Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine

by Jason C. Anthony

Anthony’s tour of Antarctic cuisine takes us from hoosh (a porridge of meat, fat, and melted snow, often thickened with crushed biscuit) and the scurvy-ridden expeditions of Shackleton and Scott through the twentieth century to his own preplanned three hundred meals (plus snacks) for a two-person camp in the Transantarctic Mountains. The stories in Hoosh are linked by the ingenuity, good humor, and indifference to gruel that make Anthony’s tale as entertaining as it is enlightening.
 
 

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, History, Adventure, Humor, Travel

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

Hoosh awards: 1) an Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Award in the UK; 2) Winner of a ForeWord Book of the Year Award (Travel); 3) Silver Medal, Independent Publisher Book Award (Creative Non-Fiction); 4) Finalist, Maine Book Awards (Nonfiction).

In other award news, I was a finalist for the Ellen Meloy Desert Writing Award...

Jason C. Anthony’s Antarctic essays and articles have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Orion, VQR, The Smart Set, WorldHum, Alimentum, The Missouri Review, The Best American Travel Writing 2007, and as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2006. He spent eight seasons working in Antarctica as part of the United States Antarctic Program. He lives in Maine.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Antarctic cuisine may have started off with hoosh, which was everything nasty and meaty you can think of bound together by vast quantities of fat, but it ended up with Russian caviar and vodka. It's a civilized sort of place now, food orders put in the season before nothing is off-limits. There is only one mystery. Why all the food at the base is kept in vast industrial-size freezers but in the field they just leave it outside in the sub-zero temperatures? Why not just have an unheated storeroom? Someone must be making money somewhere on what seems to be a lot of really expensive and unnecessary equipment.

The book varied from quite interesting to extremely boring. 3.5 stars rounded up because I liked reading about penguins.
__________

Notes on reading the book and how penguins were like the children who followed the Pied Piper In 1897 on an Antarctic expedition, the ship Belgica got stuck in the ice. After much hunger and sickness, it was discovered that eating the odiferous and fatty penguins restored the crew to health. Captain Gerlache offered a one franc reward to the crew for live birds and fifty centimes for dead ones. This proved to be extremely easy as the crew would play tunes on a cornet and both penguins and seals would come to the boat a la the Pied Piper!

However, some years later, Shackleton had a crew member play the bagpipes, and the little Adelie penguins fled in terror!
___________

I haven't read much yet. Only enough to discover that there is no arable land, not even a square foot of it in the whole of Antarctica and therefore nothing grows there. Also no indigenous people. Therefore no cuisine. But people have gone to live there for limited periods of time and brought their supplies with them. Supplemented with ... seal blubber pemmican? Supreme of penguin breast? I don't know yet.... But I'm looking forward to recipes and hopefully pictures of the finished dish.

[Cissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was excited to learn about this book! It combines 2 of my fascinations: Antarctica, and food/cooking, so I eagerly anticipated it, and it did not disappoint.

The author points out that of all the books written about Antarctica, almost all are written either by people there for a brief stay, or researchers and scientists... and something like 80% of the people who live and work on the Ice are neither, but are support staff, with a very different perspective. This is one of those books, as is "Cold, Dead Place" (also recommended).

Most of the book is historical, though, and I learned much about the daily life of people in the Antarctic over the last century or so, and how it's changed. I have often found food and cooking to be revelatory about such matters, and it's a fascination of mine- not the big events as much as what people actually did daily, and how they did it, and this book was full of that kind of detail.

The writing is engaging, and makes all the details come alive.

I came away with great admiration both for the early explorers and scientists who heroically mostly kept up morale even when eating the same boring and/or disgusting food daily... and for the cooks who now work hard to improve morale by providing delicious and nutritious meals under very challenging circumstances. Were I younger, I would love to be among them!

