The Astronaut's Cookbook

Book excerpt: Astronauts, cosmonauts, and a very limited number of people have experienced eating space food due to the unique processing and packaging required for space travel. This book allows anyone with a normal kitchen to prepare space food. Since some of the processing such as freeze dehydration, and packaging cannot be accomplished in the normal kitchen, many of the recipes will not produce the food that would be launched in space, but will prepare food similar to what the astronauts would eat after they had added the water to the food in space. Many of the space foods are prepared to the point of ready to eat, and then frozen and freeze dried. Food preparation in this book stops at the point of ready to eat before the freezing and dehydrating takes place. Recipes in this book are extracted from the NASA food specifications and modified for preparation in a normal kitchen. The book will contain the following chapters: Introduction, Appetizers, Beverages, Bread and Tortillas, Cookies, Sandwiches, Desserts, Main Dishes, Soups and Salads, Vegetables, and Future Space Foods. Interesting tidbits of space food history will be spread throughout the book. Examples like; did NASA invent Tang?, who was the first person to eat in space?, the Gemini sandwich fiasco, why there is no alcohol in U.S. space food systems, astronauts favorite food, etc.