Festivus Gastronomicus
General: Five-Star Space Food
Don’t get me wrong, I love tang. Love it. But if I was going to live in a space station for months at a time, I think I’d get sick of eating nothing but powders and tubed food.
To solve the gastronomic dilemma of serving up tasty meals that meet the tricky requirements of space travel, the European Space Agency has turned to gourmet chef Alain Ducasse.
The story about Ducasse’s extraterrestrial entrées was covered on the wires today. The AP reports that Ducasse will be serving up meals including “caponata, a Sicilian dish made of peppers, tomatoes and zucchini; roasted quails in a wine sauce from France’s Madiran region; smooth celery root puree with nutmeg; and rice pudding with preserved fruit.”
Now that’s a menu to conduct countless scientific tests in zero gravity by.
I thought our beloved NASA would never do things like this for our country’s astronauts, but they went and made Emeril the first celebrity chef to cook for space. Jerks. Howerver, I’m pretty sure serving up quail and wine sauces is going to turn even Emeril’s menu of jambalaya up a few notches.
This first taste of Ducasse’s food in space is just the beginning. According to the Telegraph, Ducasse is in charge of developing menus for long-term space travel. He is developing recipes and working with the ESA to work out the requirements to adequately feed astronauts on missions lasting several years.
You have got to love the ESA for asking one of the best chefs in the world to join the team responsible for solving the riddle of cosmic noshery. After all, Ducasse’s kitchen is a fine-tuned laboratory capable of conducting experiments with impressive results. It’s about time the astronomers and the gastronomers got together on something.
If you’re interested in further reading, the ESA website has a nice little article on the history of space food with some fun pictures (even more goodies for francophones). Props go out to the ESA for making food a priority for the brave men and women who venture into the emptiness of space with bellies full of quail.