Celebrating Thanksgiving at McMurdo
Even though we are about 9,000 miles away, there is still evidence of the Thanksgiving spirit here at McMurdo Station.
Colored drawings of turkeys add Thanksgiving spirit to Crary Lab.
A sign gives information about the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, a 5 kilometer run to Scott Base and back.
Although the official Thanksgiving dinner is Thursday, November 24th this year, we won't celebrate until Saturday. This allows researchers out in the field and other work staff to be able to participate.
The dinner menu for November 24th does not show signs of a Thanksgiving meal, since our Thanksgiving meal is on Saturday.
Thanksgiving Preparation!
Even though our Thanksgiving is 2 days away, the preparations for a Thanksgiving meal have already started in the cafeteria. The planning for the meal started two weeks ago and food preparation started on Tuesday.
There are around 1100 people at McMurdo Station, which means the cafeteria needs to be able to cook for a lot of people! Thanksgiving dinner will be broken up into three meal times. My research group and I signed up for the 3:00 p.m. dinner. A chart in the kitchen showed that around 230 people will be eating at 3:00 p.m., 350 people at 5 p.m. and 350 more people at 7 p.m. Over 100 people asked for a "take out" meal, and another 100 people will eat at a later time. That's a lot of food! Just from walking through the kitchen, I can tell we are going to have a great meal!
A volunteer cuts celery to prepare for the Thanksgiving feast.
Prep cook Julie Howell prepares couscous for dinner.
Casey Mourlam prepares pumpkins for a pumpkin salad as part of the Thanksgiving preparations.
Tessa Hulls is not only a cook but also an artist here in Antarctica. Here she prepares cheeses for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Preparation Facts
I spoke with the executive chef, Douglas Beard, and he shared some interesting facts about the Thanksgiving preparations.
Executive chef Douglas Beard shows Michelle Brown the kitchen to get a sense of Thanksgiving preparations.
The following amounts of food will be served on Saturday:
- 660 pounds of turkey
- 450 pounds of ham
- 700 pounds of potatoes
- around 30 gallons of gravy
- 54 pumpkin pies
- 46 caramel macadamia tarts
The Bakery
Douglas Sammon, the head baker at McMurdo Station, took me around the bakery section of the kitchen for a preview of the Thanksgiving and everyday treats to look forward to.
Head baker Douglas Sammon shows Michelle Brown the bakery and his caramel macadamia tart. Him and his team made 46 of them for Thanksgiving!
The bakery goes through 1200 lbs of bread flour every week to prepare fresh breads.
Doug showed me around the bakery. Here's a short video showing it:
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Questions
Why do you think the cafeteria took 2 weeks to plan the Thanksgiving meal and 5 days to prepare the food? What is different about the Thanksgiving meal at McMurdo station versus a family's meal in the U.S.?
Look at the picture of Doug Beard and me. What evidence of safety and food health do you notice?
Math Connection
Using the information in the journal about how many people are scheduled to have a Thanksgiving dinner and the facts about the preparation, how many pounds of turkey are there for each person? Pounds of ham?
If the bakers worked for 6 hours to bake 72 loaves bread (hypothetically--I'm not sure how long it takes them), how many loaves of break do they produce every hour?
If the bakers go through 1200 pounds of flour for bread every 7 days, and they bake 72 loaves of break each day, how many pounds of flour are in each loaf of bread?
Goofy Video of the Day
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