Makes enough for six people.
For the fruit compote
pound dried apricots (1 cups) // pound dried pears (1 cup) // pound dried apples (2 cups) // pound dried pitted prunes (1 cups) // cup raisins // 2 cinnamon sticks // 6 to 8 peppercorns // 2 bay leaves // 6 allspice berries // 3 cardamom pods // 4 cups water // cup honey // a can of sliced peaches (28 ounces)
Make the compote while the custard is cooking or up to four days ahead.
Put all the dried fruit in a large stainless or enamelware pot. Break up the cinnamon sticks; crack the cardamom pods and add them to the pot along with the peppercorns, bay leaves, and allspice berries. Pour in the water and drizzle in the honey. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat and cook until the fruit is tender but still chewy, 5–10 minutes.
When the fruit is almost fully cooked drain and rinse the peaches and slip them into the pot for the last 2 minutes. Allow the compote to cool completely. Transfer to a bowl or large glass jar, cover and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. The longer, the better. Serve at room temperature spooned onto the custard. Fruit compote is also delicious spread on toast, stirred into hot cereal or as a topping on pancakes or waffles.
Makes 2 quarts.
Shackleton and Hurley skinning a penguin, Patience Camp, Frank Hurley, 1915
{Shackleton (right) & Hurley . . . improvised cooking stove / Call no. PXA 715/18}
“The primus is started and over it is placed the cooker with annulus and boiler filled with snow . . . The other two have settled the dogs and arrive in time to receive a steaming mug of hoosh, which is nonetheless welcome on account of such adventitious ingredients as reindeer-hair. This ubiquitous constituent of all food preparation or sledging journeys is transferred in some mysterious way of molting sleeping bags.”
—Douglas Mawson, The Home of the Blizzard: Antarctic Expedition, 1911–1914
I LOVE PHYTOPLANKTON
Carol
In 1821 Russian cartographer and naval officer Fabien von Bellingshausen, the first person reported to have sighted the hypothetical Terra Australis, was dismal about Antarctica’s future with its dark nights and cold climate.
Bellingshausen didn’t foresee a continent of model international cooperation as realized at a research station named after him where volunteers would one day clear garbage left by the Soviets and a Canadian cook would swap a Brazilian recipe with a Russian glaciologist.
Explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard popularized Antarctic literature in his 1922 memoir, The Worst Journey in the World, nine years after his return. On the Cape Crozier journey of Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1912), Cherry-Garrard carried three unhatched Emperor penguin eggs across the ice during sunless winter days and –60°C weather.
Cherry-Garrard carted those eggs home to the U.K., hoping to prove an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. A dinosauresque phase of development in the embryos wasn’t discovered. However, penguin skins collected a hundred years ago proved vital to scientists in the 1960s. They tracked the role of DDT to demonstrate the impact of pollutants travelling by ocean currents, even to pristine Antarctica.
Explorers Mawson and Shackleton also reported that penguin eggs, with their transparent jelly-like yolks, made a good omelette. Somewhere I read a historic tip to add a shot of whiskey to the penguin egg omelette.
Nowadays Antarctic visitors are prohibited from eating local wildlife. In any case, we might worry about any toxins in them caused by pollution.
Phytoplankton, microscopic creatures, are the foundation of our aquatic food chain. Our oceans are warming and warmer oceans produce less phytoplankton. At both Poles and in between, the health of the food chain is our survival.
I often thought about my next meal on King George Island. We were in good hands.
WOMEN’S SUMMER
FEBRUARY 1–15, 1996
{Wendy Trusler}
Walk to Ardley Island with Dima, Lena, Hilltop Sasha and Sean.
Wait for tide to go down. Finally low enough to cross.
New hole in boot, sock off left foot, water so cold it makes me dance.
FEBRUARY 1, 1996
WTFound an orange in my sock this morning.
Another beautiful sunny day today. Cloud in the afternoon, then more sun. Makes me feel badly for everyone who had to tough it out working in the fog and sleet last month. It will be even better when the rake order comes in so folk won’t feel like hedgehogs rooting between the rocks anymore. Extra tired tonight so I’ll be brief.
