“Seal liver and onion for dinner”: the role of food in preserving the peace on some early Antarctic expeditions

Abstract

Food, water, clothing, shelter and warmth are basic human needs. In any culture, food and its lore play a vital role in maintaining the unity of communities, preserving traditions and marking significant occasions. On polar expeditions of the 1800s to mid-1900s, the act of dining together was crucial to social harmony. In taxing conditions, isolated groups of expeditioners with little or no privacy shared limited space, separated from friends and family, and while enduring a hostile climate. Their experience of any of the domestic arts was often limited or completely lacking. The paper explores the nature of food on Antarctic expeditions, and its role as a social bond and preserver of the peace. It looks especially at two recently published journals, those of Frank Stillwell (1912 AAE, Commonwealth Bay) and John Béchervaise (1953 ANARE, Heard Island), and makes some comparisons between Antarctic and Arctic foods.

Keywords:

• Antarctic history
• Arctic history
• food
• diaries
• Australasian Antarctic Expedition
• ANARE
• Stillwell
• Béchervaise

Acknowledgements

Research and writing for this paper was done while I was a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National Dictionary Centre, Australian National University. I sincerely thank the directors and all members of the centre for their support, and thank also two anonymous referees whose comments led to major improvements to the paper.

Notes

¹ The party leader was Douglas Mawson, its radio operator Walter Hannam.

² Information on the magnetic interference from Andrew Atkin (the University of Technology Sydney, pers comm, SCAR humanities and social sciences meeting, Cambridge, 1 July 2013); and David Walton (formerly British Antarctic Survey, pers comm, SCAR humanities and social sciences meeting, Cambridge, July 2013).

³ Jason Anthony, Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2012), xiii.

⁴ “Shackleton & I were packing sledges ready for a start”, wrote Wild, “when he suddenly stuck his one & only biscuit in my pocket. My expostulations were in vain; he said ‘Your need is greater than mine’ & threatened if I did not keep it he would bury it in the snow. All the money that was ever minted would not have bought that biscuit, & the remembrance of that sacrifice will never leave me” (Wild Memoirs Sydney: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, 1937, 92).

⁵ Anthony, Hoosh, 2012, xiii.

⁶ Feeney, Polar Journeys: the Role of Food and Nutrition in Early Exploration, (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press 1997), 1.

⁷ Tröhler, “James Lind and Scurvy,” James Lind Library Bulletin (2003), unpaginated.

⁸ Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization#History (accessed December 6, 2013).

⁹ The list of deficiencies in knowledge, and the necessary requirements for polar food, come from Robert Feeney, Polar Journeys, 1997, 3.

¹⁰ E.W. Kevin Walton, The Polar Explorer (London: Educational Supply Association, 1960), 48.

¹¹ Bernadette Hince, Unique and Unspoilt: A Year Among the Natural Wonders of Heard Island (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2011); and Still No Mawson: Frank Stillwell’s Antarctic Diaries 2012.

¹² Hince, Still No Mawson, 2012, 21; and Heather Rossiter, Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer (Sydney: Random House, 2001), 160.

¹³ National Archives of Australia MP1049/5/0 1870/2/8, 1947); A5799 memo from John W. Burton, Secretary, Department of External Affairs, to Secretary, Department of Defence, 27 March 1947; letter from the Secretary, Department of External Affairs to the Secretary, Department of the Navy, MP1049/5/0 1870/2/8, 8 January 1948; and Commonwealth Relations Office “Administration of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands” 1951, 275–6.

¹⁴ Leif Mills, Polar Friction: the Relationship between Marshall and Shackleton (Polar Publishing), undated and unpaginated.

¹⁵ Béchervaise diary, 25 July 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 110.

¹⁶ Stillwell diary, 20 September 1912, in Hince, Still No Mawson, 2012, 146.

¹⁷ Kumar and Duong, “Surviving on the Edge,” Issues (2012), p. 25.

¹⁸ As Guly, “Medical Comforts during the Heroic Age,” Polar Record (2013), 115, suggests.

¹⁹ Mawson, Home of the Blizzard (London: Heinemann, 1915), 184.

²⁰ When the men celebrated Empire Day (on 24 May), Mawson wrote: “We did not forget Empire Day and duly ‘spliced the main-brace’. The most bigoted teetotaller could not call us an intemperate party. On each Saturday night, one drink per man was served out, the popular toast being “Sweethearts and Wives”. The only other convivial meetings of our small symposium were on the birthdays of each member, Midwinter’s Day and King’s Birthday”. (Mawson, Home of the Blizzard (Kent Town [SA]: Wakefield Press 2010 facsimile), 273).

²¹ Stillwell diary, 25 July 1912, in Hince Still No Mawson 2012, p. 115.

²² Isabella Beeton, Mrs Beeton’s Family Cookery (London: Ward, Lock, undated), 304.

²³ 1950 diary of J. [Jean] Sapin-Jaloustre, among the papers of Jack Ward now in the possession of his nephew David Ward, Bowral NSW.

²⁴ Murray and Marston, Antarctic Days (London: Andrew Melrose, 1913), 88.

²⁵ Hut-dwellers use about 2750 calories (11,550 kJ) a day, men travelling by dog-sledge about 5000 calories (21,000 kJ) http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/food.htm (accessed November 20, 2013).

²⁶ Feeney, Polar Journeys, 1997, 5.

²⁷ Elspeth Huxley, Scott of the Antarctic (USA: Bison Books 1977), 93.

²⁸ Béchervaise diary 6 December 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 168.

²⁹ The Laurens Peninsula, the moraines of the Spit and the ice-free slopes and cliffs above Long Beach (Downes et al., “The birds of Heard Island,” ANARE Reports, 1959, 7).

³⁰ Béchervaise diary 30 May 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 83.

³¹ “If we do not reach the summit, some of us will leave Heard Island reluctantly”, wrote Béchervaise on Thursday 2 July 1953 (Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 103).

³² Béchervaise diary 10 April 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 63–4.

³³ Béchervaise diary 17 November 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 157.

³⁴ Walton, The Polar Explorer, 1960, 47.

³⁵ Gordon Hellsten, “The Coldest Place on Earth,” Aurora 32, no. 2 (2012), 4.

³⁶ Munk in Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Not by Bread Alone (New York: Macmillan 1946), 155.

³⁷ Feeney, Polar Journeys, 1997, throughout.

³⁸ Fries-Gaither “Plants of the Arctic and Antarctic,” 2009, online.

³⁹ Baty, Fifteen Thousand Miles in a Ketch (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1912), 111.

⁴⁰ Scholes, Fourteen Men (Melbourne: FW Cheshire, 1949), 101.

⁴¹ Peary, Secrets of Polar Travel (New York: Century Company, 1917), 58.

⁴² Hince, Still No Mawson, 2012, 43.

⁴³ Stillwell diary, 30 November 1912, in Hince, Still No Mawson, 2012, 186.

⁴⁴ Stillwell diary, 30 November 1912, in Hince, Still No Mawson, 2012, 186.

⁴⁵ Atlas Cove station log, 15 November 1953, in Hince, 2011, 155.

⁴⁶ From Rogers Head; Atlas Cove station log 16 November 1953, in Hince, 2011, 157.

⁴⁷ Australasian Post, 31 May 1956, 8.

⁴⁸ Australasian Post, 31 May 1956, 8.

⁴⁹ Béchervaise diary, 24 May 1953, in Hince, Unique and Unspoilt, 2011, 80.