This is highly recommended for Antarctica fans, especially if you are interested in the details of daily life (albeit focusing on food). It's probably not as much for pure foodies, though the recipes for keeping biscuits, and for seal and penguin and more, might be of interest.
Comment

[G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my most satisfying (and inventive) meals Ive ever had were in Antarctica. The kitchen at McMurdo station is outstanding, pulling off miraculous holiday feasts for 1000 people and Sunday brunches that rival any I can find at home. But some of the best meals were group efforts in remote camps, in glorified kitchen huts or on camping stoves where the room is so cold, no refridgerator is necessary. The room is the refridgerator. Having also spent time in 3 of Scott and Shackletons huts on Ross Island and seeing the food they stored and ate, in person, this history of humans in Antarctica as told through they food is a great lens to view this special history through. Wonderful.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a big reader of non-fiction, and have no interest in cookbooks or culinary literature, but I loved this book - the tone wry, the information interesting, the language at times poetic. The focus on food as a survival tool and motivating fantasy, then turning to poor quality cafeteria slush, belatedly improved, is an incredible journey in itself and addresses the problem of how to feed people in the remotest, harshest environment in the world. The writer only lays judgement around the occasional unnecessary killing or torture of animals in the earlier years of Antarctic exploration. Otherwise, he presents the situation of many different explorers' and scientists' diets as a factual story, often with witty observation and input from other Antarctic authors.

Definitely a left field non-fiction book worth reading.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you enjoy hearing about others' misfortunes or like dangerous travel stories or think that humans have the right to pillage their environment, then this book is for you. It was an unrelenting litany of misery. The author, in great detail, denotes the eating (or should I more appropriately say the starvation) of many of the Antarctic explorations. I got half way and couldn't read any more about the THOUSANDS of penguin eggs consumed or the habituation to eating only 3 meals a week. May you are braver than I.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished in a nothing-to-do-but-read sprint brought on by a relentless downpour.

[Lauren Mosblech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Week 2 of Reading Around the World covered Antarctica in the fascinating non-fiction book Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine by Jason C. Anthony. This was a look at Antarctic history through the lens of food, which on a polar desert away from the coast is naturally non-existent. I fully admit I knew very little about Antarctica upon starting this book- I knew there were penguins, lots of ice, a few stations staffed by scientists and military personnel from various nations (McMurdo the only one I knew by name), and that there was a treaty preventing land claims. That was literally the full extent of my knowledge; I’ve never read or cared to know about the various expeditions there. That meant that I learned SO much! And it was wonderfully interesting! It took me a while to read because there was so much information. Anthony combines what must be thousands of journals, diaries, and other records into humorous, sad, and engaging stories that paint a very real picture of the history of exploration and life- and tragic death- in Antarctica. I highly recommend it!!

Favorite quote: Morale is big around here...and of course food is morale.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one deserves about 2.5 stars but I tend to round down. The first half, which discusses food and its role (and, often, its absence) in early Antarctic expeditions, is fascinating (starting with the image on the cover!) and fed into (heh) my ongoing obsession with, well, early Antarctic expeditions. The culinary story of Antarctica starting in about 1960 becomes much less interesting. Spoiler alert: there are big cafeterias to feed all the workers, all supplies need to be shipped in from New Zealand, fresh food is rare, and it's really cold in Antarctica which presents some food-related challenges. Eh. A long and thoughtfully-illustrated magazine article about modern life in Antarctica (all aspects, not just food) would have been way more interesting.

[Stacy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Non-fictional account of how various expeditions to Antarctica survived, and what (and how) they ate.
Basically -the earliest ones barely lived, IF they lived. Some ate seals, penguins, and fish. Later ones ate all of that, as well as canned foods. Some ate their sled dogs. That's where I lost interest. I couldn't handle reading about that. The dryness of the descriptions and the detachment with which such sacrifices were listed were unbearable. Later expeditions had better resources and apparently now the cafeteria is set up similarly to any other, with the addition of numbing cold weather outside.
There are recipes in the back.

I am getting rid of this book. I would not read it again.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars.

The first half of this book was a solid 4 stars - maybe 4.5. A really solid overview of LOTS of different historical expeditions to Antarctica through the lens of food. It was pithy! It was interesting! I was already planning who needed to read it after me.

Once we got to Anthony's personal experience, though, it lost the thread a little. You could see Anthony trying to keep food as the overall lens, but he couldn't quite focus it - talking much more about the day-to-day life/gossip of Antarctica as the food. Still interesting, definitely - a solid 3 star second half - but a bit of a let down after the really well written beginning.

[Nightwitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was astonishingly readable. The tone changes a little from the historic sections to the contemporary, although both are very interesting, and I definitely do not recommend reading if you are an animal lover or at all squeamish; the amount of suffering endured and committed (on hapless wildlife, sled dogs, ponies, and each other) by the nineteenth-century polar explorers is, um, high.

[grim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book so bad, but I don't think it was for me. The topic is super interesting; getting to read about the history of food for Antarctic explorers was something I never really thought about so it caught my attention. For me, the writing style made this book drag on.

[Ashley Gaddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this after my cruise to Antarctica

[Alex Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

when i die i will go to the big hoosh pot in the sky

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't sure that a writer could sustain an entire book-length work on Antarctic food history. I was really, really wrong. Anthony, with many seasons of Antarctic experience at McMurdo station and other locations around the continent, expertly uses food (and hunger) as a focal point around which he recaps the history of the human presence at that end of the world.

I was familiar with many of the earlier stories surrounding expeditions, surviving on a mix of pemican and biscuits, from which the titular "hoosh" is made, and supplementing it with the local fauna. I was kind of horrified at the carnage of penguins and seals, but Anthony does a good job of looking at explorers' varying attitudes toward these animals -- and the ways in which they tried to make them palatable. Savoury seal brains on toast, anyone? There's a recipe in the index...

The latter part of the book shifts toward modern-day efforts to feed and satisfy scientists and workers at McMurdo Station, the Amundsen-Scott station at the south pole, and other remote locations around the continent. The combinations of extreme temperatures, extreme distances and high altitudes require a mind-boggling amount of planning and creativity. And some of the stories of what people will get up to in order to obtain the foods they crave are pretty funny. If there's any job description that requires skill, ingenuity, creativity, resourcefulness and creativity, it has to be Antarctic Chef.

The penultimate chapter has a haunting description of the men, food and conditions at Russia's Vostok station that is particularly well-written.

[Matthew Ciarvella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't recall ever reading a book that both grossed me out and made me as hungry as "Hoosh."

I love adventure writing. I'm the quintessential armchair explorer; I've never ventured further than the woods and deserts of my own country, but I love reading about the people who've gone further than I ever will. And one of my favorite details for any bit of adventure writing is when the author actually takes the time to talk about the details, the logistics, the nitty gritty. Things like what they ate, where they slept, the gear they had, etc.

"Hoosh" is a book dedicated entirely to the topic of "what they ate." And it's amazing. The shift from "gross" to "delicious" follows the progress of history as you might expect, so the heroic age of exploration is filled with hard biscuits, old meat, and thousands of poor butchered seals and penguins. But with the passage of time, the modern Antarctic explorer can enjoy a surprising variety of quality meals... usually.

As you might expect, reading about food usually makes me want to eat something good while reading . . . although this book will definitely challenge that habit whenever you get a reminder that, even in the modern day, things can still go awry. Still, it's a fun and well written read for foodies and armchair explorers alike, even if you may want to avoid snacking while reading. Best of all, if you're planning your own Antarctic expedition, there are a list of recipes to try at the end, from roast seal to all manner of dishes involving penguin.

Don't actually try these. It's illegal to kill Antarctic wildlife.

