Mac's Flora Page

Hello and Welcome! This site is a way to document the plants I've seen and the travels that have tended to accompany them as of late. The latest post can be found here on the main page, and links to the left side will get you to everything else.

Most all images on the site can be opened in a new tab and zoomed in on, so if you're looking to get some extra detail you most likely can.

This site isn't dead! If you can imagine, Antarctica was a very busy time and I've been working through to get caught up to present day. More is coming!

---

Latest Post

FOOD

2024.11.25

That's right, it's time.

I knew in advance that this was going to be one of the longest posts to date, and it's a little puzzling because the answer to "what do you eat in Antarctica?" is pretty simple yet a very fun one to dissect. I feel like it's impossible to write about food on the ice without discussing some people's attitudes towards the food on the ice, and having been behind the scenes in the kitchen I certainly am biased. I fear that this bias will show, but I will elaborate (read: ramble) and hope you understand where I'm coming from.

---

Bottom line up front: I'm writing this after having finished this post. I do believe it's the longest one to date, and I know there are bits and pieces that fell through the cracks. However, I think this is a comprehensive look at the behind the scenes of food production at McMurdo Station. Enjoy and thank you for reading!

---

Where to start?

Getting Food to Your Plate

In Antarctica, you eat food. McMurdo station follows a 35-day rotating menu that offers everything from Americana to Mexican to Indian to Asian and everything in-between. For where you are and the absolute logistical nightmare it is to get things down there, the food is actually pretty good. We'll leave fresh food out of the equation for now, so assume that anything you eat has been built up out of dried goods, frozen goods, or came from a can. Yes, you can tell when it hits your plate but the galley does a tremendous job with what they have.


The vessel in January offloading cargo, icebreaker behind.

Let's back up a bit and follow the journey that non-perishables take to reach a plate at McMurdo. It starts at a computer in early summer, when an order is made by the Culinary Manager (in tandem with the Head Chef) for the entire next year's meals (upwards of 1,000,000 portions for the USAP program between Pole and McMurdo) is placed. Before the end of the year, all of these food goods are amassed and loaded onto a cargo ship that departs from southern California and is headed, with brief stops along the way, to McMurdo. When it arrives in mid-January, all of the food (along with every other bit of cargo, more on this later) is unloaded and stored in one of a few supply buildings on station. The bulk of it goes to the supply building directly across the street from Building 155.


A supply delivery waiting to be brought into the Galley.

When it reaches the supply building, it sits and waits for a supply order to come in. These orders are done weekly and made by the Food Services Supervisor with expectations of what the station will eat and in what quantity – a moving bullseye based on population, people's taste, time of year, and menu items. The supply crew then delivers all ordered items to the galley, where it is unloaded and put into its proper storage in the back of the house. From there, it's handled by the Food Clerks to make sure the planned amounts of ingredients are ready and thawing to be used by the cooks. The day before a given menu item hits the hot line, some items are staged and ready to be used the following day, and a few hours before mealtime a Production Cook starts making that menu item. At meal time, the food sits in the hot line until scopped onto the plate of a Mactown worker, where we end our journey (unless you count the wastewater plant).

Given that tremendous journey, it's a miracle to me that there's any food variety at all, let alone a 35-day rotating menu with tastes from around the globe. I've always wanted to do the math to see the cost of an average plate at McMurdo.

What's on the Menu

But I'm still not talking about the food itself, let's back it up and talk about the hot and cold line layouts for McMurdo and Willy.

We'll start with the main line: the 155 Galley has eight hot wells for keeping menu items hot, four hot spots for soups or sauces, four cold wells for chilled items and salads, and an area for bread and dessert. The layout for meals was pretty standard and was able to cater to most anyone.

