Feeding The Coldest Journey

As you will probably know, an expedition to cross Antarctica in winter is planning to set off soon, led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Its aim is to raise money for the charity Seeing is Believing, which tackles preventable blindness.

http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/
www.seeingisbelieving.org.uk

I am not nuts enough to want to spend six months in the pitch dark at perhaps minus 80 degrees, so what is my connection? Well, a very slight one actually. Here is a hint:

Last week I spent a day with Jo, who is organising all the food for six men, including her partner Brian, for six months. It has been provided by sponsors and is stored at their home. There is food everywhere: in the outhouse, on the stairs…

… on the landing…

… in the bedrooms, in the dining room, in the garage…

Many hundredweight of food of all types has had to be unpacked (the amount of packaging to be disposed of is hardly credible), sorted, and repacked into bags for each day. For example, one of my jobs was to label and sort the majority of 7 puddings x 6 people x 52 weeks. That’s a lot of pudding.

Although we are all (that is to say, most readers of/contributors to this blog) used to expedition food, I do not think any of us would relish such a long period with a diet based on dehydrated goods. In an attempt to make the meals as palatable as possible Jo had to come up with a number of recipes that would be reasonably varied and tasty but also easy to prepare and cook with limited facilities in Antarctic conditions. The benefit of this is that whilst helping out one gets to test the menus. (Rice pudding scored very highly on quality.)