There is nothing to eat on Mars,
unless you eat rock.
How will the conditions on Mars affect the menu? To augment government and private space programs, The Menu for Mars Supper Club researches and taste-tests a menu for dinner tables en route to, and on, the Red Planet.
The Menu for Mars Supper Club meets at a different restaurant in NYC on the first Thursday of each month. In an approach similar to Mars analog efforts, our mission is to eat and survey these restaurants; gathering recommendations, suggestions and opinions from restaurateurs about what food they would prepare on Mars. Each dinner we are joined by an expert who has insight into related fields, such as horticulture, space nutrition and culinary anthropology, for discussion on the wide-ranging implications of dining on Mars. The supper club’s collected and summarized dinner findings will be made available to NASA, the Chinese Space Program, the India Mars Mission, the Mars One endeavor, and other people engaged in planning Mars colonization.
At the end of the series in the spring of 2015, we will celebrate with a cook-off. In the Flux kitchen, guest chefs will cook meals suitable for Mars for a panel of outer space professionals.
The Menu for Mars Supper Club is an ‘Educational Program’ of Flux Factory, a non-profit artist space in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and is co-organized by Heidi Neilson and Douglas Paulson.
MISSIONS-TO-DATE:
Mission #1 – Aanchal Indian food, Food in Space Overview, Heidi Neilson – May 30th, 2014
Mission #2 – Vegetarian Dim Sum House, Fungus and Insects in Space, Gil Lopez – June 5, 2014
Mission #3 – Central Park, Meal Replacement Picnic – June 7, 2014
Mission #4 – Van Brunt Stillhouse, Martian Moonshine, Distillery Experts – August 21, 2014
Mission #5 – Uncle Vanya Cafe, The Taste of the Moon and Mars, Arlin Crotts – September 16, 2014
Mission #6 – Awash, Cooking on Mars, Jana Grcevich – October 22, 2014
Mission #7 – Mana, Farm to Table, Ann Nunziata – January 18, 2015
Mission #8 – Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Compost, Mimi Jorling – February 21, 2015