ICV life part two: Food

One of the biggest surprises of the summer for me has definitely been the quality and quantity of the food provided - and the delicious meals we have managed to scrape together from basic ingredients! I have learned so many new recipes, have cooked for large groups of people for the first time, and generally eat far better than I do at home.

Typically, when a team moves to a new project site, they take a pre-packed set of 'dry' food boxes with them to last the week, and enough fresh food for a few days. The fresh is usually resupplied at some point during the week, either driven in by a member of the support team, or sent up on a public bus. A basic set of boxes for a week would look something like this:

Pasta
Rice
Lentils
Kidney beans
Chick peas
Tinned tomatos
Tinned fruit
Tinned fish
Various herbs, spices, condiments
Muesli/cereal
Porridge oats
Flour
Sugar
Biscuits and cakes (14 packets to be precise)
Dried fruit
Crackers
Peanut butter
Honey
Jam
Chocolate spread
Bread, wraps, pita
Skyr (an Icelandic speciality - like a delicious creamy yoghurt)
Cheese
Cream cheese
Sandwich meat
Eggs
Butter
Fruit and veg
Milk
Juice
Tea and coffee
Hot chocolate
Some fresh meat/fish

...plus any extras thrown in by the nice person doing the shop. I will never forget the week we got six grapefruits, four types of brie and two aubergines. Thank you Phil :) Oh, and occasionally someone shows up with a leg of lamb and a bag of charcoal and everyone rejoices.

Pilar in the food store in Reykjavík

Cooking and washing up duties are shared amongst the team members, with some unlucky soul getting up early each day to make porridge/wallpaper paste and coffee. We are seriously thinking of compiling a recipe book of the tasty dishes we have come up with using limited ingredients and equipment. It's amazing what you can do with two gas burners and some tinned tomatoes. 'Experimental' might be the right word. Favourites include:

Rustic mash

Boiled potatoes with skins on, mashed a bit, with butter, garlic and rosemary. Yum.

Weird vegetable shit with egg

Occasionally we get sent a packet of what were once frozen vegetable patties, but have inevitiably disintegrated into a crumbly mess in transit. Simply fry it all up with an egg or two cracked in and serve as a side dish - or in a sandwich.

Kedgeree

Fry whatever veggies you can find, add rice and egg. Fish optional.

Spanish omelette

Potatoes, onions and leftover veg. Surprisingly filling, as are savoury pancakes...

Generic red shit

Take some canned tomatoes, add onion, garlic and whatever else is lying around (sausages are popular). Add to pasta, rice, couscous, potatoes... or throw in chickpeas and lentils and make it into a big old stew.

Generic white shit

Butter, flour and milk = white sauce. Add cheese to make a cheesy white sauce. Add a packet of dried soup powder and veggie stock to make generic cheesy white shit pasta sauce.

Consu's salad wraps

Why use bread for sandwiches when you could simply take two large lettuce leaves and add the filling of your choice?

Crumble

If you have access to an oven, this is by far the best way to use up tinned fruit.

Dessert sandwiches

Take two wholemeal milkykex biscuits, and stick together with the help of peanut butter and chocolate spread. Mmm.

The Skyr aisle

Also, as a vegetarian, I have an advantage, as we rarely have the facilities to store fresh meat for long. Most of our meals are therefore meat free. And the frozen veggie sausages and burgers in Iceland are surprisingly good!