Food Glorious Food

Zoe Panchen

Lake Hazen in Quttinirpaaq National Park at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island is as about as remote as it gets. Everything I need for the six weeks I will be there will have to be flown in with me and that includes all my food.

So how do you plan for food for six weeks? Roger Bull who works at the Canadian Museum of Nature and has been in charge of organising food for several of the Museum's botanical field trips to the Arctic, reminded me "you don't want to run out of food". He suggested putting together a meal plan for a week and then multiplying it by the number of week of the trip. So I put together a spreadsheet of food items for breakfast, lunch and supper for each day of the week and then multiplied that by seven weeks! And out came a rather big shopping list. I added an extra week of food just in case the flight out is delayed by bad weather or some food goes off or any other unforeseen eventuality.

I enlisted the help of my boyfriend Chris and his expedition ruck sack, we went shopping and staggered home with a huge amount of food. Most of what I bought was dried food - soups, rice, pasta, couscous, potato flakes and rice or noodle meals for supper, crackers, nuts, granola bars for lunch and hot oatmeal and cereal for breakfast.


Loading up the shopping trolley
with dehydrated food for seven weeks

I have also been busy dehydrating vegetables and fruits. The dehydrator has been humming most nights for the past two weeks. I started with simple, easy things like frozen peas and corn. Then I got hooked and became more adventurous. I've chopped and dried apples, bananas, mushrooms, onions and celery. I've even dried pasta sauce into leather strips and complete meals with veggies and tofu in sauces. Quite a Smörgåsbord of delectable delights!

Dehydrating pasta sauce leather

Dried apples, bananas, peas, corn, broccoli,
cauliflower, tuna and more........