This group appears to be an easy one. Easy conversation. Easy planning. Three-hour excursion to Drake. Saw lots of fur seals, one crabeater and of course plenty of elephants. Things have dried up considerably over there, no more boot-sucking mud. Finally ditched my leaky wellies for my hiking boots—like ballet slippers. Laundry and shower today in free time—actually had some. Visit at Diesel—first in a while. I’m not really conscious of missing visits. Guess they are. Sasha asked me how the meat was, how well the freezer is working, as if he thinks the only reason I come for tea is to thaw meat.
Talked with Tolya and Sasha (Sergey for a while) about all manner of things. Childlike, it’s our usual dialogue. Using maps, pictures, diagrams and whatever props we can find, we talk about where we live, who with, what it’s like and how we’ll have to visit one another. And today we covered my boyfriend status, my hair and how it’s like springs—learned the word for beautiful (“krasivyj”).
Sergey made a huge fuss, like an uncle looking out for a favourite niece, scolding them for neglecting to teach me sooner, as if to say beautiful should have been right up there with please and thank you.
Offered job cooking on ship back to Russia.
Invited for fish tomorrow as Tolya’s going jigging.
Successful dinner. Sad Vlad and Hilltop Sasha came. Sad Vlad sang Russian folk music. Sean will have to think of another nickname for him if he ever branches out from ballads.
Nice to have music around.
Get recipe for Sad Vlad’s mother’s pickled peppers.
FEBRUARY 2, 1996
Sun in the morning over breakfast, then socked in as doing dishes. In mist and cloud for rest of day. Successful day. We like this group very much. It’s so hard to know what makes one group good and another bad. An excitement maybe? A sense of privilege? I don’t really know. Had four dinner guests tonight from the Chinese station. They came bearing gifts for each of us—handbags, crackers and Tsingtao beer. So kind, but the real gift for me will be learning about Chinese cuisine during our next break. Hope we can also arrange to visit during Chinese New Year’s.
Garbage-picker or land steward?—I cringe when I read that “good or bad group” line in my journal even though I know it stemmed from a changeover day fear that someone in the incoming boatload would be as difficult to please as the two men in Camp 6. You might think we sat around assigning pass or fail grades to each person.
There’s always something. I liked it when volunteers weren’t put out by dish duty. I’ve always run an equal-opportunity kitchen and cleaning up after ourselves was the reason we were there in the first place. If only I’d thought to award a gold star to the two women from Washington who initiated the drip-dry dish sculpture contest we used to motivate subsequent camps.
Lena was always more at ease when workers were robust. She worked alongside, plucking bits of debris from between friable rocks, even in driving sleet. But seeing others, especially any seniors, stooped over all day weighed upon her.
With good walkers we could share the trek to the Drake side. Good talkers—top of the class. We only had a few short days to make each group coalesce.
Talking about food would draw people out. Two soft-spoken Hawaiian women Sean had charmed and teased about wearing work socks with flip-flops finally opened up to me with a recipe for beef jerky. Hawaiians serve it with beer. Peter, an IT man from Texas in his late 30s, made and sent me labels for my kitchen appliances that arrived before I left Bellingshausen. “
To the Ends of the Earth” is still affixed to my Cuisinart. I bonded over baking with Carolyn, a retired publisher from Seattle. True to her word, an envelope full of mouthwatering recipes was waiting in my mailbox when I arrived home. I kick myself for not pressing the South African couple for a recipe.
I wish everyone had been able to withstand the hike to the Drake side. Conversation flowed on the way up the road past Marsh airstrip, but with a tenor of uncertainty that always made me smile. Not many “nature walks” start at runways. By the time we reached the crest of the hill and started overland, people were speechless. Flat Top towers over all the other rocks and as you get closer the brown lumps on the beach turn out to be elephant seals in their wallows. If people were able to go farther we’d walk the shoreline, past the wallows, past where the tide drops brash ice sculptures, to the base of Flat Top. Part of me always wanted to scale it, lie down on the rocks where it levels off, feel tiny and enormous at the same time—mostly I loved that it was utterly inaccessible and would stay that way. I felt bad interrupting our silence to press on, but up and over some rocks was a whale graveyard and if you’ve come that far it’s worth it. Solemn and life-affirming, the beach was scattered with stark white bones and a carcass Doc Sasha said had been there for two years, yet there was very little, if any, decay and no odour at all—not counting the elephant seals, of course. I could have spent hours there if it weren’t for dinner.
