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Gluten Free Antarctica
- stupidcar 8y agoOr, A Subarctically Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.
- idlewords 8y agoI would go again in a heartbeat.
- stupidcar 8y agoI was just making a dumb joke: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Supposedly_Fun_Thing_I'll_Never_Do_Again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Supposedly_Fun_Thing_I'll_...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- RyJones 8y agoMy sister works there six months of every year. She's been doing it for about a decade.
- bacon_waffle 8y agoFirst time's for the adventure, second time's for the money, third's when you don't fit in to society anymore...
- justtopost 8y agoI have heard just that before. Meme or not, there must be a large kernel of truth.
- TimTheTinker 8y agoI haven’t finished the piece yet, but it’s really well-written and fun to read. Thanks!
- empath75 8y agoThat was just delightful.
- Fomite 8y ago"The worst place to be hungry is probably at one of the Russian bases, either Vostok Station on the polar plateau (with its slowly dwindling pyramid of frozen potatoes), or Bellinghausen Station on King George Island. The Shokalsiky's crew remembers docking at Bellinghausen during a period of severe budget cuts in the 2000's. Forgotten by Moscow, the group of wild-eyed scientists who emerged blinking into the light had been living for months on a diet of canned peas and cabbage. The crew took pity, trading their stores with the beleaguered marine biologists, and then had to subsist on cabbage and peas themselves all the way back up to Vladivostok." I was a tourist in about 2002, at a Ukrainian station had been basically abandoned. We did indeed end up trading all manner of things for their station-made vodka which was...impressive stuff.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoOh? Was your ship low on fuel then?
- vyodaiken 8y agogreat
- Uhhrrr 8y ago"Why do the Russians never smile?" This is just a Russian thing. Sometimes if you're lucky you'll get a bit of eye crinkle.
- Baeocystin 8y agoI'd say Russians smile plenty- among trusted friends and family. If a stranger walks up to you smiling, it's pretty much universally seen as someone trying to pull a fast one on you at best. Speaking of Russians and smiling, I got to go the McDonald's in Red Square shortly after it opened. The culture clash of the Russian staff being told that they must smile to their customers made for some great people watching.
- idlewords 8y agoI've gotten good results explaining this to Americans with an analogy to hugging. Most everybody likes a hug, but you don't normally go around hugging strangers, salespeople, etc., let alone asking them to hug you back.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoI get a sort of cultural jetlag when I move between the UK, where I live and work, and then France, Italy and Greece (where I'm from). In the UK, shopspeople will smile at you by default. In Greece, Italy and France, people will only smile if they have a reason to smile, and showing that they appreciate your custom is not a reason to smile, I guess because it's taken for granted that you're welcome to spend your money at their store. So when I go back to the continent, I have to remind myself that, no, the fact that the lady that sold me that magazine or that sandwich etc. didn't beam back at me when I paid it doesn't mean she was being rude, or disapproving. She just didn't feel like smiling. It takes me a couple of times every time, to acclimate myself. The funny thing is that both Greeks and Italians will smile and laugh a lot... in the right circumstances (at the table, when you say a joke, when you actually strike a conversation, etc). They just don't see smiling as a necessary component of a service they are paid to provide.
- 8y ago
- jholman 8y agoGod, this is great. My personal favourite bit is "I am tempted to go full Slav on Conor....". If there are any would-be impresarios or producers out there, I propose the following format for an adaptation of this that would permit a wider audience: Audio is a word-for-word recital of the existing text (narrated by Maciej if he wants the job). Video should be simply micro-vignettes of the scenes described: the perplexed Russians (regarding gluten), the threatening Chief Mate, the unstoppable eating of Rodney, the scalded hands of Bill. I think it's got the possibility to be a cult classic.
- voltagex_ 8y agoAudio as a podcast would be just fine.