Number	Food Type	Example
1	Soup 1	Vegetarian Chili
2	Soup 2	Chicken Soup
3	Vegetable 1	Green Beans
4	Vegetable 2	Scandinavian Blend
5	Bake or Starch 1	Enchilada Bake
6	Starch 2	Egg Noodles
7	Meat 1	Beef Stroganoff
8	Meat 2	Herb Roasted Chicken
9	Vegetarian	Mushroom Stroganoff
10	Plain Protein	Chicken / Black Beans
11	Chilled 1	Spinach
12	Chilled 2	Bell Peppers / Red Onion
13	Chilled 3	Vinaigrette / Italian Dressing
14	Chilled 4	Jello
15	Bread	Country Loaf
16	Dessert	Vanilla Iced Cake

These are just example items (that really are served on ice) and doesn't necessarily represent a full mealtime's menu. Soups and bakes were usually a way to reuse extra food from the previous day – bakes took a previous meat, added some kind of starch (usually a noodle), sauce, and cheese, and were baked into a casserole. Cold line wells were usually split into two smaller basins to offer more. The above examples are contingent on freshies being available, and when they weren't it was usually some sort of composed salad and canned items.

In addition to all of this, the 155 galley has:

• Grab 'n' Go Fridge (more on this shortly)
• "Penguin Pasta" - a spot with pasta and two types of sauces during every lunch and dinner service
• One to two waffle makers, depending on demand
• Panini Press
• Toasters
• Microwave
• Cereal station
• Pizza station
• Deli Corner stocked with meats, cheeses, spreads, and breads
• Cookie box normally stocked with multiple types of cookies
• Popcorn machine
• Tea and Cocoa corner
• Dispensers for water, juices, coffees
• Ice cream machine

Willy Galley had a similar setup to 155 Galley, only smaller. Where 155 served upwards of 900 people during peak season, Willy served the remaining 100 or so as they were out on the airfield working.

Number	Food Type	Example
1	Chilled 1	Jello
2	Chilled 2	Compose Salad
3	Chilled 3	Canned Fruit (x2)
4	Chilled 4	Canned Salad (x2)
5	Meat Main	Chicken Tenders
6	Vegetarian Main	Country Fried Tofu
7	Starch	French Fries
8	Vegetable	Brussels Sprouts
9	Fresh Bread	Focaccia
10	Dessert	German Chocolate Cake
11	Willy Chili	Willy Chili
12	Roller Grill	Hot Dogs / Corndogs

In addition to the main line described above, Willy Galley also had smaller versions of the Grab 'n' Go fridge, deli corner, cereal corner, waffle iron, panini press, cookie box, toaster, microwave, and juice and water dispensers. The point of all of this is to not let those on the ice shelf miss out on too much that main station has to offer while they're away.

Willy Chilly was an in-house recipe of beef chili that was available 24/7. It was a staple to Willy Galley, and returners from previous years were excited to have it again. I like the idea of having a hot bowl of something after coming in from cold work on the ice shelf.

Hopefully by reading this you are now becoming aware of two things:

1) Keeping people fed at McMurdo is a massive undertaking. This entire spread has to be repeated three to four times every day and is only done by having the kitchen run 24 hours a day during mainbody to meet the mealtimes for up to 1000 people on station at peak population. To have such a variety in Antarctica is mind-blowing.

2) The variety of food offered year-round is absolute luxury when you recognize where you're eating. Looking at the above list of food items available you would wonder how anyone could complain about the food on the ice, but it happens frequently. Is it the best food on the planet? No, but it's hot, varied (remember that 35-day rotating menu), regular, and at no cost to employees.

I don't want to harp on this point for too long, but having been through the kitchen I feel the need to back up the galley crew on this point. Food is an easy thing to complain about in such a regimented setting like McMurdo - everyone eats, it's an easy common demoninator to talk about and after a while the repetitive nature of frozen vegetables can get to you, sure. However, some of the complaints I've heard or were shared with me could generate no response but a laugh. Some notable complaints:

• We did not have cocoa puffs or any other fun cereals available that morning
• We offered General Mills brand cereal rather than Kelloggs
• There were only three types of cheese in the deli corner
• The spaghetti sauce tastes like tomato soup
• The tomato soup, made from completely different recipe, tasted like the spaghetti sauce from four weeks ago
• "These are the same brownies we had yesterday"
• At least one legitimate temper tantrum from a person not getting a second helping of chicken tenders at lunchtime

These instances were relatively rare and isolated, and people really were glad to eat. I don't intend to shame anyone or make everyone out to be ungrateful, but I still feel it's important to remember where you are. To people who complain about food just to complain about something, all I can ask is: "Did you eat your dog today?".

