Talented Jewish chef Heston Blumenthal made a new type of meat sandwich and sent it into space! Are you curious what was so special about this sandwich? All food prepared to be eaten is space has a special form – it is mostly powder and liquids, so that was the first time in the history when “regular” food arrived there.
Chef Blumenthal is one of the most popular chefs in the world and was awarded with three Michelin stars. In his TV show “Dinner in Space” he introduced the breakthrough idea: Blumenthal wanted to send into space 3 dishes – meat sandwich, apple crumble and lemon pie.
The talented chef decided to rise to the challenge and for the past two years he worked hard together with the European Space Agency on making food more human in space. Blumenthal chose British astronaut Tim Peake to be the first taster of his food development – a popular British meat dish that could be a great reminder about home when you are in space.
The meat for this space sandwich was seasoned with a lot of Thai curry for a reason. Blumenthal said: “The lack of gravity in space affects our body fluids directly, and also the sinuses responsible for the sense of smell and taste, this is why astronauts prefer to eat well-seasoned food”.
Blumenthal said he was proud to bring a bit of British flavor to the astronaut who has such a hard job rotating around the Earth all the time. Although the sandwich was prepared to be a treat for the whole journey, the astronaut ate it on the first day.
The sandwich cost around 2 million pounds that makes it the most expansive sandwich in the history. According to Blumenthal, apart from the development work on the sandwich, fuel alone to send it into space cost more than 2 million pounds.
Blumenthal said: «When the spacecraft launched, I was thinking about all these people who worked so hard on this project using all the modern technologies we have and made it possible! It was amazing!»