Hand-collected nails from Bellingshausen station in 1996
{Sandy Nicholson}
We could tell if the project was beginning to have more meaning by discussions on the way back to camp. To hear words like fragility and responsibility, opportunity and awareness was always worth the wait.
Over the summer a handful of volunteers questioned our focus and whether the work would have a lasting impact. But these doubts were mostly expressed on trip evaluations, filled out just before boarding the ship. I wish those conversations had come up at the table in between swapping recipes. I’d know to ask, what about scientific research? What about art? No one knows what the outcomes will be; still we persevere. You wouldn’t stop cleaning your kitchen because it might get messed up again.
Three months after I returned home, Herb from our final camp wrote before venturing to China, that he’d “never been to a more perfect, more basic place.” Two years later Brigid, a 70-year-old with beautiful British skin—the type of warm and adventurous grandmother I’d like to be—wrote it was “a time to be remembered forever that has created a deep well of peace to be visited at will.”
•Carolyn from Seattle: Apple Crisp, Ritz-Carlton Scones, Zucchini Carrot Casserole, Plum Pie Baked in a Brown Paper Bag
•Fred from Alaska: BBQ Pork, Thai Shrimp Curry, Grand Marnier Turkey, Whiskey ‘Shrooms’, Ginger Tea, Margarita Chicken, Honey Basil Carrots, Champagne Ginger Shrimp
•Naomi and Ami from Hawaii: Beef Jerky
•Carolyn from L.A: Amaretto Mousse
•Bernice from Illinois: Decadent dessert called More
•Arnold and Linda from L.A.: Chinese Pepper Steak
•Elaine from Michigan: Lentil Apricot Soup
•Kathy from Pennsylvania: Chicken Couscous
FEBRUARY 3, 1996
Cookies to Chinese.
Interior of China’s Great Wall Station (Changchen), King George Island, 2.5 km from Bellingshausen, 1996
{Wendy Trusler}
FEBRUARY 4, 1996
2:50 a.m.; still night. First light comes a little later. Horizon only pink—forever stretches forever here.
Got to get this down before days run into one another again. Usual kind of day yesterday—wind, sun, cloud, fog, sun—a King George smattering of everything. Days seem to be getting better. Feeling relaxed and able to do more. Spent morning writing.
Sauna-day chat with Fernando by my swimming hole after my first plunge. The shock of the water was so great my knees buckled when I got out so he challenged me to go in again. Caught up with him later over tea with Sasha Diesel and Tolya. Usual discussion of places we’ve worked, what I will do afterwards. Fernando wants to come to Canada. Discussion of capitalism. Are we capitalists? Sasha: no, because his hands are dirty. Fernando’s defence for clean hands is that he is a cook. Their faces brightened when they looked at mine as if they were relieved to see grime embedded in my cuticles and knuckles like dirt clinging to a carrot. Love conversations with these guys. Always with illustrations, apologies for not speaking well, gesture and laughter. Light-hearted and meaningless. Meaningful because something has been exchanged, some common ground reached. Like when Volodya Driver toasted the Canadian Arctic and the Russian Arctic at New Year’s.
Peculiar chat with him earlier. I think he told me he needed a prostitute—kind of spooked me. Talk after sauna weird and full of innuendo too. “Vendi you have lots of friends up to Canada House.” Must make sure of balance.
Celebrated Sad Vlad’s birthday in the mess hall. Everyone showered and dressed in clean clothes for the occasion. Special meal. Wine and vodka stores opened for the celebration. I took braided bread, asparagus pâté and chocolate cake. Drinking led to more attention than usual. Volodya Bio, hair greased back, looking like John Travolta on the make, blowing me kisses from across the dining room during dinner. Volodya Cook stealing one as he served me and then announcing to the room that I kissed him. Everyone at the elder’s table roared “Vy?” (“You?”) The usual suspect persisting. Sorted out by Volodya Driver and his left hook. First violence seen on base, but it’s not dwelt upon. Seems he had it coming. Radio Sasha said, “Everyone felt it was so.” Still, it makes me sad—sad and exhausted. Lena says Sergey is happy we “know how to behave, that we are good girls”—wish he’d share that with some of these guys so we don’t have to put up boundaries.
