How to deliver haute cuisine on a cruise for weeks (in Antarctica)
“When you’re working on land, you can request vegetables, meat, fish every day. On a cruise like this, most of our produce is frozen – because we have no choice.”
What’s for dinner? After a day of Antarctic adventures, the 132 guests on board Le Commandant Charcot dined on gourmet meals – for 25 nights.
When the first expedition to Antarctica’s Ross Sea set sail from New Zealand in 1841, its supplies included oxen, sheep, pigs and poultry. “Our decks had all the appearance of a farmyard” is how ship surgeon Robert McCormick described the scene on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.
It’s lucky then that the French-flagged Le Commandant Charcot, the first purpose-built passenger icebreaker to sail to the Ross Sea, has sophisticated refrigeration. Just imagine, I think as I float in the pool on deck nine, if it had to be drained to hold oxen, or if passengers had to pick their way past pigs on the helicopter deck to get a clear view each time there were orcas ahead.
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