There’s No Taste Like Home

21.08.2023 - 11:45 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty

On Saturday, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer shared a taste of home with the rest of the crew of the International Space Station (ISS). Maurer is from Saarland, a forested, southwestern German state. Saarland is named after the Saar River, a tributary of the Moselle, and Saarland is considered part of the greater Moselle wine region.

In Germany and other parts of Europe, 6th December is widely celebrated as St Nikolaus Day. Maurer chose to mark the day by sharing two two-course Sarrland menus.

The first menu was Geheirade (flour dumplings and boiled potatoes in sauce), followed by Rostige Ritter (French toast) for dessert, and was created by a celebrity chef. The second menu won an online vote organised by the Saarland Tourist Board. That one is cream of potato soup and venison stew with creamed wild mustard and hoorische a type of potato dumpling.

“We ate all four cans per person for dinner. Everyone indulged fully in the culinary highlights of my home region. I also invited them to Saarland to try out more dishes. I hadn’t actually tried the space-versions of these dishes either because I wanted to have the full surprise in orbit, and I have to admit the chefs did a great job! The potato soup was a bit less liquid than on the ground but that was on purpose to avoid spilling the soup out of the can in 0 g. The Geheirade and the Rostige Ritter tasted as I remember them. The potato soup and venison were new to me, but I look forward to trying the originals at Taverne Roemische Villa Borg when I return to Earth.”

Maurer’s tweet mentions there’s something unusual about the spoons. They’ve been made from stainless steel and copper, and are part of an investigation into the antimicrobial properties of laser-structured surfaces.