Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, And Other Stories Of Antarctic Cuisine

Description

Antarctica, the last place on Earth, is not famous for its cuisine. Yet it is famous for stories of heroic expeditions in which hunger was the one spice everyone carried. At the dawn of Antarctic cuisine, cooks improvised under inconceivable hardships, castaways ate seal blubber and penguin breasts while fantasizing about illustrious feasts, and men seeking the South Pole stretched their rations to the breaking point. Today, Antarctica's kitchens still wait for provisions at the far end of the planet's longest supply chain. Scientific research stations serve up cafeteria fare that often offers more sustenance than style. Jason C. Anthony, a veteran of eight seasons in the U.S. Antarctic Program, offers a rare workaday look at the importance of food in Antarctic history and culture. Anthony's tour of Antarctic cuisine takes us from hoosh (a porridge of meat, fat, and melted snow, often thickened with crushed biscuit) and the scurvy-ridden expeditions of Shackleton and Scott through the twentieth century to his own pre-planned three hundred meals (plus snacks) for a two-person camp in the Transantarctic Mountains. The stories in Hoosh are linked by the ingenuity, good humour, and indifference to gruel that make Anthony's tale as entertaining as it is enlightening.

Promotion info

Offers a rare workaday look at the importance of food in Antarctic history and culture

Author description

Jason C. Anthony's essays have appeared in "Orion," "VQR," "Alimentum," the "Missouri Review," and in the "Best American Travel Writing 2007."

Table of contents

Prologue Chapter 1 - All Thinking and Talking of Food; Chapter 2 - The Secret Society of Unconventional Cooks; Chapter 3 - Slaughter and Scurvy; Chapter 4 - Meat and Melted Snow; Chapter 5 - How to Keep a Fat Explorer in Prime Condition; Chapter 6 - Into the Deep Freeze; Chapter 7 - Prisoner-of-War Syndrome; Chapter 8 - They Syrup of American Comfort; Chapter 9 - A Cookie and a Story; Chapter 10 - Sleeping with Vegetables; Chapter 11 - A Tale of Two Stations; Epilogue - Not under These Conditions Appendix 1 - Recipes; Appendix 2 - Hoosh Timeline and Expedition Chronology; Notes; Selected Bibliography