350 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



for survey work, I felt that we could now take a little more 

 time and return to day-sledging. We cut out breakfast and 

 kept comfortably to our bags all the morning, having lunch at 

 1.30. Our last meal had been lunch also! Gran caused 

 some amusement by demanding two cakes of chocolate, as 

 due from the missed meal. 



Cooking was a great responsibility, and one that I was 

 never anxious to undertake. Still, even an indifferent cook 

 like myself could not go far wrong with such simple foods 

 as we had at our disposal. Debenham " had a light hand 

 with the pastry," as I have recorded previously, and I used to 

 watch his methods closely. The only " variable factor " 

 was the " thickers " in the hoosh. This ingredient varied a 

 little, from peaflour to wheatmeal or crushed biscuit : but 

 the pemmican was (like the butter at Cambridge) cut to 

 measure ! The cook would take out the greasy lumps from 

 the weekly bag and loosely fill an aluminium mug with them. 

 Then he would drop this measure in among the ice and half- 

 melted snow in the cooker and leave it there to boil. Ap- 

 parently the chief art with the thicker consisted in mixing it 

 to a smooth paste first with a little water — laboriously ladled 

 out of the outer cooker — and then pour it into the " hoosh " 

 just as the mixture boiled up. 



It was good stuff! It had a rich taste, especially when 

 solid with ground biscuit after Gran's famous recipe. Months 

 later, when tasting a rich Melton Mowbray pie, a memory of 

 the Antarctic rose before me. There were the four of us ; 

 Forde phlegmatically breaking biscuit into his pot ; Deben- 

 ham blowing lustily into his, and finally spoiling it by cooling 

 it in the snow-floor ; Gran swallowing it piping hot so that 

 tears came to his eyes, and he fairly wriggled on his sleeping- 

 bag ; and lastly, the anxious cook not daring to taste his, but 

 manipulating pots and spoons in the effort to produce steam- 

 ing cocoa before all the " hoosh " was finished. 



I started sledging an ardent cocoa-drinker, but soon 

 realized that there was much to be said for tea at midday. 

 We had a belief that it refreshed one quicker than cocoa, and 

 so we used to have it at breakfast also quite frequently. 

 Upon this journey we did not bring cheese, and I certainly 

 never missed it after the superfluity in the hut. Raisins were 

 allotted to us, but I think " stoned dates " would have been 



