Tidbits from the Culinary World (and Beyond)
Alain Ducasse to Cater Space Shuttle
If you’re not into quail stuffed with Madiran wine, or red tuna with candied Menton lemon, don’t fly NASA’s Space Shuttle. No longer do astronauts get fun food like powdered Tang or fruit compotes and other bland mixes squeezed out of aluminum tubes. Now they’re being forced to have their nutritional needs met by such dishes as "Riviera-style swordfish" or a confit of breast of duck with capers.
In a move sure to enrage traditional outer space menu planners, Alain Ducasse (the French chef and his restaurants currently have 10 Michelin stars) is one of the chefs that have been entrusted to feed NASA astronauts.
The astronauts’ menus will be rounded out with side dishes including sand carrots with a hint of orange and coriander and a light puree of celery with a hint of nutmeg. For dessert, Ducasse came up with semolina cake with dried apricots, apple fondant pieces, rice pudding with candied fruit and a "space" version of a cake called far, which originates in France's western region of Brittany.
And as with Ducasses’ other restaurants, dining reservations on the Shuttle Missions are almost impossible to get.
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