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Ed Lu letter from space #3

13 Jun 2003

Part 1 of 2

Food

This week I thought I'd write about a subject near and dear to my
heart -- food. You are what you eat after all. First off, let me say
I actually like the food here. It isn't quite like Mom's cooking, but
it isn't bad! In fact it isn't really cooking at all, more like
re-heating or re-hydrating.

We don't have a real kitchen up here, but we do have a kitchen table.
You might wonder of what use a table is if you can't set anything
down on it, but we have bungee straps and Velcro on the tabletop so
you can keep your food containers, spoon, napkins, etc. from floating
away. You can find Yuri and I around the table 3 times a day. In fact
the table, which is located in the Service Module, is kind of the
social center of the ISS. Even though we only have 2 crew members
now, it is where we congregate when we have time off. Of course there
are no chairs around the table, what we do is float around the table
while we prepare our meals and eat. There are a couple of handrails
on the floor to slide your feet under to stabilize yourself. 

Next to the table is our water dispenser, which has a tap for warm
water and hot water. That's right, no cold water. If you want a cold
drink, you need to prepare the drink, then leave it for a while in
one of the colder locations on ISS. It will never get really cold, so
the next really cold drink I have will be when I get back to the
ground! You get used to having warm drinks though, and it really
isn't a problem. Speaking of which, we don't have a refrigerator up
here either, so all of our food is canned, dehydrated, or otherwise
packaged so it doesn't need refrigeration. So of course this means no
fresh fruit, vegetables, etc. That also means we can't keep
leftovers!

As for utensils, the only utensil we use is a spoon. Don Pettit had a
pair of chopsticks up here, but I haven't found where he stashed them
yet, so I can use them! It turns out there is no need for a fork or a
knife. All of the food that requires a utensil to eat has some sort
of sauce or at least some moisture to it, so it naturally sticks to
the spoon. This is the same effect on the ground that allows drops of
water to stick to windows, here it allows us to eat without having
our food fly all over the place. This force isn't very strong, so you
have to move fairly slowly when eating, or the food will literally
fly right off your spoon (and onto the wall). 

Our drinks are all dehydrated and come in packets. We have lots of
different kinds of juices, tea, coffee, and milk. The juices are
really tasty -- my favorites are apricot and apple with black
currant. The Russian drink packets are clear plastic and have a
simple one-way valve where you add water; while the other side of the
packets has a built in straw. The design is ingenious; you just cut
off one end of the packet with scissors to open up the valve, slide
the packet onto the water tap, turn on the water, mix well, and then
use the scissors on the other end to open up the straw. The problem
is that if you aren't careful, they have a tendency to leak and it is
easy to get juice or tea all over yourself or the walls. The same
property of liquids that lets them stick to your spoon also makes
liquids stick to your face. I know this from experience.

Much of the Russian-supplied food comes in cans. There are larger
cans for main course type dishes and smaller cans with things like
fish, eggs, cheeses, etc. Some of the canned foods I really like
include lamb with vegetables, beef with barley (kind of like a
meatloaf), sturgeon, and chicken with rice. We have a food warmer
that heats up the cans, and then we open them up with a can opener.
We open the cans almost all the way but not quite completely so that
the lid is still attached (less things floating around). The cans
have no velcro on them to stick them to the table, and of course
while you are eating out of a can you can't really put it under a
bungee strap either. So if you need your hands free, you can put a
couple of drops of water on the bottom of the can, and the water will
help it to stick to the tabletop. If it is just for a short while,
you can just let the can float as long as you are careful to keep an
eye on where it is going. Remember that you don't have to worry about
food spilling out of the can if it turns upside down!

We also have a lot of other dehydrated foods, such as tvorog (a sweet
Russian cottage cheese with nuts -- my favorite breakfast item),
vegetables, pastas, potatoes, fried rice, shrimp, etc. You just add
water to these packages and wait a few minutes, then cut a flap in
the package to get your spoon in, and eat. Some of my favorites up
here are the Russian soups: borsch, beef and barley, spicy lamb soup,
and others. If you have ever been to Russia you know how delicious
the soups are there, and quite a variety of them are supplied for us.
When re-hydrating all these items, you have to make sure the water is
mixed thoroughly or you get dry powdery sections in your food. It
helps to shake the packages back and forth, or to hold the package in
your outstretched arms and flap them up and down so centrifugal force
moves the water through the package. So if you see an astronaut
holding a food package and waving his arms up and down, it isn't just
because he or she is really excited about lunch (although that may be
true), but probably they are just mixing the water through their
food. This trick also works great to settle all the food down to the
bottom of the packet so you can cut the packet open without getting
food all over your scissors. 

Much of the American-supplied foods come in sealed pouches. These are
similar to military MREs if you know what those are. They are
basically like canned foods, but without the can. Here all you have
to do is heat and eat. There are a large variety of foods like this,
but most of them haven't arrived yet to the station. They are being
shipped up here on an unmanned space freighter called a Progress,
which should arrive in about a week. We are definitely looking
forward to the arrival of the Progress because they usually also send
up some fresh food like apples, oranges, and other goodies.

Finally, we have things like nuts, dried fruit, breads, etc., which
come in sealed packets. These are good when you are really busy and
have to eat and run. These foods are also fun to let float so you can
gobble them out of the air like a goldfish. Even though your parents
may have told you not to play with your food, up here it is
encouraged!

We also get to choose a few items that can include things you
personally buy in a grocery or other store, and which have a long
enough shelf life to last up here. I chose some Chinese foods (like a
sticky rice with sweet bean paste), beef jerky from Hawaii, dried
calamari, some canned French foods (duck cassoulet and beef with
burgundy sauce), and some packages of ready to eat sticky rice (much
better than that fluffy stuff!). 

 - Continued -

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