Recipes from Antarctica (2024)

Traditional Antarctic recipes, warming foods for an extreme climate.

Recipes from Antarctica (1)Antarctica doesn't have a cuisine as such, it isn't populated except by visitors who stay for a few months or not usually more than a year, there are no farms, nothing vegetable that you can eat grows there and the wildlife is protected so you can't eat that.

Unlike anywhere else in the rest of the world, there aren't any recipes that are passed down from one generation to the next, there are no celebrity chefs, no restaurants you can turn up to eat at and no sources of foodstuff to buy. It wasn't always like this as the expeditioner in the photo to the right shows tucking into a bumper sized boiled egg provided by a Giant Petrel in the 1960's.

Food is however enormously important in Antarctica in the way that it always is when it's cold and those lovely salads and fruity treats of the summer are forgotten about in favour of thick soups, stews and high fat delights to replace the energy you lose just trying to keep warm. Here are some suggestions of foods that have some claim to be an Antarctican cuisine.

Are there any typical Antarctican recipes?

Most people in Antarctica are on national bases, they eat food that is shipped in from their own country and also bought at ports en route. All food is shipped in and prepared by qualified cooks/chefs in modern kitchens with modern cooking equipment. For much of the year it is preserved, though fresh fruit and vegetables are available when ships or aircraft arrive from beyond Antarctica. Some bases have hydroponic growing systems to provide a small supply of fresh vegetables and herbs grown under lights in the dark Antarctic winter.

Having spent two continuous years in Antarctica over two winters and three summers I think there are a small number of foods/recipes that represent Antarctica.


Baking fresh bread in Antarctica, here in the 1960's, the closest you can get to a "fresh" food for much of the year.


Adolf Lindstrom with a plate of freshly made buckwheat cakes, with Roald Amundsen on the Fram in 1911.

1 - Freshly baked bread. With no other fresh foodstuff regularly available, this already fabulous food attains new heights. A particular joy of being on night-watch is to bake a days worth of bread for the whole base, a recommended way of gaining kudos with your fellow base members when they wake up for breakfast and a very satisfying thing to do when you're the only one awake on a darkened base. This has been the case for over a hundred years and continues to this day. If you are particularly ambitious you could stretch to croissants or brioche, though these take more practice, and a shocking amount of butter for the croissants if you've never made them before.

2 - Sledging biscuit. A fabled Antarctic food though not one you would choose to eat if there is an alternative (see fresh baked bead above). The advantage of sledging biscuit is that it is compact, physically resilient, high in energy and stays edible for a long, long time. It is a part of the staple diet when away from base when hunger from activity and the open air make it especially delicious. It is a simple hard biscuit that can be spread with butter and any other available toppings such as marmite, cheese etc. or be crumbled up with meat-bar/pemmican and water to make hoosh.

3 - Pemmican or meat-bar. From the earliest days of Antarctica, pemmican has stood alongside the sledging biscuit as the fuel that powered exploration. Originally a native American food (Cree apparently), the exact recipe varies enormously, it is a food that is compact, physically resilient, high in energy and stays edible for a long, long time (sound like anything else?). It is a low water food that is a mixture of dried meat and fat, it can be eaten as it is or mixed with biscuit and water to make hoosh.

4 - Fresh vegetables - eh? read on... ask anyone who has been to Antarctica other than just for a short period of months and they will tell you that one of the strongest food memories is of fresh vegetables arriving after months without. You wouldn't believe how delicious a simple boiled carrot or potato can taste. You could try it in isolation to see. It could be argued that fresh veg simply prepared is a true taste of Antarctica as it provides the most memorable and intense food experiences while there, though you need to go without for a few months first to get the real experience.

I Wanted Recipes not Stories

Sledging Biscuits Recipe

Plain biscuits, high in energy, physically resilient, compact and bland enough to be inoffensive to everyone. These powered men to the South Pole on foot and while driving dog teams (much harder work than it might sound), they fed those who did all of the discovery of Antarctica and continue to be a staple food away from bases while camping and surveying or carrying out field research.

Ingredients

  • 150g flour
  • half tsp baking soda
  • half tsp salt
  • 30g full fat unsalted butter
  • 50ml cold water

Eat with butter, marmite, tinned cheese, or with pemmican in a stew to make hoosh.

Antarctic Pemmican Recipe

A simple but very effective way of making a very high energy, physically resilient and compact foodstuff from meat and fat. Pemmican can be eaten as it is, on sledging biscuits or made into a stew after minimal cooking as hoosh.

Ingredients

  • Lean dense meat, traditionally buffalo, reindeer (caribou) or deer. I didn't have any of these available so I used beef - min about 500g to 1kg (1.1 to 2.2 lb.)
  • Fat from the same kind of meat, (purchased extra fat of the same kind if there is not enough on the piece you buy) - around 250g of fat for 1kg of meat, the meat will be dehydrated and much lighter when the fat is added.

Antarctic Hoosh Recipe

A simple stew made in the field from pemmican, sledging biscuits and snow. This and little else than this was eaten by the teams of Scott and Amundsen to reach the South Pole and by all of the early Antarctic explorers.

Ingredients

  • Pemmican - 60g (2 oz) per person
  • Sledging biscuits - 75g (2.5 oz) per person
  • Water - 100ml per person to start with - ideally as snow from Antarctica, but the tap will do if this is not available

Ernest Shackleton's Bannocks Recipe

After the Endurance sank amongst the ice floes of the Weddell Sea, this simple flatbread sustained the crew as it could be made easily with minimal equipment on a blubber stove made of scavenged metal from the ship wreck.