The Food Itself

I think I've given an idea of what the food on ice is like, but to show you I'll share some of the plates I ate over the course of the season below. These are in no particular order, but feel free to zoom in and note what you see on the plate.

As you can see, not too bad! At worst it's like regular cafeteria food and at best it's a really good meal. I personally never had issue with the food, even if I wasn't the one making it.

The Main Galley

I briefly went over Willy Galley in a previous post, but I haven't elaborated on the 155 Galley. Here's a bit of a dive into the layout of the galley, its capabilities, and some photographs.

Below is a rough blueprint of the 155 Galley (most names are true but some were made up). It is by no means to scale and done entirely from memory, but all of the base components are there in their respective places:



There's a lot to break down here:

Number	Room Name	Purpose
1	Club Meat Sweat	Thawing meat up to a week in advance (33° - 41°F)
2	Cooler	Staging prepped food items for firing (33° - 41°F)
3	Garde Manger	Storing cheeses, freshies when available (33° - 41°F)
4	Loading Dock	Receiving food pulls from the Supply team
5	Walk In Freezer	Storing frozen items, including prepackaged items (0° - 32°F)
6	Hallway	Staging items for delivery to LDB Site or Willy Field
7	Baker's Freezer	Small freezer for bakery-specific storage (0° - 32°F)
8	Baker's Chiller	Small walk-in for bakery-specific storage, staging of baked goods (33° - 41°F)
9	The Loft	Paper good and additional equipment storage
10	Pots Room	Cleaning and sanitizing all back of house kitchenware
11	Cook's Box	Storage of leftovers, staging for Grab 'n' Go (33° - 41°F)
12	Dry Valleys	Dry and non-perishable good storage (grains, legumes, oils)
13	Zalad Room	Dedicated to cold line food preparation
14	Office	Office for Culinary Manager
15	Deli Chiller	Small storage for deli breads, including gluten free items (33° - 41°F)
16	Splash Zone	Porter sink and mop bucket storage
17	Office	Office for Head Chef, Food Services Supervisor, and Food Administrator
18	Hallway	Additional storage for bulk bakery items, flavourings, and colourings
19	Galley Proper	Where the magic happens
20	Bakery	Where the real magic happens
21	Clerk's Corner	Computer for Food Clerks and additional storage for work snack order items

Looking more closely at the kitchen proper, we can walk through some more ins and outs. Note that this doesn't include some minutae like handwashing sinks, garbage bins, etc.

Number	Area
1	Utensil and Pot Storage
2	Canned goods and spice storage
3	Mixing bowls, cambros, lexans
4	Prep table
5	Commercial steam kettles
6	Prep tables
7	Left: Steam ovens, deep friers, stove Right: Tilt skillets
8	Left: Conventional ovens Right: Bakers' ovens
9	Proofing cabinet, stand mixers
10	Prep tables
11	Bulk grain storage, food staging
12	Heating shams for staging
13	Cooling shams for staging

The bakery and its ovens.


Looking at the heating and cooling shams.


Looking at Tilt Skillet row.


The main prep tables, through the doorway to Dry Valley and the cooler.


Dry Valley.


Pots room buildup at its worst and the pots room itself.


Looking from the Pots room to the main kitchen.


A reverse of the above shot.

As you can see, it's a lot. Within the main galley, the kitchen aims to staff 20 to 30 cooks, up to 5 on the baking staff, and 20 to 30 stewards to keep the machine running smoothly - this doesn't include field cooks or ice shelf cooks. A whole operation to keep pace with more than 3,000 meals each day at peak population and 500 in midwinter. I've probably harped on it enough but I was impressed each and every day with the variety of food present down on the ice, and the fact that I could have soft serve ice cream any time of day is a testament to the coordination of the USAP (despite what grumblings you may hear).

Willy Galley

Willy Galley is small enough to not need a floorplan to visualize. Instead I'll just discuss a bit more of the back of house for Willy Galley in this (hopefully brief) section.

The kitchen part of Willy Galley is best described as plug-and-play. There were no hard-wired cooking appliances, but rather an assortment of tabletop wares with which to cook a meal on. I often described Willy as a "fun challenge" because part of the day was spent thinking about where and how you could cook your menu items to get everything out on time.


Plug-and-play and EZ-Bake.

