Food Entry
- eating mashed potatoes
As anyone who knows me will agree, I am happiest when eating. So naturally being in a remote place like Antarctica got my concerns up as to how I was going to be fed. I have the appetite of a sumo wrestler and often out eat anyone when put up to the challenge (Don’t even go there with ice cream). Those of you who don’t know me probably think I weight 800 lbs. This is not so and I thank God every day for my high metabolism and twisted ideas that running is about as much fun as one can have.
my first and last meal in a bag
Back to the food……What were we going to eat? Would it be good? Would there be enough!?!? As my tutor tiptoed around these answers I became concerned. They warned us that our ideals of ‘quality food’ would plummet. There were words of assurance that there would be enough of this so called food. This proved to be just barely true.
mmmmm yummy
I volunteered to help out with loading the food up from the freezer for field camp. It was me and BJ, two vegetarians trying to decide on how much meat to bring out. As you can imagine there was a lot of concern from the meat eaters of the group. We took a pole and successfully managed an appropriate amount. It seemed like a lot at the time but we went through it. There were frozen veggies of all sorts, hash brown, bread, butter, cheese, meats, and tofu. These frozen foods were placed in crates and put in the ‘freezer’ we dug in the snow at camp. We had to be very careful that they did not thaw or they could not be refrozen again and would be thrown away if not eaten. Throwing food away is not something I am morally capable of grasping so BJ and I played close attention to that.
hanging out in the kitchen but what happend to the roof?
Out in the field our frozen foods were supplemented by our giant red boxes containing dried goods. This included porridge, muesli, snack bars, dried milk, pasta, rice, couscous, instant soups, tins of fruit, sauce packets, dried veggies, crackers, tea, honey, jelly, marmite and lots and lots of chocolate. Some of us got more creative than others but we all manged to not starve to death.
veggie, tofu and couscous
In spite of all this food it was a huge mission to stay full. As in the mountains, your appetite increases when being outside doing physical activity. Seeing as we were outside all the time, our bodies were always in such high demand of energy. Our bodies also worked overtime to keep us warm. I remember pounding through half a block of chocolate completely guilt free in less than a minute for a little sugar boost. It was always a battle to keep me fed. My poor kitchen mates. They would feed me and leave more in the pot because they knew that within 30 minutes of dinner I would be ready for ’second dinner’ and require another feed. We all pitched in and rotated in the kitchen so luckily this burden didn’t fall on one helpless victim.
When working in the kitchen, cleanliness and waste were a big issue. The gray water (dirty water) had to be kept to a minimum so we mostly wiped our plates down with paper towels. This was avoided too to lower wastes. It was easiest to literally lick your plate clean of every bit of food. There were times when my cup of tea had a hint of tomato soup in it or the pasta for dinner had a bit of oatmeal but let me tell you it all gets mixed up in your stomach anyway and in Antarctica you’ll eat anything. This was again proved because most of the food items in our red boxes expired in 2007 or earlier. There were countless jokes traveling around the camp of moldy puddings to avoid and tins of Salmon from 1998. Word even got around that Shannon and Chris at Bacon from 2004. They aren’t dead yet so all is well.
brunch at Mactown - round 2
It wasn’t like this the whole time. The food at Scott base was amazing. There was plenty of fresh fruit, salad and the desserts were heavenly. There are only two chefs at Scott base and they have to feed up to 90 people every meal. Keeping people fed with good food has a lot of influence on moral so being a chef in Antarctica is no easy task.
brunch at Mactown- round 1
On the Sunday afternoon we went over to Mcmurdo (aka MacTown) for a tour. It happened to be around the brunch time, how convenient. At this point we had been out in the field for a couple days so fresh food was a real treasure. I couldn’t contain myself and surcame to my voracious appetite. This also included a waffle covered with Mr. Whippy Ice cream. [important side note: my true reason for wanting to go to Antarctica is for the all you can eat Mr. Whippy Ice Cream machine at McMurdo so I was very excited to finally fulfill my purpose] After lunch as we all cradled our full bellies we waddled around McMurdo visiting the science labs. It wasn’t long till a few of us starting groaning of upset stomachs. The American food had a lot of sugar and fats in it compared to the Scott base and field camp food. I guess it was a bit of a shock to our systems. Even I fell victim with my usual stomach of steel causing me to pass out on the hagglund ride back and pass on dinner.
When Santa came to visit us on Christmas he brought with us leftovers. It was the best Christmas present I’ve gotten in a very long time. We warmed that food up and gobbled it down before it had time to freeze…which wasn’t very long. It was always an uphill battle to eat your food before it froze and you always lost.
Christmas feast
All in all it was good. I was fed. When we finally got back to Scott base I tried to appreciate having a hot meal ready for me but all I could do was stuff my face for the first round. By the second helping I was savoring it a little more. The lettuce and fresh fruit were an exotic treat. I’m not sure when exactly it started to happen but our tutors starting to take note of how much the students were eating. The competition came down to Phil and me. They informed me at the end of the meal of the little comparisons they had been doing and that I was awarded the reputation of eating the most out of the students. Anyone surprised? Gosh all this talking of eating has got me hungry…..time to go cook!