Throughout his career, Al Chapman has spent several months cooking “on ice” – that is, in Antarctica. During the summer of 2021-22, the chef was one of three kitchen crew stationed at Scott Base, New Zealand’s only Antarctic research station. The dining hall was the hub of social activity, serving breakfast, morning tea, lunch and dinner for up to 85 people at its peak. It’s like working in a restaurant, says Chapman – one where you can sometimes see penguins from the kitchen.
Speaking of penguins: Chapman is adamant they aren’t eaten, unlike in the early days of Antarctic exploration. Not just because they’re protected under the Antarctic treaty, or that starvation is no longer a serious concern; Chapman says it’s important to serve food people like, especially when they’re working in such an isolated part of the world, in extreme conditions.
“If someone’s had a rough day, a warm meal can really lift spirits.”
So in Antarctica, what’s on the menu? Chapman would serve fresh bread and croissants for breakfast, then curry or chicken Marbella (chicken with prunes, olives and capers) and collard greens for dinner. He’s an enthusiastic baker too, turning out trays of brownies and bakewell tarts. He would sometimes run baking classes for station staff too.
Cheese rolls, or “southern sushi”, the rolled-up-grilled-cheese-sandwiches hailing from southern New Zealand, were always a hit. “You’d put them out, and they’d just be gone. People love that taste of home,” says Chapman.
On the other hand, says Paddy Rietveld: “New things can go down well, because days can get really repetitive.” Rietveld is something of a veteran of cooking on ice, having completed four seasons in Antarctica, including a 10-month stint at Scott Base this year as the sole chef for a crew of a dozen hardy souls. This winter, as the finisher to a meal of sweet and sour chicken, he made fortune cookies – and even wrote the fortunes that went inside. Thursdays were “American night” with barbecue, burgers or nachos on the menu and 10 extra seats for staff from the nearby American-run McMurdo station, the largest settlement in Antarctica with a winter crew of 150 to 200 people, and up to 1,200 in summer. The guest seats became so coveted a lottery system was introduced.
At the station, allergies and diets – vegetarian, vegan, halal – must be accounted for. An added challenge, say Chapman and Rietveld, is that food takes longer to cook in Antarctica, due to the lower temperatures and high elevation.
To help stretch out supplies and minimise waste, Chapman says ingredients must be repurposed as much as possible. Leftover vegetables from a roast meal might end up in a future stew, while chicken and beef from dinner might make its way into sandwiches or wraps for lunch the next day. “If you eat something in Antarctica once, you’ll probably eat it again in a different form,” he says.
Those challenges are small fry compared to his most recent three-month season as the sole chef at SWAIS2C camp. There, Chapman cooked in a tent, on an electric stove; in temperatures that could drop to -40C. Ingredients were ordered a year in advance and transported to camp via overland traverse, a 15-day journey over treacherous terrain, then stored in a makeshift freezer three metres under the ice.
Yet the cuisine was varied: Chapman served steak, venison, “pretty much every kind of protein you can imagine”. Despite the extreme remoteness, there were sausage roll Tuesdays and fish and chip Fridays; Christmas was ham, smoked salmon, rump steaks, vegetables, mince pies, pavlova, and a single prized punnet of strawberries, shared among 27 scientists and support staff. They were stationed at the camp to drill into ice, to understand how past warming affected Antarctica and the rest of the world.
In Antarctica’s legendarily bleak conditions, where food can have a big effect on morale, desserts hit the sweet spot.
In 2001, Chris Martin was the science leader at the US-operated Amundsen-Scott south pole station, the southernmost year-round research station in the world. About 50 staff were stationed during the winter, but they were – according to the contracting company that employed the on-base chef – consuming too much chocolate. Fresh supplies were not expected until October at the earliest, and the contractor decreed that the much-prized supply of chocolate chip cookies be rationed.
There was discontent, says Martin, who helped found the station’s People’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Liberation Front (PCCCLF). The group established a recon division, as well as an infiltration and extraction team to “liberate” and distribute cookies to the masses in ziplock bags, with a PCCCLF logo drawn on.
The cookies, says Martin, were a way of keeping people sane amid the long winter, where temperatures can drop to as low as -80C, there is about six months of darkness, and staff rarely venture outside.
Despite the harsh conditions, both Chapman and Rietveld hope to return to Antarctica in the near future. Says Rietveld: “It’s quite nice – you sort of become like a private chef. You really get to know people’s likes and dislikes.”
As for Chapman, it’s not just the occasional glimpse of penguins that lures him back. With windows that look out to beautiful pile-ups of sea ice, the kitchen, he says, has one of the best views at Scott Base.