- samuli 8y agoIt is worth noting, that coeliac disease is a real thing, where gluten-free diet must be strictly adhered to. These kinds of dismissive articles, which treat gluten-free diets fads are extremely dangerous for those suffering the illness, since it makes the general public not to take it seriously.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoWhile I agree with you in principle, we are talking about journeying to a far-reaching corner of the earth here. Had we been talking about space travel, this woman would have immediately been barred from consideration to journey over a thousand other people who were equally qualified yet did not have such dietary restrictions. I don’t think we are at the point yet where travel to Antarctica and supplies are normalized enough that we should expect to be able to cater to these kind of restrictions.
- idlewords 8y agoI should hope that nobody reads this article as a denial of the reality of celiac disease. I think it is possible to acknowledge that gluten-free diets are a fad while understanding that to some people, they are a medical necessity.
- nickphx 8y agoThe article didn't read that way for me. I enjoyed the part where you tried to explain gluten to the crew, it reminded me of a scene from the movie "Everything is Illuminated", where the main character tries to explain he is vegetarian.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um2p4GlEbKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um2p4GlEbKg
- Niksko 8y agoThe people you should be criticising are the fad diet people. It is they that are bringing gluten intolerance into disrepute.
- maxsteam 8y ago
- wanderfowl 8y agoAs a vegetarian (by ethical choice, not medical necessity), I do my best not to lose sight of the simple fact that I'm the problem here. When I walk into a steakhouse with my carnivorous wife, they're helping me out by finding something to put in my stomach. If I'm on a camping trip, I'm bringing my own food, or doing my best to make it fair to folks who are helping me out. And if I'm visiting for dinner, I try to make it clear that I'm happy to scavenge sides, you don't need to do something special for me. Because, again, my self-made diet choices are not your problem, but mine. Celiac is real, folks who have it should be cut a break, and in my experience, folks who actually cannot eat gluten are just trying to make things work, rather than being a dick about it. But deeply screw people like this lady who make a voluntary diet choice who use it as an excuse to bully others and make people cater to them. They trivialize people's actual medical needs, breed a culture of "Yeah, sure lady, there's no gluten", work against whatever cause they're in favor of, and largely, they're why we can't have nice things.
- nradov 8y agoOne of my colleagues is a vegetarian. He went on a business trip to Texas and his associates took him out for dinner at a steak house. After reading the menu he asked the waitress, "Do you have anything that isn't meat?" She thought for a moment and cheerfully replied "We have chicken!"
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agolol she was right too!
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agonot sure why this was downvoted. i'm not native English speaker and would have assumed chicken is poultry not meat
- laktak 8y agoSee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dangero 8y agoI have Celiac disease. I try very hard to not be a burden to people, but in some cases I cannot avoid it. Sometimes I have to skip a meal like when a meeting includes box lunch of a sandwich. I’ve also learned about non-perishables I can store in my work bag for when I get into a pinch. It’s not that big a deal any more for me. Even skipping a meal completely is not something to care about. It’s one meal! I’ll live. Short fasts even have health benefits. People like this woman irritate me because I get automatically associated with her.
- Cogito 8y agoFor what it's worth, it seems this woman had specific dietary requirements, though it's not specified if it was celiac or something else. She herself was complaining about people who 'became' gluten free after getting on the ship, and that this meant she had less food available to her.
- Danieru 8y agoI imagine Celiacs refer to themselves as such, not "gluten free". Likewise a Celiac in desperation would complain about fad gluten free eaters without any respect to when they started fad following. I think it is clear the lady mentioned is taking issue not because she has a medical limitation, in which case the Russians have amble food to provide. Rather she is, as the writer further points out, under the belief that her digestive system functions better without gluten.
- frenchy 8y agoIn my experience, this is the case.
- TACIXAT 8y agoI usually just say gluten allergy because most restaurant staff don't know what celiac is. It's not accurate but it gets the point across.
- opless 8y agoA coeliac probably have given up bread years ago, and would not tolerate the possibility of cross contamination by having it toasted even if was available.
