Food
There are some good things. Greek yogurt, UHT milk, chocolate milk, also almond milk and coconut milk. When I was here in September, there was oat and soy milk as well. Lots of different fruit juices, somewhat tropical. Guava, mango, pomelo, some other things I don’t know. There are dried fruits and nuts. As many Tim Tams as you could ever want, though only milk chocolate and double chocolate. There are still fresh red/yellow/green peppers, kiwi fruit and apples. Now and again we have some New Zealand ice cream.
You might notice that there is nothing life sustaining in the above list. The cooked food is not good. In general, very salty and greasy, conglomerates rather than dishes. I often can’t tell what kind of meat is being served. There was a discussion at lunch the other day, was it duck or pork on the plate? For chicken and sometimes turkey, I am pretty sure that they put the whole bird on a slab, then randomly chop at it with a cleaver. Nothing resembles what you might find at a store, restaurant or at home. Just chunks of meat and shattered bone. Revolting.
I’ve spent a lot of years in isolated environments eating less than ideal food. This is by far the worst. The meals have been awful the whole time, to the point where I go to the galley hoping there is something, anything I can eat that will get me through. The cook doesn’t understand vegetarianism at all. Today there was lentil soup, which seemed promising, except the bottom of the pot was full of unidentifiable meat as well. One woman said she was afraid of the food, especially about the saltiness. She thought the extra salt might make her more tolerant to it but instead it has made her less so. She had the foresight to buy some big jars of peanut butter in Punta Arenas so she has that option.
Okay, there is one dish that we have had a couple of times that is good. It’s a breakfast savory porridge, a rice soup with ginger, lemongrass and a little bit of chicken usually. Yesterday someone mistook it for oatmeal and he added brown sugar, kiwi fruit, cinammon and dried apples to it. He didn’t notice the problem until he dug in and found a bony piece of turkey or chicken. He is not one to throw away food so he finished the whole thing, which amused others at the table.
I think the topic of the food is weighing on others as well. The science group had the idea to put together an ‘NBP 24-10 favorite recipe book’. NBP 24-10 is the cruise number. Most people have contributed. I don’t think I’ve mentioned our population, there are 20 of us on the science and support side, about 15 people to run the boat. The boat people weren’t part of the project, though I did tell our favorite mate Trevor that he should add a recipe. He’s the only one of them who might participate.
Yesterday was pretty rough seas. We have stopped going south to avoid the weather and now we are headed straight west. No more science is being done. They had to cancel a couple of the study sites because they were right in the middle of the big storm. We are now headed straight west, waiting below a stormy low. We are still closer to antarctica than to New Zealand. We should start heading north later tonight. I am dreaming of pizza from Arbour in Lyttleton.