Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner:
Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents’ Thanksgiving dinner table.
Most everything on your plate has undergone tremendous genetic change under the intense selective pressures of industrial farming. Pilgrims and American Indians ate foods called corn and turkey, but the actual organisms they consumed didn’t look or taste much at all like our modern variants do.
A History of Thanksgiving in Space
The U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving may be a longstanding tradition that dates back to 1621 on Earth, but it’s a relatively recent phenomenon in void of space.
Astronauts share freeze-dried Thanksgiving feast
It is somewhat unusual for shuttle and station crews to eat a meal together, given their different schedules and various chores. The crew members will take several precautions for the meal — keeping fire extinguishers and gas masks in the dining area, for instance.
“So, if anything happens when they’re all sitting in one place, you don’t have to run in all the wrong directions to grab all the equipment you need,” said flight director Holly Ridings.
Thanksgiving in space: stiff turkey, bland yams
A week before Thanksgiving, NASA gave reporters a taste-test of the astronauts’ holiday dinner. The smoked turkey was slightly stiffer than deli meat, like after it has been left in the refrigerator a week past its expiration date. The candied yams had a syrupy sweetness outside that dissolved into blandness in the middle. The green beans with mushrooms tasted like they have been frozen and then microwaved to an inch of their life.
The saving grace was a sublime cranapple dessert. There was a tartness to the apples and sweetness to the cranberries mixed with pecans and syrup in a dish that resembles cobbler filling.
NASA takes special pride in desserts.
“All our desserts are wonderful,” Perchonok said.
