Thanksgiving aboard the International Space Station :: WRAL.com

By Tony Rice, NASA Ambassador

The four NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station will celebrate Thanksgiving with their Russian Space Agency teammates Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov, as well as Soichi Noguchi from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Astronauts Kathleen Rubins, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins and Shannon Walker recently shared their greetings along with a glimpse of what they’ll enjoy floating around their Thanksgiving table. Dishes include cornbread vinaigrette, smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

“For me, Thanksgiving is a family affair,” Expedition 64 flight engineer and Air Force Col. Mike Hopkins said in the video. “On this particular Thanksgiving, however, it’s going to be a little different because I’m spending it with my international family. We all feel very lucky to be here, we are also very grateful for everything we have.”

New for 2020, a seafood treat from Japan

Noguchi also brought Japanese dishes to share with his crewmates, including curried rice, red bean rice, and his favorite seafood dish prepared by Japanese high school students. Students from the Department of Marine Studies at Wakasa High School in the western coastal city of Obama, Japan, prepared and canned mackerel in soy sauce.

A total of 30 students from Wakasa High School worked on the product for several years before JAXA certified it for use in space. According to JAXA, the students made improvements to the product to make it more useful in space. Adding kuzuko starch made the sauces stickier to keep them on the fish and not in delicate equipment. The flavor has also been enhanced to accommodate the dulling of the sense of taste experienced by astronauts in orbit.

Out of this World Cornbread Dressing

NASA’s Space Food Systems Lab shared their Astronaut-Loved Cornbread Dressing Recipe, No Freeze Drying Required.

Ingredients:

• 12 cups crumbled cornbread
• 3 3/4 cups chicken broth
• 2 1/2 cups chopped onions,
• 1 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 tsp. Salt
• 1 1/4 tsp. 1/2 tsp Poultry seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
• 1 teaspoon rubbed sage

Directions:

• Preheat the top to 350 ° F (325 ° F for convection ovens)
• Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
• Puree the onions in a food processor. Place in a bowl. Put aside.
• Finely chop the celery in a food processor. Add to the onion puree. Put aside.
• Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. Melt the butter and sauté the onion and celery mixture until softened (about 5 minutes).
• Add to crumbled and prepared cornbread. Mix well. In a separate bowl, combine the salt, poultry seasoning, black pepper, parsley and sage.
• Add to the vegetable mixture sautéed with cornbread.
• Add the chicken broth. Mix well. Place the vinaigrette in the prepared pan.
• Bake for about 35 minutes

NASA’s Space Food Systems lab is taking the additional steps of transferring the baked cornbread to a metal tray for freeze-drying. Each serving goes from about 145 grams (about 5 ounces) to 50 grams (less than 2 ounces) after freeze drying.