(Cook had spent time with the Inuit during a previous harrowing Arctic journey and observed that they survived the winter on meat and blubber, often raw.) Cook preferred his penguin steaks lightly seared, but recommended everyone eat them rare if possible. He convinces the Belgica boys to give penguin another try, along with seal meat. The ship’s first mate, Roald Amundsen, was getting especially sick.Ĭook recognizes their symptoms as scurvy, and without fresh fruit, vegetables, or meat, they could die of it. Their heartbeats were speeding up and slowing down, some had droopy bags of liquid gathering under their eyes, lethargy was rampant. Until, that is, a few weeks go by, and the men’s health begins to deteriorate. The first time they cooked up a slab of penguin meat, the only game in town (the town = huge glaciers of ice and nothing else), “it tasted somehow like both fish and fowl, with a gamey tang.” They decided never to eat it again. All they had to look forward to, for six sunless months, was dinner.
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