The heavy lifters were two electric ovens and two tabletop induction burners. Additional items were cranked out, as needed, on two domestic deep friers and two electric griddles. Willy Field cooking was 100% about time management, since it wasn't likely that you'd be able to cook everything at the same time. In addition, you had to be careful to not trip the breaker by having too many things running at once.


90% of Willy Galley's food storage

Food storage at Willy Field was also a fun challenge, as there wasn't enough room to plan even a few days in advance. There was one freezer which was used mostly for staples (vegetables, breakfast items), a small walk-in cooler, and a section for dry and canned goods. It was regular to plan a resupply each morning for most of the food items, and also common for each shift to bring additional food items to meet their needs. Willy Galley is a constant input-output of food items.


The outbound shelf for Willy Field and the Willy freezer.

The last quirk of Willy Galley was the fact that raw poultry items (including eggs) couldn't be taken out due to concerns of avian flu reaching the continent. Willy galley's wastewater was not treated as intensively as the water treatment at McMurdo station before being drained to the Ross Sea, and there was no guarantee that avian flu wouldn't survive that process. As such, chicken items had to either be precooked, frozen items or be cooked at the Main Galley, chilled to safe temps, and brought out to Willy field to be recooked (I don't know why people were so excited for twice-cooked chicken tenders at Willy).

Grab 'n' Go and Expiry Dates

Grab 'n' Go is as simple as it sounds - leftover food portioned into single-serving sized and put in a front of house refrigerator for people to take as they please. Grab 'n' Go items are great for people working in the near field, people packing their own flight lunch, people going on hikes, or people who just want a decent bite in-between meal periods.


Some Grab 'n' Go items.

While there was a non-zero amount of food waste from the kitchen, Grab 'n' Go is a great way to cut back on that waste and to give people a bit more choice when snacking. Grab 'n' Go food items follow the same guidelines as any food cooked on station: it can be stored and served for up to 6 days after its initial cook date.

If you've looked at all into the food in Antarctica or chatted with anyone who has spent time on the ice, you'll likely have heard that expired food is served extensively on ice. The truth is, yes, a lot of ingredients in almost anything you eat are expired. However, this is the breakdown I was given concerning expired food.

When the food order is placed, none of the food purchased is expired. However, due to the length of time that food may sit in safe storage between May and January (when it arrives on the vessel), some food does arrive to the ice already expired. When food is put into the supply warehouses, it sits there in safe storage until it's needed. However, due to actual demand being different from expected demand, some food items are replenished each year more quickly than they can be depleted. In some cases, far too much of an item is ordered and it sits for years. Since things are pulled for the galley as needed, the oldest is brought out first and this is sometimes very noticeable when you see a food item several years out of date. The oldest food item we saw was a box of grits dated to 2005, older than our youngest chef this season.

Some food is also recycled into soups or bakes, but let me be clear: the six-day limit after the first time that food has been cooked is a hard limit, and no food is stored longer than that. If an item is three days after its initial cook and is turned into a soup, that soup has three days left before it's tossed – recycling that item does not extend its storage life.

Freshies

Freshies! A silver lining to food on the ice, something that brightened your day when they were available. The supply of freshies was entirely dependent on the C17s coming and going from Phoenix airfield. It was always a big deal when a C17 landed with freshies, as the kitchen often had to handle several tens of thousands of pounds of fresh foods to be stored in the garde manger.




When freshies hit the kitchen, we did our best to use all of them until they were well long in the tooth in any meal we could. A large amount of freshies were hand fruit: things put out in bowls for grabbing by diners. It was mostly limited to some hardier fruits but there were some softies now and again: oranges, clementines, apples, bananas, kiwis, plums, avocados, and the occasional mango. Other freshie items were for the salad line: lettuce, cabbage, spinach, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, tomatoes, and strawberries on one occasion. The last, broad category were to be incorporated to foods such as russet potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, red onions, yellow onions, carrots, bell peppers, sweetpotatoes, garlic, and herbs (rosemary and thyme being big ones). I'm sure there were a few more but these are the ones that immediately come to mind – writing them down really shows how varied the fresh food availability actually was.




Freshie onion rings! I had a hard time keeping up with demand but we got it done.

