Seal brain and penguin breasts off Antarctic menus

[Tab]

I like seafood myself, but there's a limit.

ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) – Once the "delicacies of the Antarctic," fresh seal brains, penguin eggs or grilled cormorant are off the menu at research bases where chefs rely on imported and often frozen food.

"You have to use what you've got in the store. Frozen stuff, tinned stuff and if you're really desperate the dried stuff," said Alan Sherwood, a widely praised chef at the British Rothera base on the Antarctic Peninsula.

"We're now onto dried onions because we've run out," he said. "You can't just go out and buy some."

Rothera gets most of its supplies by ship twice a year -- in December and March -- with the occasional flight from Chile.

The 1959 Antarctic Treaty sets aside the continent as a nature reserve devoted to peace and science and bases have over the years stopped eating fresh wildlife. Seals were shot at Rothera for dog food until 1994 when dogs were banned from Antarctica to protect the environment.

But a 1950s recipe book at the base run by the British Antarctic Survey gives an insight into life as it used to be, with staff making penguin egg omelettes or cooking seal hearts.

"Seal brains ... I would consider one of the delicacies and luxuries of the Antarctic, and was enjoyed by most members of the base when I was chef," the unnamed author wrote.

In a chapter on seal brains, he listed recipes for fried seal brains, seal brains au gratin, brain fritters, seal brain omelette and savoury seal brains on toast. The cook must be a man -- there were no British women in Antarctica at the time.

He also said cormorants, or shags, are delicious. "My advice is if you see any around, take a ... rifle and knock a few off. It is a very meaty bird and one is enough for about six people."

The author said he did not like penguin but that many also considered it a delicacy. Young penguins taste best, the book says. Some say it tastes like a fishy version of chicken.

Sherwood, aged 49, has giant freezers and stores with tonnes of supplies for the base which can have up to 100 people at a time. He and a colleague make three meals a day and mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks known as "smoko."

Choices for lunch at the weekend included pea and ham soup, chicken with pesto, fish in batter, rice, chips, and a variety of salads. Sherwood has worked seven Antarctic summers and in between returns to England to a job as a caterer.

"You look out the window in the UK and you've got last night's empty wine bottles and black bags in a dumpster. Here you've got icebergs rolling by," he said of his view from the kitchen.

The next big meals will be when Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Princess Maxima visit in February.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090125/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_antarctica_food

[Lucinda]

1. That's two menu Items I'm glad to see gone.

To each their own food wise, but the thought of eating either of them makes me sad.

[Tab]

2. Well, it did apparently stop in 1959 or so

it was an old cookbook they rescued with an insight into the older food and, I guess, if you were in Antarctica in 1950 you did what you could.

Still, I'm having trouble imagining what "a fishy version of chicken" tastes like. I'm guessing it's akin to one local restaurant that does all their fish, chicken, and fries in the same friolator. Everything tastes the same, and tastes like everything else. Nevertheless... seal brains aren't high on my experimental food list, unless I was truly starving and marooned on the bottom of the planet. Thomas Keller swears by organ meats though, and says the fat in the brains keep them succulant and roasting hot, and melt-in-your-mouth.

Myself, I'm lucky if I get past anchovies.

But I guess nothing like that menu has happened in the last 50 years, so you're okay.

[Lucinda]

3. I can't do anchovies as anchovies, but I can do the paste.

I've been a vegetarian twice - for several years each time because I get creeped out by that whole "anything with a face or a family life" stuff.

Seals and penguins are just too cool for me to even consider. Dire circumstances might change my perspective, but right now? Not a chance. LOL

As for the fishy chicken "flavor" I'll definitely pass. Chicken should be chicken and fish, fish. Never the twain shall meet.

[troubleinwinter]

5. Without anchovies, life itself is impossible.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Bravo. Well said.

[Lucinda]

7. I love the flavor. I'm just not great at looking at them and then eating them.

Pathetic, I know. LOL

[troubleinwinter]

8. Well, I don't use the ones with eyes, like Stinky.

[Lucinda]

9. LOL

[troubleinwinter]

4. The decendants of the 'Bounty' mutineers on Pitcairn Island

are Seventh-Day Adventists. They do not eat meat, but some eggs and fish.

Pitcain Island is surrounded by big, fat, juicy, yummy lobsters. The Pitcairn Islanders do not eat them for religious reasons, but make some (badly needed) money from passing cruise ships by selling lobsters.

PI is so remote (with a ship passing perhaps every few weeks or so), and the community has little way to make money to buy neccessary supplies, so they were fairly recetnly given an industrial deep freezer (run on a generator, of course), which enabled them to package, seal and freeze the lobsters in plastic bags of water. This enabled them to sell more to the ships. It may help preserve a tiny, remote, dwindling, special culture.

Hard to imagine having frolicking big-ass juicy lobsters right off the front porch just free-for-the-taking !!

The fact that Pitcairners do not eat meat (pork, goat, etc.) probably has kept them alive these years, as the tiny island would not have sustained raising such animals.

I wish they'd have been able to have those succulent lobsters, though.