How can astronaut food be better?
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How is astronaut food currently prepared and what are common examples like rehydrated shrimp cocktail?
Hey, it's Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday. As NASA prepares for long-term space missions to the moon and Mars, there's a long list of considerations. Trained crew? Check. Tricked out spaceship? Check. A meal plan? Check. But the constraints of space have meant that it isn't really known as the final frontier of culinary imagination. Remember when astronaut Christina Koch tried to convince us that this sounded yummy during the Artemis II livestream earlier this year? This is actually shrimp cocktail. And this has been rehydrated already. So we added water to it and the shrimp soaked back up the water. And it's actually pretty tasty. Is it, Christina? Is space cuisine due for a giant leap for all of astronaut kind?
And if we're planning for the long haul trip to Mars, just how important is the menu? My guests have thoughts. Clayton Anderson spent 15 years as a NASA astronaut, flew twice on the ISS back in 2007 and 2010, and he's very familiar with the space menu. He's currently based in Nebraska. And David Skinner is the executive chef and owner of Eculent and Ishtia, two Houston restaurants. He's also advised NASA on how to make food for astronauts better. Clayton, David, welcome to you both.
Thank you for having us. Thank you. Honor to be here.
Clayton, what did a normal meal look like for you when you were up in space? Is it shrimp cocktail washed down with some tang and astronaut ice cream for dessert?
No astronaut ice cream. Nobody eats that stuff in space. When I flew the first time for five months, there were two Russian cosmonauts and me on board. And so we had done food tastings in America and we had done food tastings in Russia. And you rank the food that you like. And if you rank it higher than a – I don't even remember the number. I guess probably seven. You're going to see it in space. And for me, with the Russian stuff, that was good. The American stuff is a little more boring. So you would have a can of Russian food and maybe a can of Russian appetizer and maybe a plastic bag full of, you know, some kind of vegetable from America. And then you'd eat all that. And then I would go for an American dessert, which was in another little plastic bag.
And so the food was tasty enough, but it didn't look too good, right?
Well, what was in the can?
My favorite thing to have in the can was lamb with vegetables. So think of a Dinty Moore beef stew can. It was about the same size as that can. When you opened the top, it had fat and other stuff laying on the surface. And you heated it up and stirred it up. And they also put salt in their food. So salt plus fat, those two things equal taste. Right. And of course, America says, oh, salt is bad. Fat is bad. Remove all that. And then they take away most of the taste. So that was a typical meal for us.
What's the deal with the strip cocktail obsession? I've heard other astronauts say this, too, and it really shocks me. What's going on there?
Well, shrimp cocktail is shrimp cocktail, horseradish with the sauce, the red sauce and the shrimp. The trick with shrimp cocktail in space is you have to add the right amount of water, but then you have to let it sit long enough to absorb the water. Because if you do it too quickly and you bite into a shrimp and it crunches, nobody wants to bite into a shrimp that crunches, right? I mean, it just... It destroys the mood. And then the other piece of it is it's a popular dish because of the horseradish. When you go into space and the fluids start to go up toward your head, make your sinuses puffy and make your ability to smell a little tougher. Having something like that that shoots through your sinus cavity and gives you that wasabi type action is,
That's preferred by astronauts. And so if you do the thing the right way and you get the right amount of water and you let it sit long enough, it is very tasty. It is very reminiscent of shrimp cocktail back on Earth.
David, as a chef, you know, why do you think astronauts are craving this wasabi kick, this horseradish kick?
Well, just like Clay said, when you can't really smell or taste anything very well because it's like having a head cold, right?
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
How is astronaut food currently prepared and what are common examples like rehydrated shrimp cocktail?
0:02–6:13
2
What did Clayton Anderson describe as a typical in-space meal and how did Russian and American foods differ?
6:13–15:36
3
Why do astronauts crave spicy condiments like horseradish and how does microgravity affect taste and smell?
15:36–17:39
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Science Friday
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