1988

In 1988, a company by the name of Cajun Magic made a few packages of Jambalaya mix and these packages were sent to Antarctica and some point afterward. Then, something amazing happend in October of 2008! That pre-mixed package was finally cooked off and consumed by hundreds of people. Now don't get me wrong, if you are one of the people that ate this meal, you are not in danger, it was merely a dry mix, with nothing that could really go bad, just lose a little flavor, maybe. This is just one example of the food that you will find in Antarctica. Most of the dry goods have an expiration date that occurred anywhere from 2 years ago, to something that might only be a few months ago. Another example is our liquid eggs. Most of them have an expiration date that ends with the year 2007. Fortunately, we have many freezers down here, so the eggs were probably frozen as soon as they arrived here, preserving them and then thawed a few days before we use them. In my first few weeks here, I would see concerned people showing the expiration date to a supervisor, in which many times the response was the ever popular "Welcome to Antarctica!". Most fresh things are discarded by the time they expire, with the exception being the beer. This is quite unfortunate, it isn't too expired, but we only have canned or bottled beer and most everyone longs for a nice fresh draught beer from tap! You may ask yourself, "Self, why does this happen, why do they apparantly have so much food?" That is an excellent question and I have a rough answer/idea. For everything besides fresh produce, we recieve a shipment from a vessel from the USA once a year and this shipment has to last for a year. So, if you think that you would be a better expert on estimating how much food a range of 100 to 1200 people will consume one year, Raytheon may have a job for you! I have also heard that they have been worried in the past that the vessel would not make it down here and so they would stockpile a little more in preparation that this may happen. With all of this playing a factor, we usually don't run out of things, although it does happen occasionally, but we always make-do without it and so far, I haven't had any real problems! Most everyone loves the food and it's just a few months for most people until we will be back in Christchurch drinking fresh beer and eating fresh Sushi!!!