Ingredients

  • 200g plain white flour
  • 10g baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 40g butter
  • 100ml cold water

Antarctic Food Chain Recipe

A representation of the Antarctic marine food web, a fun to make simple seafood dish.

Ingredients

  • Green rice (phytoplankton)
  • Red rice (zooplankton)
  • Prawns (krill)
  • Squid or small whole fish.

With a sweet chili sauce to give it flavour and make it especially tasty (the sweet chili sauce doesn't represent anything).

South Pole, "Race around the World" Recipe

In honour of the Amundsen-Scott, South Pole Base annual Christmas tradition on the 25th of December, there is a race three times around the world through all lines of longitude.

Ingredients

  • Fresh fruit
  • Meringue nest
  • Pool of fresh cream
  • Dusted with icing sugar snow.

Another image from the 1960's when Antarctica did have a sort-of cuisine or at least available wild foods that weren't illegal to eat as they are today.

Penguin and other birds eggs were collected in the summer months (no more than one egg from each nest, they usually lay two) and stored for use in the winter.

Recipes from Antarctica (2024)

FAQs

What food is famous in Antarctica? ›

  • Pemmican. Pemmican is the number one food on Antarctic expeditions. ...
  • Bannock. Another Antarctica traditional food to fight the bitter cold is Bannock, a bread of sorts that has wide international appeal. ...
  • Hoosh. Hoosh is a mix of Pemmican with bread or biscuits – add a little water (or ice) to get it down. ...
  • Chocolate.

What is the national dish of Antarctica? ›

Due to the lack of permanent inhabitants and the brutal environment, there are no generations of residents to pass dishes down to, meaning Antarctica has no national dish. While you may not see a single piece of fruit or veg, seafood is very popular, with shellfish being a particular favourite.

What dessert is in Antarctica? ›

Is there a desert in Antarctica, or is Antarctica a desert? While most deserts only cover part of a continent, the Antarctic Polar Desert spans the whole of Antarctica. It snows and rains on the coastal Antarctic Peninsula, but in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in East Antarctica, it never rains.

What is pemmican made of Antarctica? ›

Pemmican is a food made chiefly from beef, dried fruit and suet. It is a traditional food of North American Indians and was adapted by explorers. The Bovril Pemmican shown here is actually dog food and was used mainly by British polar expeditions.

Is there a Mcdonalds in Antartica? ›

There are over 36,000 McDonald's locations all over the planet, and the chain is on every continent except Antarctica.

What language do they speak in Antarctica? ›

The most commonly spoken language of Antarctica is Russian, which happens to be the official language of Bellingsgauzenia, New Devon, and Ognia. English is also one of the most widespread languages spoken.

What does the Antarctic taste like? ›

There is little to smell or taste when hiking through the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. The air, water, ice and rock give off few molecules detectable by the human taste buds or nose.

Is there fresh food in Antarctica? ›

Antarctica holds the record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth, −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). Most food in Antarctica comes on shipments from the U.S. and New Zealand. There is no food grown at McMurdo Station. However, there is a hydroponic chamber at the South Pole that grows “freshies” for the community there.

What is unusual in Antarctica? ›

Antarctica has active volcanoes

Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica, is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Located on Ross Island, this icebound volcano has some unique features such as ice fumaroles and twisted ice statues that form around gases that seep from vents near the volcanic crater.

Why was pemmican banned? ›

The Red River Colony imposed on that economic order and, when famine threatened the settlement in mid-winter 1814, Governor Miles Macdonnell (1767-1828) issued what became known as the Pemmican Proclamation. This law was meant to stop the export of pemmican to NWC forts in the West and retain it for the HBC settlers.

What do explorers eat in Antarctica? ›

The best foods for polar travel are strong tasting, high in fat and low in water content.
  • Polar Pâté Polar Pâté, made from meat, suet, vegetable fats and grains, is a good base for a polar diet. ...
  • Chocolate Truffles. ...
  • Expedition Cake. ...
  • Freeze Dried Cheese. ...
  • Zero bars. ...
  • Deep Fried Double Smoked Bacon. ...
  • Nutrition.

What food did Shackleton take to Antarctica? ›

Shackleton and all 27 of his men survived almost two years on penguins, seals and seaweed, though food became very scarce when the penguins were hard to find at times. It has been reported that Shackleton was even partial to a little bit of elephant seal snout.

Is there any food and drink in Antarctica? ›

Food and Drink in Antarctica

While you may not see a single piece of fruit or veg, seafood is hugely popular with shellfish being a particular favourite. With the temperatures being as low as they are, food with a high fat content is essential, so pemmican, a mix of ground and dried meat, is an Antarctic essential.

What is the most popular food in the Arctic? ›

These traditional Inuit foods include arctic char, seal, polar bear and caribou — often consumed raw, frozen or dried. The foods, which are native to the region, are packed with the vitamins and nutrients people need to stay nourished in the harsh winter conditions.

What animal food is in Antarctica? ›

Krill is Antarctica's superfood! Providing meals for scale fish, cephalopods like squid, seabirds like albatross and petrels, penguins, some seal species, and the largest animals on earth… the baleen whales, like the humpback and blue whales. But it's not that simple!

What is the top of the food chain in Antarctica? ›

The krill is eaten by a small fish which is then eaten by a macaroni penguin. The macaroni penguin is eaten by a leopard seal. The top predator in Antarctica is the Killer Whale. It is the only animal big enough to be able to eat the leopard seal.

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