The Luxury of Fresh Food

We had come to the Novo runway to see off one of our wintering members on 1st Nov when the ALCI people sprang a pleasant surprise on us. They informed us that there was some cargo for us that had come with the first flight from Cape Town. To our delight we discovered that the cargo consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables, something we have been starved of for the last 8 months. We were fed up of eating the tasteless frozen food that is already one year old. We used to eat just to survive. This was a bonanza for us.

On our return to the station, we opened the boxes to find carrots, green apples, oranges twice the sized we get in India, lemons 4 times the normal size, green chillies, coriander leaves, onions and broccoli. All the expedition members had gathered around the boxes and were already drooling at the sight. Some of us even photographed the eatables, some even going to the extent of posing with the booty. We were told that the cost of importing these eatables was 10 times the actual cost of each item. That made it all the more precious.

Later on the eatables were distributed among the team members. Each on of us got 2 apples, one carrot, one huge onion and one huge lemon. The rest of the stuff was handed over to Narayan Singh, our cook. One can never think of such excitement at the sight of a humble, commonplace vegetable like an onion as was seen here. We had a gala time at dinner. There was a lot of salad around. Onion and carrot salad with lemon, green chillies and salt and pepper- that was my dinner and the stuff had never tasted better. But it left me with an upset tummy probably because I am no longer accustomed to eating anything fresh or maybe it was the effect of an excess of green chillies. The taste of the fruits and the vegetables still lingers in my mouth as I write this.

This was the first instalment of the goodies we expect in the coming days.