Maybe it was my fault for not taking a stand, but I think something else must have gone down. Some boys-will-be-boys thing more difficult to comprehend than Russian. I mean blowing kisses is pretty harmless—hilarious in fact, given his addled state—and I thought I had it under control by ignoring him. I still think I did. No matter, it was over in less than a minute. Just as V tried to close in on me, the other V swooped in and shoved him across the threshold into the vestibule. Harsh voices, coats flying, the slam of a body against the wall —I swear the room shook—and then skin smacking skin, like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I realize I’ve been a bit sheltered. Hilltop and Radio Sashas steered me out of the mess so quickly I didn’t get to see Bio Vlad’s eye, but Volodya Driver’s hand looks pretty gnarly and swollen. The Canadian thing to do would be to apologize, I guess—but what for—being a woman?
Seal skull, the Drake Side, 1996
{Wendy Trusler}
Elephant seal wallows near Flat Top, 1996
Party moved to Sad Vlad and Ilya’s place. Guitar playing and singing. Sad Vlad—that beautiful melancholy Russian ballad Carol sang. Radio Sasha—upbeat and fun.
Guest list expanding: Vlad, Ilya, Dima, Hilltop Sasha, Sean, Doc Sasha. Later Tolya and a Catholic priest from Chile who Lena says, “Is not very much a saint.” Merriment. Very much like tree-planting, Lena and I dancing every dance. We agree it feels good to be held but maybe not as tightly as Pepe the priest does. Surprised by our guys’ schoolboy timidity and trembling hands. Good thing for jiving—keeps the idea of closeness alive and no one loses an eye. Sean crashed early and missed out on all the fun—strange how he keeps to the outer limits.
Walked home at 4:00 a.m. Bright and quiet. Stopped by Diesel to see if they were still awake. Lousy sleep.
All quiet today after the party. Sat on the hill that hides Canada House from rest of camp listening to the waves on the lake and terns playing in the hills. Dinner downstairs again and afterwards a vintage Russian film I think I snored through. Dima pulled me out to see a spectacular sunset—if only we had a Zodiac for a cruise. Finally to sleep.
Camp 11 Debris Collection (Jan. 31–Feb. 4)
Bellingshausen Area b6: 1 barrel mixed
> FEBRUARY 5, 1996
Berg in Maxwell that has been with us for at least a week, moving back and forth across the bay, is finally breaking up. Brash ice surrounding it and more spreading out across the bay. Covered in penguins now.
FEBRUARY 6, 1996
Beautiful sun, then cloud, then sun—got a tan today.
Walk to Ardley Island with Dima, Lena, Hilltop Sasha and Sean. Wait for tide to go down. Finally low enough to cross. New hole in boot, sock off left foot, water so cold it makes me dance. Visit Germans who are busy breaking camp, having finished their two months’ research in the rookery. Ardley is more beautiful than I imagined. Bluffs and rocky spires like an installation of Giacometti sculptures, especially that big one that looks like a head, on the south side of the island. Finally able to see our berg up close and the turmeric-coloured moss that looked like fields of wildflowers from across the bay. Lots of penguins. Chicks huge now, almost the same size as adults. Parents exhausted out getting food all day—chicks running after them, the chase teaching them everything they need to know for life after they fledge. Flotsam on beach. Some real treasures. Too big to carry. It killed me to leave that wooden ladder there. Charming enough not to be tossed in with the debris the volunteers find in the dumpsite, but not so old as to be confused with anything that fell off the Terra Nova and should be shipped to a museum.
And what else of this day? Printer not working properly as another converter bites the dust. Seems I’m not meant to send this fax to P, get some sense of closure. Set up Zodiac with Sad Vlad and Sean. Why, I don’t know since it seems unlikely we’ll get an engine. Spent evening patching my jeans while watching a Russian flick. Walk up the hill—wind and moon and mist. First time I’ve really noticed the moon.
The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning: A Polar Journey Page 12