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Ed Lu letter from space #3

13 Jun 2003

Part 2 of 2

We have a variety of sauces like hot sauce, sweet and sour, Thai hot
sauce, barbecue sauce, etc., which you can use to spice up most
anything. Most of these come in squeeze bottles or little restaurant
packets. Getting the sauce to settle to the end of the squeeze bottle
so you can get it out is kind of fun. You can either use a variation
of the arm flapping technique, or do like Yuri and hold the bottle
with the top facing away from yourself, and then spin your entire
body like a top. The centrifugal force makes it settle to the
outside, and you can then squeeze some of the sauce out while you are
rotating. 

One of the things I do miss is cooking myself, which I like to do
back home. The closest you can do up here is to mix different foods.
I really like putting peanut butter on the Russian honey cakes. One
day though I made an important discovery by mistake when I
accidentally opened a package of cheese spread (it looks just like a
peanut butter packet) and put it on my honey cakes. It turns out to
be pretty good, even though it may sound terrible. Sox left me a
couple of plastic cooking bags, so I plan to do some experimental
"cooking" soon.

I have noticed that for some reason I really like putting a lot more
spicy seasonings on my food. A lot of other astronauts have mentioned
that they have this urge too. I sometimes put huge amounts of hot
sauce, garlic paste, or Thai hot sauce to the soups and meat dishes.
Luckily, we have enough hot sauce to feed all of Thailand. I'm not
sure why I like much spicier food here. I don't crave sweets, salty
things, or sour things -- so it isn't just that I want stronger
tastes. I can also say that it isn't because my nose is congested and
I can't taste as well, although some astronauts sometimes have this
effect for the first few days in space. I wonder if people on
submarines or who spend months in Antarctica also love spicy foods,
in which case it is probably an effect of isolation or limited food
choices. If not, perhaps it is an effect of weightlessness on your
body. I am curious how my tastes will change over the next 5 months!

-Ed Lu-

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