

No one is making jokes now about putting on weight. With the remaining 4 weeks, we will be eating unappetizing looking meals such as Velveeta smothered beef. The food options equate to ballpark stadium meals. With no ball-game or beer. Combined with sea-sickness during our Southern Ocean crossing, we might have a bunch of skeletons showing up to port in Chile!

Back in Seattle I was expecting gross cafeteria food and my family was imagining me eating freeze-dried food.  The first three weeks of the cruise we were spoiled. The Chef, Danny, is a professional chef back at home and has owned and flipped 5 restaurants. He seems particularly fond of the 5 vegetarians and always makes special dishes with excellent presentation for them. Look how beautifully we were eating in the beginning.

The vegetarians get to eat a lot of eggplant, bell pepper and carrots. At week 3, when the “freshies” (fresh food) ran out, Danny got creative and made citrus salad.

Some of my favorite dishes have been under the Valentine’s Menu and AntarcThai night. Greek night was also delicious. Oh, and pizza night! BBQ chicken is my fave.

There is never a shortage of desserts. Desserts have become the highlight. The Captain’s goal was to make us fat. Around noon every day he walked around whetting our appetites to what the dessert of the evening would be. Mid-day slices of angel food cake mysteriously showed up in the work area and just as mysteriously disappeared.  For more reading on the desserts of the ship see tracers-nbp1302.blogspot.com/2013/02/dessert-dessert-everywhere-and-always.html  

PIE! Which slice? Banana cream, Cherry, Apple, Peach. I had them all!
This chocolate cupcake is more than that. It is stuffed with warm crunchy peanut butter.

Don’t mess with these girls and their cake!

I toured the food storage facilities. There are 2 giant walk-in cold rooms and three levels of packaged foods. The cans are bigger than my head! Eggs are stacked by crates, milk from ceiling to floor. There is enough food on the ship to last an entire winter, if we were to get stuck. All of it was loaded on to the Palmer back in December 2012. In McMurdo, some “freshies” were loaded on as well. That means most of the food we are eating now has been on this ship for 4 months. When we return to Chile, I heard that all of the excess gets tossed.  

I give NO fault to the chefs, Danny (French Canadian) and Ale (Chilean). They make amazing breads and cookies and when the food was fresh they always made sure we were stocked at breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight rations (mid-rats), and snack-time. The ability to convert one night’s meal into an entirely different look amazes me. For instance, Canned Veggie Risotto one night became Baked Risotto Squares the next! Side of Canned Peas and Pumpkin Soup on night one, because Pumpkin Veggie “Curry” on night two.  When I realized the “curry” was really just the canned veggies mixed in the soup, I couldn’t eat it. 

In the above photos,, top to bottom left to right; 1. Velveeta mac and cheese spiced up with chicken thigh, tuna salad, and bread. 2. Corn with potatoes and bread. 3. Risotto with cheese lasagna (Mexican lasagna because the night prior we had Mexican tacos). 4. Canned peas, baked risotto squares, potato salad, salmon. 5. Tuna salad, potato salad, Velveeta smothered beef. 6. Baked apples…because fresh ones were starting to rot.  As I sit here writing this post, with the boat rocking in the high-sea swells, looking at these photos is making want to vomit. 

I miss the days where we ate like kings! Even now, with our limited options, I keep thinking back to the times of the early 1900s explorers and almost feel guilty that I was being such a glutton and am now being such a complainer. Shipwrecked men had to live off the land. Expeditioners had to eat their sled dogs or ponies. I’m sure, even back then, the men appreciated mixing up their daily food menu. Creativity in satiating the appetite is not just a thing of the present!

Jeff Rubin was kind enough to put together some excellent recipes on eating Antarctic wild foods. If we get stuck out here and times get even tougher, I could try my hand at some culinary arts. I would like to leave you with one particular scrumptious looking recipe I found in the article titled:

i n v e s t i g a t io n s | jeff rubin -- Train Oil and Snotters Eating Antarctic Wild Foods

(If you Google search the heading perhaps you can read the entire thing.)

 I am excited to return to land and I will start off with a big fat salad and Pisco Sour.

Bon appétit!

To a man who is really hungry it is a very subordinate matter

what he shall eat; the main thing is to have something to

satisfy his hunger.

—Kristian Prestrud, Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1910–12

Escallops of Penguin Breasts

ingredients

Penguin Breasts as required

Reconstituted onion

Some fairly thick batter

Flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the breasts into thin slices and soak in milk for about 2 hours. Dry,

season and our them well on both sides. Have ready some deep frying

fat. When just smoking hot dip the pieces in the batter with the onion

mixed into it and fry each piece to a nice golden brown. For a sauce

turn the contents of a tin of mushroom soup into a saucepan and heat

but do not boil. When hot pour over the meat and serve with fried

potatoes and peas.

From Gerald T. Cutland’s Fit for a fid, or, How to Keep a Fat Explorer in Prime

Condition (© British Antarctic Survey)

 

Charles Green, cook on Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, skins an emperor penguin in the ship’s galley. photograph courtesy of Scott Polar Research Institute. I’m not sure how we would be fined if we were to eat a penguin nowadays considering the Antarctic Treaty’s 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection prohibits even “disturbing” any wildlife.