Journalist Report
01/28/2013
Melanie Newfield
A culinary guide to Mars, part one.
I love experimental cooking with weird and wonderful ingredients, and the
idea of having a captive
audience for my culinary improvisations for two whole weeks inspired me to
volunteer to do most of
the cooking on our mission. I was so keen that I even emailed the food
organiser to ask about the
type of food available and if I could bring along some special ingredients
to try out. In a moment
my colleagues may come to regret, I happened to mention that I love trying
strange and even
anonymous ingredients, and will give anything a go.
After some discussion about the criteria for food I could bring, I packed
my bags with dehydrated
coconut milk, packets of yoghurt with culture, and 10 different spices. I
was ready to make curry
on Mars.
So, for MDRS crew 123, I'm journalist, mission specialist and unofficial
steward.
My initial forays into the kitchen suggested that some tidying and
reorganisation might be a good
idea. Some kind predecessor had tidied and labelled the top two shelves of
the pantry, so I knew
exactly which dehydrated vegetables we had. The rest was a little less
organised, and I’ve spent
the last couple of days sorting, tidying and generally just poking around
in the cupboards.
A selection of unlabelled vacuum packs is currently intriguing me. There’s
some sort of whitish
substance in cubes, which people have variously suggested as chicken and
tofu. Either way, I’m
planning to curry it later in the week, unless when opened it turns out to
be some sort of cheese.
There’s something that I suspect is minced beef, and given the abundant
dried tomato and celery,
I’m thinking about some sort of pasta with bolognaise.
I’m less enthused by the highly processed foods, such as popcorn butter,
blueberry pancake mix
which proudly proclaims it is made “with imitation blueberries” and giant
cans of turkey stew and
mountain chili. On the other hand, on day one when I was tired, jetlagged
and couldn’t figure out
where anything in the kitchen was, I was quite happy to eat rehydrated
sweet and sour pork with
rice.
And so the experiments began.
My first effort was a tomato-based pasta dish, made with freeze-dried
vegetables and cheese. Yes, I
do mean freeze-dried cheese. I actually attempted to fry the leek, but the
lack of water meant it
didn’t work quite right. After that, I just basically added all the
vegetables and water, and then
kept tasting it until the seasoning was about right. The saviour of that
dish had to be the dried
porcini mushrooms.
Morning saw my first attempt to make a dent in the huge quantity of dried
apple flakes that we
have. There are two giant cans open. Some cautious sampling indicated that
they tasted quite good,
and so I cooked them up with rolled oats and raisins, with satisfying
results.
I also decided to see whether the two open packs of yeast were alive, and
to try a loaf of bread. I
especially brought bread flour at the grocery store in Grand Junction,
although I was a little
disturbed to discover that there were seven different ingredients listed
on the label. I made a
loaf that was about half wholemeal and half white. The flour was quite
different to the flour that
I use at home –possibly the gluten content is higher. But that is the
fascinating thing about
bread; each flour is different and by handling the bread yourself rather
than using a breadmaker,
you get to know them by the way they feel in your hands. There’s just
something about breadmaking
for me, it is such an ancient art and bread so central to our culture,
that when I’m kneading the
dough in my hands I feel connected to thousands of years of human history.
It’s quite a magical thing really, to feel the connection of our earliest
agricultural ancestors
while simulating future life on Mars.