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book--beautifully written and fascinating. Jason Anthony did a remarkable job curating this in-depth exploration of the cuisine of the Antarctic, which is a brilliant idea in itself--looking at this extreme environment through one of its most challenging aspects: food. I found myself eager to return to this narrative each night, to become absorbed in the tales both heroic and mundane of 20th-century Antarctic exploration via the stomach. The elegance of the writing pleases as much as Anthony's fantastic eye for the fascinating "tidbit" (pun intended); the breadth and depth of Anthony's research here gives the book historical importance and both breadth and depth of subject. He offers casual commentary that is both witty and smart, but knows when to step back and let the story amaze the reader. Anthony spent several years working in the Antarctic, so his own journey bookends the historical narrative, which is chronicled from the Age of Exploration to contemporary times. This is a writer who can make the idea of eating seal brains on toast sound a bit appetizing. (And there are recipes at the end!)This is my favorite literary nonfiction book since Bill Bryson's "At Home." A great read that makes history, Antarctic exploration and the food hunted, carried, cooked, eaten (or longed for) utterly compelling.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a variation on my usual ice and death, cold book theme. I knew a reasonable amount of the historical information about Antarctic expeditions, diets and the path of progress to preventing scurvy etc. But I had no idea about what folks are eating now at McMurdo, Odell etc. I don't think I quite realized how many people are down there especially in the summer. There is even a green house although there is still a shortage of "freshies". And that new Concordia place is quite fancy! The other fascinating thing (which I don't entirely understand although I get the outcomes) is the different temperature at which water boils so that it can take a few hours to boil potatoes and, at some camps, altitude is a factor for cooking and baking too. Just amazing!! Jason Anthony lives in Maine which is an added bonus (awfully sorry to read about his friend's suicide - what a terrible shame).

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fascinating look at Antarctic cuisine from the earliest expeditions to modern times. I think Anthony did a great job here of writing about the early explorers in particular in a way that felt fresh and interesting and not like he was just spewing facts taken directly from their original accounts (which is how a lot of authors sound when they talk about these guys). He also discusses several lesser-known expeditions, which I found especially intriguing, and I'm planning on tracking down a number of references cited in his bibliography in order to learn more about them. Anyway, the whole book is really engaging and well-written, and comes from a unique perspective. Definitely a must for folks obsessed with Antarctica, extreme hardship or weird food--ha!

[Jack Buechner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been granted the rare opportunity to visit Antarctica and even stand on the spot of the "magnetic pole" which is adorned with an old-fashioned barber red/white pole topped off with a reflective garden globe, I have tried to read from Shackleton to Amundson to Scott to Perry and all that have lived on the bottom of the world. What I had not known (until this wonderfully informative and humorous book) is how these explorers survived and on what. Hoosh (from which the booze word HOOCH is derived) is the answer. You will need to read the book to find out what and how it is, and on the way you will sit on the edge of your seat as these odd mixes of scientists, daredevils and imperialists risk everything.

[Annie Smidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, we'll done! If you love Antarctic adventures, domestic-life minutiae, and recipes for seal brains, you are in luck!

A terrific mix of history distant and recent seen though the peculiar lens of trying to eat on a mostly foodless continent. Visits with all your favorite Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration friends, and intros to some new ones -- and all of their cooks. Details about life in modern Antartica and how it came to be that way. So much loving description of food, for its scarcity, being savored.

I'm not even into books about food -- indeed, unlike every single person in the 200+ years of this story, I'm a vegan -- but I so thoroughly enjoyed every liver-eating bit of this. Engagingly told, novel subject, just loved it.

Oh yeah, and so much good stuff about scurvy!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting stuff. I expected to be most interested in the historic sections and skip over the modern Antarctica stuff, but the reverse was true. I found the middle part of the book dragging and repetitive, but the interview with the head chef at McMurdo, the contrast between the food at the Russian, American, and French/Italian research stations, the issues cooking at the extreme high-altitude, low-humidity South Pole station... those things were fascinating and really made the book worth reading.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating stories of remarkable resourcefulness in Antarctic cuisine throughout the history of the continent's exploration. It's unlikely these dishes will appeal to anyone outside of the most desperately hungry.

[Sue Rosenbaum · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for anyone who loves reading about polar exploration as well as food and cooking. Antarctic history, descriptions of meals through the ages, anecdotes and the author's personal experiences combine to produce a fascinating and well-written book.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Great overview of old Antarctic exploration, focusing on what, let's face it, was most important -- the food. The modern stuff was interesting, too; quite liked the chapter on Vostok.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I told my wife that she should get the author for her Food history group. this is a fun book!

[Brett Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating glimpse at life in Antarctica, from the historic "heroic" era of Shackleton and other explorers through the modern-day industrial complex at McMurdo.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

May never finish the last chapter!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ties with Nicholas Johnson's "Big Dead Place" as the best book written about Antarctica.