Photo by Johnny Chiang
BAKING ANTARCTICA IN ANTARCTICA
Working for the United States Antarctic Program is the opportunity of a lifetime - feeding up to 1,000 science support staff
on the continent's largest research base and hiking across the ice in conditions that reached negative 75 degrees with 45 mph winds.
Inspired by the original cake found preserved in the ice from polar explorer Robert Scott's 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition,
this 60+ pound loaf was a dense, rich, boozy fruitcake filled with dark chocolate (a high-caloric staple in expedition provisions)
and coated in white chocolate glaze (which I was only able to use after calculating rations that had to last another eight months).
For our end-of-season send-off party, McMurdo's waste manager showed up with trail marker flags to line the path from the building entrance
to the cake itself, and we popped champagne to bid our friends farewell.
The next morning, McMurdo sent off its last flight and our population dwindled to a mere 199 people.
Scott and Shackleton would have received the biggest pieces, if I'd only had the chance.
antarcticsun.usap.gov/
on the continent's largest research base and hiking across the ice in conditions that reached negative 75 degrees with 45 mph winds.
Inspired by the original cake found preserved in the ice from polar explorer Robert Scott's 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition,
this 60+ pound loaf was a dense, rich, boozy fruitcake filled with dark chocolate (a high-caloric staple in expedition provisions)
and coated in white chocolate glaze (which I was only able to use after calculating rations that had to last another eight months).
For our end-of-season send-off party, McMurdo's waste manager showed up with trail marker flags to line the path from the building entrance
to the cake itself, and we popped champagne to bid our friends farewell.
The next morning, McMurdo sent off its last flight and our population dwindled to a mere 199 people.
Scott and Shackleton would have received the biggest pieces, if I'd only had the chance.
antarcticsun.usap.gov/
