Four Month Mars Food Study Wraps Up 142
After four months in a mock space habitat in Hawaii, participants in a study to determine how best to feed astronauts (HI-SEAS) on a mission to Mars emerged yesterday. A few days ago, the mission commander was interviewed in Astrobiology Magazine, noting the most successful foods: "There's also been a lot of really good cooked dishes. Some of our crew members are accomplished cooks, and every week there are different surprises. Some success meals were Russian borscht, Moroccan tagine, enchilasagna, seafood chowder, and fabada asturiana. Wraps work really well: we combine tortillas, different vegetables, Velveeta cheese, and sausage or canned fish into ever-changing combinations. This is actually in line with the success of tortillas at the ISS. In general, the dehydrated and freeze-dried vegetables are a real success. They're used on a daily basis in almost every meal."
The crew kept weblogs, and did other things than just sit around and eat: some studied robotics and they went on a few simulated EVAs.
Re:Fabada in a spaceship... (Score:5, Informative)
There are pretty substantial variations in intestinal normal flora between individuals (non-human cells in your body outnumber the human ones about 10-1, and many of them live in the gut), so that would be my guess. I'm not nearly enough microbiologist to suggest which organisms or strains are involved; but gut bacteria are a significant variable (since they vary based on where you were first innoculated with them, internal competition between organisms, antibiotics you've taken, etc.) that changes markedly faster than any human genetic or epigenetic component does.
Re:Did they try this? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, in France they call it [i]pain perdu[/i] "lost bread", possibly because it's a good use for bread that's gone stale.
Re:Did they try this? (Score:1, Informative)
dead seriousness he replied, "Probably to make it sound better."
*Snerk*. Same deal with 'french fries' I guess. I've never known French people to be big on deep frying.
*Most* 'Foreign' cuisine in the USA has been modified from it's native version to a sufficient extent to really be considered a different dish. Some of this is due to availability of ingredients, especially for Chinese dishes, but a lot of it is to make it more palatable to american taste buds.
Nope "french" (really, it's "frenched") is the style of the cut of the potato. Thin cut. Has nothing to do with France which makes Freedom Fries even sillier.
Re:Did they try this? (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in New Orleans where "French Bread" is a staple. I recall many years ago asking my mother why they call the meal French toast. She relayed what her grandmother told her years before -- that the French dish "lost bread" uses dipped, stale bread to salvage what would otherwise be wasted food. A fresh loaf of common bread will fall apart when you pull it out of the milk and eggs. However, New Orleans "French Bread" as a firm crust yet porous, sponge-like interior to both soak up the mix while hold together.