- Cogito 8y agoMaciej, thanks again for these stories; I never knew if you were going to circle back to lede and I really didn't care. Was a fantastic read. I should figure out how to get notified of all your updates, it's some of the most fun I've had reading, and reminds me a lot of Douglas Adams' "Last Chance to See".
- unicornporn 8y ago> I should figure out how to get notified of all your updates Get an RSS reader. http://idlewords.com/index.xml http://idlewords.com/index.xml works terrific!
- unicornporn 8y agoFor those that do not follow the RSS feed of this blog, this was just one of many posts batch uploaded or just updated yesterday. Here's the rest: http://idlewords.com/2017/02/social_media_needs_a_travel_mode.htm http://idlewords.com/2017/02/social_media_needs_a_travel_mod... http://idlewords.com/2017/09/anatomy_of_a_moral_panic.htm http://idlewords.com/2017/09/anatomy_of_a_moral_panic.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/10/portrait_of_a_campaign.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/10/portrait_of_a_campaign.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/10/the_great_slate.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/10/the_great_slate.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/11/politics_as_sport.htm http://idlewords.com/2018/11/politics_as_sport.htm
- adambyrtek 8y agoThese weren't posted yesterday, just the RSS feed for the blog had been throwing errors for a while, and seems like Maciej has fixed the bug recently.
- unicornporn 8y agoOh, I see. I recognized some of them from before and figured they had just been updated.
- ars 8y ago"but the brochure warns us they can’t accomodate kosher or vegan diners. (Keeping meat and milk separate in the tiny galley is impossible, and no one could endure five weeks at sea with a vegan.)" Interestingly DansDeals just recently organized a Kosher tour to Antarctica https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/trip-notes/join-lifetime-kosher-catered-trip-antarctica/ https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/trip-notes/join-life... and https://www.kosherantarctica.com/ https://www.kosherantarctica.com/
- Moru 8y agoI'm guessing the problem is to cater for more than one or two different diets on the same small ship. Some diets takes more space in storage and a separate kitchen.
- kortilla 8y ago>or how close East Antarctica had come to a major oil spill had the ship been crushed. Goofy question, but how does Antarctica have an East region? What’s it East of?
- pandaman 8y agoEast of Greenwich meridian.
- Pristina 8y agowhere the sun rises, that is east, mon ami
- ken 8y agoThat explains what the direction east is, from any given point. That doesn't explain what a region called "East Antarctica" might mean.
- bacon_waffle 8y agoExcept, of course, if that point is between the South Pole and the Antarctic Circle some days of the year.
- pjc50 8y agoRather less clear when the sun doesn't rise for months.
- Pristina 8y agoi read through that pretty effortlessly. the person writes pretty well.
- midgetjones 8y agoMaciej's writing was always fantastic, but this story in particular was so well-written that I'm very excited for the next one. Also, if you're reading this Maciej, there's a typo: indedidble.
- nathanvanfleet 8y agoKind of non plussed by this fiction. What is the point of trivializing a specific diet? Even if you don't have a doctor's note it's not really anyones problem that you're eating gluten free; except of course maybe if you create some entirely artificial situation in your fiction writing. I think this kind of thinking has generated a lot of people pushing back at me when they should just not care.
- mattkrause 8y agoI think the point is to trivialize an adult having a meltdown over receiving one piece of toast, rather than two....
- angryjim 8y agoBe a Man. Or even better, be a tough Russian. Toughen up, right? That’s the message subtext here. As someone who has been diagnosed with Celiac and who has a Celiac child I find this dismissive additude OFFENSIVE. I don’t know anything about Russian or Asian Celiac rates of occurance, but I bet they aren’t that much different than the US. The only difference being awareness and diagnosis.
- Kenji 8y ago“Then let her eat potatoes. Let her eat corn. Or let them all stay home and eat whatever the fuck they want.” Hahaha I like the Russians. This is so no-bullshit down to earth.
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago"The best place to eat in Antarctica is probably Zuchelli, the Italian research station in Terra Nova Bay" Ah, at least for a moment I felt proud to be Italian :)