At the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, a remote Antarctic outpost centered over the one spot on Earth where every direction you point is north, food is a Really Big Deal.
The U.S. research station stands on large cylindrical stilts over roughly two miles of ice and snow — so high that water boils below 200 degrees Fahrenheit, threatening the texture of even the most basic mac & cheese. But the kitchen staff prides itself on the morale-building quality of their food, from pasta made perfectly al dente to fresh-baked cookies, altitude and isolation be damned — and the art is not lost on the 150-odd people who live on station for the peak austral summer season.
No wonder T.J. Fudge knew the right pick-up line for the galley-full of after-dinner minglers, more committed to their ice cream than the evening lecture he was about to deliver: “I make a mean fudge.”
Fudge is in his mid-thirties, and aside from making a fudge so good the recipe is given only to those graced with the Fudge surname, he works as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. (When I asked... Read more
