Working as a freelance chef I come into contact with
many aspects of the catering industry. Some jobs can be
difficult and stressful, some easy and delightful.
There is also the bog standard, the interesting, and
what might be deemed the glamorous. Sometimes I do what
is called ‘food styling’ which is a rather
pretentious term for presenting food for photography or
film. This can be a very frustrating job; you work all
day or maybe several producing food for a scene and
eventually it is on the screen for a nanosecond or is
cut altogether. After filming it is usually eaten by
the crew who would eat a lump of coal if it had a sprig
of parsley on it.
But I knew when I got a call from Mark Ball of Keo
films with a request to pick my brains it was not going
to be boring. He asked me if I knew anything about
‘pemmican’. I had heard of it but that was
about all. Pemmican, I learned is an iron ration made
from dried pounded meat, rendered fat and dried fruits
- mmmmm. It was invented by the Cree tribe of native
Americans and has since been used by explorers in many
variations. Kilo for kilo it is a very high calorie
food that keeps indefinitely and travels well.
Keo films were planning a re-creation of Scott and
Amundsen’s race to the South Pole in 1912. For
ecological reasons it would be filmed in Greenland.
Apart from not risking anybody’s life and limb,
(literally in the case of frostbite) it would be filmed
as authentically as possible. Therefore the food they
would be taking was to be as close to the original as
possible.
Very often what is lost in history is the everyday
detail. Mostly the things people write in diaries are
the important and interesting events. They may think to
record what they had for breakfast but not what each
item contained. I carried out research both in books
and on the Internet, and although there were countless
references to pemmican and its various ingredients
nowhere could I find a satisfactory recipe with
quantities. Amundsen had experimented a lot with this
food, and had even set up a factory to experiment with
other ingredients knowing that the original lacked some
nutrients and, crucially, roughage. Bearing in mind
this was before any vitamins had been identified there
was still a lot of guesswork involved. There were
tantalising references to adding dried vegetables and
oatmeal but no quantities.
The main ingredient of dried meat, referred to as
‘biltong’ or ‘beef jerky’ I
discovered was made at a factory not far from me at
Newhaven. The other ingredients I needed to make some
samples could be bought from supermarkets. The ratio of
fat to meat was a staggering 60% fat to 40% meat. I
made two samples, the original containing just dried
beef, beef dripping, dried fruit and honey, and what I
called Amundsen’s recipe with added oatmeal and
some chick pea flour. Mark came down to try them out.
They were not pleasant, a bit like fatty sweet corned
beef or a pate gone horribly wrong. Often the explorers
had used it to make soup by boiling it up with added
water. This was a bit more appetising and not as
noticeably greasy as one might imagine. With the
oatmeal and chick pea flour in the Amundsen version it
also thickened nicel
Huntley and Palmer who had supplied Scott with biscuits
for the original expedition, and who still had the
original recipe in their archives were making them
again for the filming. There was information that they
had been crumbled into this soup to thicken it. We
tried this as well and I have to say it wasn’t
haute cuisine but it wasn’t too bad either. Mark
took the rest of the samples back to Keo film’s
head office. He rang me a couple of days later to ask
me if I would make the quantity of pemmican required
for the expedition. I agreed.
There were sixteen men on the original Scott team
and five on Amundsens, but for the purposes of this
film Scott’s team was reduced to eight. This was
still thirteen men on a sixteen-week shoot using
pemmican as their staple diet. This worked out at 675
kilos of the stuff. It was now clear that logistically
this was a major job for me. No poncy torn basil
leaves, scallop carpacchio or wilted rocket leaves this
was 335 x 2kg boxes of solid dripping, beef and fruit.
One learns a lot by default on these sorts of projects.
Before this I knew precious little about polar
exploration or the effects frostbite. Originally
Amundsen had intended to conquer the North Pole, but an
American explorer, Robert E Pearcy beat him to it so
Amundsen switched his attention to the South Pole,
creating a ‘race’ with Scott. As we know
Amundsen got there first and returned. Scott reached
his destination a month later and died trying to get
back, but was still hailed as a national hero. Food was
a major factor in their failure. They had scurvy and
not enough calories per man to keep
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up their strength in this hostile environment. Scott
tried to use ponies for hauling their equipment, an
animal totally unsuited to polar expedition. When food
became short on the Amundsen team they simply killed a
dog and ate it unaware that they were also
supplementing their diet with vitamin C as dogs
synthesize their own. Scott and his team would never
have considered eating dog – how British is that?
– I’d choose a husky cutlet over death any
day. Also, even at the point the Scott team knew they
were unlikely to get back alive, they were still trying
to carry 20 kg of geological samples.
My first job was to get the ingredients: 165 kg of
biltong, 280 kg of beef dripping, 50 kg of oatmeal and
chick pea flour and 125 kg of mixed dried fruit. I also
had to find 350 ice cream containers. Biltong comes in
60 cm lengths and has a texture somewhere between wood
and leather. As it had to be shredded first I soon
realised my little food processor would not be up to
the job. An industrial food processor would cost in the
region of £2000, so that was out of the question. After
a bit of lateral thinking I went down to my local
‘Focus’ and bought a garden shredder for
£70. I laid out a large sheet of plastic in the kitchen
and set to work. Two days later and suffering temporary
tinnitus, I had shredded the beef. I worked out the
quantities to make the stuff in 10 kg batches and made
a start. It felt a bit like one of those
children’s stories where the hero is given some
impossible task if he wants to marry the princess. I
was beginning to think I had bitten off more dried beef
than I could chew.
Day three of weighing, melting, mixing, ladling and
labelling and I had a stock of 70 containers – a
fifth of the quantity required. Day four the telephone
rang and Mark told me to put everything on hold. During
the preparations to fly all the equipment out to
Greenland, Customs had asked for more details about the
food ration. It then transpired that any beef product
from Britain was still under stringent rules and this
stuff didn’t comply. So all the pemmican I had
made and all the beef dripping and shredded biltong I
had left was now useless. Not only did I have the task
of disposing of it, there was the daunting prospect of
having to start all over again with something other
than beef. They asked me if I had any ideas. The only
other dried meat product I could think of was Parma ham
but out of the question owing to cost. How about salami
and a hard vegetable fat like Cookeen I suggested.
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Within a week I had taken delivery of a further 280 kg
of palm oil margarine and over 100 sticks of Milano
salami. My little factory was up and running again.
Nine days later I glued the last label on to the last
container, disposed of the unwanted ingredients,
(legally I hasten to add) and prepared to have a few
days off.
The pemmican was shipped off to Greenland without a
hitch from customs and the trek and the filming
started. I have to say I felt a twinge of sympathy for
the participants with their unvaried diet and thought
that after this they would never want to see a slice of
salami for the rest of their lives
Unlike some jobs when one actually go on the shoot
itself, I wasn’t invited. My task was done. Just
as well - I’m not a cold weather person. In fact
I’m sitting writing this looking out over the
garden as spring brings it to life. I’m going
outside now. And I may be some time.