What do you eat in Antarctica? Many years ago I was lucky enough to visit Antarctica with YPT. Should all things come to pass we will be going back there in 2022.
You can read about our Antarctica Tour here.
But what is the food like when you do an Antarctic cruise, is there food in Antarctica? What do the people that live there eat?
All of that and more in our ultimate eat in Antarctica guide!
First stop Buenos Aires
At some point you have to get to Ushuaia in Argentina, usually this means hitting up the Argentinian capital first. I remember my ca driver decrying that his country was so “shit”. All it had he said was good women, steak, football, wine and cocaine. I remember telling him it wasn’t a bad start.
I was only to sample the wine and beef, both of which were extremely good.
Eating in Ushuaia
Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. There is one other settlement in Chile that is more southern, but is a town, not a city. Ushuaia has some nice guest houses and not one, but two Irish bars (neither sold Guinness).
In actual fact it is rather a depressing place, particularly when you factor in this is “summer”. For the 6 moths a year it is stick in darkness I cannot even imagine what it would be like to live here.
Theres decent food here, but the dynamics of such as cold place mean theres no real street food Ushuaia scene. Well at least I did not find any. Am I wrong? Please feel free to correct me!
Taking a ship to Antarctica
If you visit Antarctica, unless you are part of a base you are likely to come here on a ship, for all intents that means a cruise ship. Therefore quality of food can depend very much on who you go with. There are luxury liners that literally costs tens of thousands of dollars and are more about the cruise than the destination.
We personally went on Oceanwide on an old Russian scientific ice-breaker. The food was very good, freshly cooked and different every day. Sadly we were never really served anything “local”, not even fish.
What do the people in the bases eat?
We stopped at a British post office in Anorectica. The guys here spend 6 months of the year here and get supplies dropped in. They essentially live mostly on tinned foods. There’ no real local food unless you hunt.
Can you eat penguins?
I’m not saying whether you SHOULD eat pengins, but according to the friends I know who have lived in Antarctica, you can and you do. How does pengione taste? Half way between chicken and fish, or at least so I am told.
Street food Antarctica?
Sadly and much as you’d expect this is not really a thing, although you can camp out, fish and indeed have a BBQ.
To read about causing in Greenland click here
And they got ice
One day we met up in the bar to see a huge piece of ice. Said ice was allegedly thousands of years old it had broken off a berg and was now in the bar!
We used it for drinking water and of course the holy grail, we made cocktails with it. I have honestly never had water, or rather ice that tasted so damed good! Alas though that was to be the height of the Antarctica street food scene.
So to summarize you certainly won’t go hungry when you visit Antarctica, but do not underestimate just how remote and off the beaten track it is.
Antarctica truly is other worldly.
