In space, eating can be a tricky endeavor - or rather, food preparation can be because astronauts can't take advantage of the two main things we take for granted in food preparation on earth: gravity and fresh foods. Gravity keeps batters in mixing bowls, eggs in frying pans and sandwiches on the cutting board while you assemble them. It also keeps spilled food together, even if it lands on the floor. This last fact, probably underappreciated by clumsy chefs, is key in space. Food is packaged in tubes and single-serving bags because if it gets away from the astronaut, it could end up going in a million different directions.
Astronauts on the international space station recently had to face such an incident when Sunita Williams spilled a tube of wasabi while "trying to make a pretend sushi meal with bag-packaged salmon." While not toxic, wasabi isn't a completely nonvolatile substance and it took a week to clean it up ("it was flying around everywhere," said Williams) and get rid of the smell.
Needless to say, the wasabi tube - or what is left of it - has been put into storage.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-06-2007 @ 2:46PM
wynk said...
They should use wasabi paste instead. It comes in a similar tube but it's not liquidy, so "spilling" it would mean having to grab one little ball rather than a bunch of weightless liquidy substance.
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3-06-2007 @ 8:27PM
Steve said...
Wasabi floating around the space station... hmmm... Would that be like Klingon blood floating around the Enterprise?
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