However, during the flight gaps the lack of freshies was certainly felt. Freshies lasted a few days (in the case of fruit) or a couple of weeks (in the case of cabbage and beets), and when they were gone, some of us quickly felt their absence. It always helped to pick up a piece of fruit even if you didn't want it at that moment so you could save it for a rainy day. I recall one night after maybe six weeks of no freshies: I was sleeping in bed when my friend knocked on the door and opened it, threw an apple and an orange at me, then ran away as I smiled holding them, drifting off to sleep with the fruit in hand.

It always felt like a holiday when you walked into the kitchen to find the garde manger packed full to the brim with freshies.



And summer has it very easy compared to winter! The longest I went without fresh food was roughly six weeks during the longest flight gap, followed closely by about four weeks during the delays before I left the ice (more on this later). Winter crews at McMurdo have to go up to three months without fresh food (from the last flight out in May to the first flight in in August), and in theory the South Pole goes up to eight months without fresh food, as the last flight out for their winter is Feburary 15 and their last flight in is October 25 (and that is with favourable weather conditions). Unimaginable. However, the Pole does have a greenhouse (detailed a bit here in a brr.fyi post) which can supply some limited quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables, leafy greens, and herbs. I personally think the greenhouse is underutilized and underperforming as a volunteer-ran operation, and that a full time greenhouse manager position could benefit the production at the Pole (if any NSF or USAP representative is looking to create and fill this role, I volunteer).

Common Questions

I'm sure there are a lot of things that I have missed, but this post has covered quite a bit and I hope it's given a good insight to the ins and outs of the food production operations at McMurdo. I'm curious of how things go down at LDB site, deep field camps, and at the South Pole, but I can't speak to those. For a video glossing on McMurdo and field camp foods, this NOVA documentary on PBS Terra titled "What Do You Eat in Antarctica? | Antarctic Extremes" is a very good watch.

Here are a few questions I have been asked that I wasn't quite sure where to put in this post:

How does McMurdo handle allergens?
Food hygiene was very well practiced from what I saw, and that extends to allergens. When put out on the line, all foods are marked with allergens they may contain, and we kept a careful eye out for these. Any leftovers were also promptly marked with the food item name, its allergens, and its Use-By date. Below are a list of the allergens we watched for:

• N - Peanuts and Tree Nuts
• E - Eggs
• W - Wheat
• D - Dairy
• S - Soy
• SF - Shellfish
• O - Onion
• A - Alcohol

How would someone with dietary restrictions fare at McMurdo? Could you be vegan or vegetarian?
I think it would depend on your restrictions. In short: Vegetarianism is pretty easy, being vegan would be very difficult. In reality, only 1/5 of the hot line items directly contained meat, as starches and vegetables were usually cooked without animal products so as not to cause headache for people with dietary restrictions. However, the vegetarian entrée was usually cooked with either egg or dairy. I knew of at least two celiacs on the ice who managed to make it through without too much issue, and as I mentioned above the deli corner has a number of gluten-free options.


What food items should I bring down?
Most bases are covered aside from specific desires. Bring down your favourite hot sauces (the more the merrier), some of your favourite candies and other snacks, and your favourite teas or coffee. To save on weight, consider mailing these items down ahead of time. One things I'll suggest: consider candies that are fun-sized and can be handed out easily. The best pick-me-up to give to someone was giving a fist bump and then opening your hand to reveal a piece of candy. Just be sure that whatever you pack can make it through New Zealand customs.


Did you ever run out of food?
We never ran out of food but very often we would run out of ingredients, and this goes two ways. Sometimes, we would run out of an ingredient and would have to wait until the next food pull to replenish it. Food pulls happened once a week when the supply team delivered everything that was ordered. Substitutions were made or portions reduced if we felt we would run out of something before the resupply.


This happened every week or two, business as usual.

In a few rare cases, we ran out of things altogether until the vessel resupply. That's right, we had a couple of instances where something would run out and that would be it until the vessel came down in January to bring stable goods for the whole next year. Raspberry jam was a big blow, but the worst hit us when we ran out of waffle batter mix. I swear you could feel the tension grow when the waffles ran out, and it took less than a week for the bakery to start making a mix from scratch so people wouldn't riot. A funny thing is, Willy field Galley actually had the last box of waffle mix for the whole station since we tended to go through it at a slower rate. When that waffle was gone, that was it for Krusteaz until late January.


