They were right: undercooked seal and penguin meat is a rich source of vitamin C. The problem was the taste. One polar explorer described the flavor of penguin as a mélange of “beef, an odoriferous cod fish and a canvas-backed duck, roasted in a pot, with blood and cod-liver oil mutton and Yorkshire pudding. Jack diplomatically claimed it tasted like steak.


From the book

THE LOST MEN OF Shackleton expedition

Funny you should mention penguins.

A small flock flew over my house just last evening. They usually don't come this far south.

Hip

Interesting, since penguins don't fly and live in the Southern Hemisphere.

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
Interesting, since penguins don't fly and live in the Southern Hemisphere.

They do.

When you have imbibed more than you should!

Rare seal meat.

From the same book.


With next to no coal and just twenty gallons of kerosene for heat and cooking, fuel was the most urgent concern.

Food was more plentiful, as Stenhouse had dropped off enough to last two months. Supplies left by Scott’s expeditions would last another two months. Though the bulk of the food was over a decade old, some of it was still edible. A seal colony near the hut promised a regular supply of fresh meat and blubber.

Leaving the invalids at the hut, the strongest men—Mackintosh, Jack, and Hayward—began hunting soon after their arrival. The passive Weddell seals put up little resistance. Fast and agile underwater, they were clumsy on land.

The hunter would stun the slow-moving animal with a blow to the nose, then swiftly draw a blade across the throat. It was a gruesome task. “It really is murder killing these innocent harmless brutes who roll their eyes and start with fright when they see you,” Mackintosh lamented. “At first I detested the job, especially when the seals looked beseechingly at one with their large eyes, but after starving in the tent I am afraid the tender instincts, if any, in us vanish.”


However odious the butchery, seal meat was the best medicine for their wasted bodies. After living on the limited sledging diet since January, all of the men were malnourished. Joyce’s insistence on serving the meat bloody rare ensured that the nutrients were not cooked away in the pan. The flavor was another matter. “Believe the taste is an acquired one,” wrote Jack. “Sincerely do I hope so.”


The motley assortment of leftover provisions added variety: flour, sheep’s tongues, corned beef, porridge, bottled fruit, canned salmon, sardines, dried onions, and beans. As they chipped away at the ice around the hut, odd luxuries including a leg of mutton and a Christmas pudding surfaced. Tobacco, to universal disappointment, was in short supply. Mackintosh mandated only two meals each day to conserve the stockpile, with Joyce’s specialty, scones fried in blubber, served in between.

With this regimen, the invalids slowly convalesced, though in Joyce’s words, “It was a couple of weeks before our faces straightened out again.” During their waking hours, the shuttered gloom of the hut limited activities inside.