The last Krusteaze waffle, shortly before being enjoyed by a firefighter.


Pizza?!
Pizza! Yes, there was a pizza station that ran during lunch and dinner mealtimes (including Midrats) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays for my season on the ice. In years past, I was told that pizza was a 24/7 operation during mainbody. In my two weeks before being pulled to Willy, I personally tossed over 500 pies during lunch hours – people liked to grab their plate and fill it with lunch, then cruise by the pizza station to put a slice on top in what we called the "McMurdo Garnish".



You could also order pizzas 48 hours in advance for pickup and without any limitation, which I always enjoyed. It felt weird to order a pizza in Antarctica. Additionally, you could order a cake from the bakery, though this was was limited to one cake per person per season.




Did the ice cream machine ever break?
We never stood a chance. The Frosty Boy was broken for over three months before replacements came in on vessel. Apparently they were long overdue for replacement, and got an upgrade to Spaceman. There was a funeral held on the loading dock, with full honours.


Goodbye to our heroes Frosty Boy and Flavour Boy.


Were there any other fun stations besides pizza?
Yes, these were called Action Stations and they happened sparingly throughout the season (I believe our kitchen had a lower number of cooks than previous years, so these action stations weren't as regularly offered). Every morning, there was the Egg Line, an action station where you had fresh or cartoned eggs made to order. I personally saw (at different times) a Mac and Cheese station with optional mix-ins, a Burger bar, and a Wings station with choice of sauces. In years past I've been told of burrito stations.


Were there any attempts to "shake up" mealtime to keep things interesting?
Absolutely. Every Tuesday was Taco Tuesday, where we served Mexican-style foods (even at Willy field) complete with a build-your-own nacho bar with toppings. Every Friday was Steak night, and people certainly lined up for that. Every Sunday had brunch, complete with chips, dips, an action station for pancakes or french toast, egg line, a meat carving station, and a cheese mirror platter. I was one of the few lucky cooks to have Sundays off (being out at Willy), so I could enjoy brunch with a tinge of guilt as I saw my fellow galley members working on the busiest galley day of the week.


French toast for Sunday Brunch and soon-to-be refried beans for Taco Tuesday.


Did the galley host any special occasions? Holidays?
Both Thanksgiving and Christmas were celebrated with above-and-beyond meals on the nearest Sunday to their actual date. By above and beyond I mean it - full tablecloths, reserved mealtimes, beverage tickets, special placards, the works. What were two days of relaxation for the rest of the station were the two busiest days for the galley. Both of these days had several weeks of planning the galley, and each galley worker had to work 12-hour days instead of the usual 10 to pull them off successfully. Like Sundays, I was spared the torture of Thanksgiving and Christmas and instead volunteered a few hours so as to lend a helping hand where needed. To list the menu items for each of these days would lengthen this already too-long post, so if you can imagine eating it on Thanksgiving or Christmas, it was probably there. Lots of desserts.


Gobble gobble.


First and second thanksgivings – one was with the Galley crew, one was with the Seal Team.


Christmas dinner.


Do you think working in the galley is one of the hardest jobs on station?
Not a food question but something that came up with people both on and on the ice. This is a tricky question to answer, because there are a lot more objectively difficult, technical, and dangerous jobs on the ice. I think what people (even on station) meant when they asked this question was whether or not we worked the hardest out of anyone on station. Again, I'd probably disagree but it's impossible to ignore the fact that the kitchen work was the most steady of the high-pace/intensity jobs on station.

Even on days with poor weather where other work teams were socked in, the kitchen ran at full force because no matter what, everyone has to eat and that can't be delayed. Meals have to go out on time every single day without pause, regardless of outside factors. I think therein lies the difficulty – there was never any break for the kitchen, where other work teams may have down time in their day or the rare unexpected time off. Pairing this with the fact that the galley crew worked offset hours (as opposed to "town hours": 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM) and that fewer than five galley workers (myself included) had Sundays off, you start to see why working in the galley could be difficult. The nature of the work itself isn't too bad, but the external factors that slightly separate you from the rest of town are certainly felt.


What's the worst thing you saw in the kitchen?