Feb. 13, 2016
menues for mars
when doug sent a message announcing he would organize a food lab in washington dc. to try out meals that could be cooked under the atmospheric and otherwise difficult conditions on mars any future human inhabitants would have to struggle against, I lept to the one occasion to gain more then planetary success with my placenta recipes - the only fresh meat that can be eaten without having to kill or utilize any living being! i wrote them down and sent them, so they could be included in the cookbook for mars:
A nine month preparation is requested for this recipes. Get yourself pregnant by sex with penetration or by insemination.
You might find the first one to be more fun.
Give birth.
Work on the basis that each placenta weighs approximately 1/6 of the baby's weight. To prepare a placenta, cut the meat away from the membranes with a sharp knife.
You will have to scrape a bit as you will find the soft blood-sausage-like placenta meat is firmly attached to the chords and membrane. Do not be afraid.
You will understand that I had to adapt the two placenta recipes i have tested in real life to the possibilities of a mars kitchen as a mere thought game as nor I nor any of my female friends are capable of giving birth spontaneously. And shear terror by the thought of everything I might find in the garbage there keeps me from stealing waste placentas from the nearest hospitals maternity unit.
Placenta “à l’étouffé”
1-3lb fresh placenta (must be no more than 3 days old but better still the day of birth)
In the original recipe there was butter and onions so we will go for three minced dehydrated (preferably freeze dried for more taste) and rehydrated onion and what ever oil there is available. Pour the equivalent of two teaspoons of oil into a frying pan on low heat. Add the rehydrated onion, salt to please and allow them to grow tender. You may add thyme and cumin seeds or a laurel leaf if available.
While the onions melt quietly you can make mashed potatoes from mashed potato flakes such as you find in earthly super markets.
When the onions are melt-in-your-mouth-tender (10 to 12 minutes should do it under earth-like atmospheric circumstances) pour the like-real mashed potato on a big plate, garner it’s top with the onions and very briefly (we want to keep all the precious vitamins) fry the prepared placenta in the greasy pan, turning incessantly, adding salt and a generous dash of pepper. Top the onions on the potatoes with the placenta - Bon appétit !
Tartar de Placenta
Tartar usually consists of finely minced raw beef filet, salted and peppered, garnered with raw onions, parsley, capers or cornichons, all very finely chopped and spiced up with Worcester sauce and/or Tabasco, topped with an egg yolk.
You may want to try to rehydrate dehydrated egg yolk as a topping but I have never tasted it and cannot be sure it’s an improvement over the taste of the minced spiced placenta without it. I don’t doubt it however to be an esthetic improvement as it colors the otherwise somewhat barbaric looking dish.
So I guess we should rather fancy up the rehydrated egg yolk as mayonnaise and top our tartar with that. And we should by any means prepare it first, before putting together the placenta meat with the other ingredients :
One rehydrated egg yolk
One heaped teaspoon of mustard powder, rehydrated
Half a teaspoon of vinegar
Half a cup of neutral oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Whip together the mustard, the egg yolk, the vinegar, salt and pepper.
Then, without ever stopping to whip vigorously, cautiously add the oil, half a teaspoon by half a teaspoon until the mayonnaise gets a nice and creamy consistency.
This adapted version uses the very fresh prepared placenta meat left raw and spiced up with anything you might be able to lay your hand on:
Salt and pepper, onion or garlic powder, dried parsley or minced dried celery. And of course if you can get Worcester sauce, Tabasco or any other spicy sauce it is more then welcome, as the taste of the raw placenta is rather intense.
Heap the placenta tartar onto a big plate giving it a volcano shape and top it with a lake of mars-mayonnaise and eat without lingering.
Tartar de Placenta is an extremely nourishing dish, complete with all sorts of minerals and vitamins not diminished by heat.
I found this supplementary recipe on the internet. You might find it helpful:
Dehydrating your placenta
Instead of cooking your placenta whole, you can dehydrate it and keep it for later. The following method is from a website called “mothers 35 plus” who extracted it from an article entitled "Thinking About Eating Your Placenta?" by Susan James, which appeared in the winter 1996 issue of "The Compleat Mother". It was discovered posted on a newsgroup noticeboard, so I cannot absolutely guarantee its authenticity, or that it is an actual verbatim account of the magazine article.
Method:
Cut off the cord and membranes.
Steam the placenta, adding lemon grass, pepper and ginger to the steaming water. The placenta is "done" when no blood comes out when you pierce it with a fork.
Cut the placenta into thin slices (like making jerky) and bake in a low-heat oven (200-250 degrees F), until it is dry and crumbly (several hours).
Crush the placenta into a powder - using a food processor, blender, mortar and pestle, or by putting it in a bag and grinding it with rocks.
Add a spoonful of the powder to your cereal, blender drink, etc.
The recommended doses vary, some suggest up to 4 spoonful a day, others just one. Perhaps the best advice is to take what makes you feel good.
A nine month preparation is requested for this recipes. Get yourself pregnant by sex with penetration or by insemination.
You might find the first one to be more fun.
Give birth.
Work on the basis that each placenta weighs approximately 1/6 of the baby's weight. To prepare a placenta, cut the meat away from the membranes with a sharp knife.
You will have to scrape a bit as you will find the soft blood-sausage-like placenta meat is firmly attached to the chords and membrane. Do not be afraid.
You will understand that I had to adapt the two placenta recipes i have tested in real life to the possibilities of a mars kitchen as a mere thought game as nor I nor any of my female friends are capable of giving birth spontaneously. And shear terror by the thought of everything I might find in the garbage there keeps me from stealing waste placentas from the nearest hospitals maternity unit.
Placenta “à l’étouffé”
1-3lb fresh placenta (must be no more than 3 days old but better still the day of birth)
In the original recipe there was butter and onions so we will go for three minced dehydrated (preferably freeze dried for more taste) and rehydrated onion and what ever oil there is available. Pour the equivalent of two teaspoons of oil into a frying pan on low heat. Add the rehydrated onion, salt to please and allow them to grow tender. You may add thyme and cumin seeds or a laurel leaf if available.
While the onions melt quietly you can make mashed potatoes from mashed potato flakes such as you find in earthly super markets.
When the onions are melt-in-your-mouth-tender (10 to 12 minutes should do it under earth-like atmospheric circumstances) pour the like-real mashed potato on a big plate, garner it’s top with the onions and very briefly (we want to keep all the precious vitamins) fry the prepared placenta in the greasy pan, turning incessantly, adding salt and a generous dash of pepper. Top the onions on the potatoes with the placenta - Bon appétit !
Tartar de Placenta
Tartar usually consists of finely minced raw beef filet, salted and peppered, garnered with raw onions, parsley, capers or cornichons, all very finely chopped and spiced up with Worcester sauce and/or Tabasco, topped with an egg yolk.
You may want to try to rehydrate dehydrated egg yolk as a topping but I have never tasted it and cannot be sure it’s an improvement over the taste of the minced spiced placenta without it. I don’t doubt it however to be an esthetic improvement as it colors the otherwise somewhat barbaric looking dish.
So I guess we should rather fancy up the rehydrated egg yolk as mayonnaise and top our tartar with that. And we should by any means prepare it first, before putting together the placenta meat with the other ingredients :
One rehydrated egg yolk
One heaped teaspoon of mustard powder, rehydrated
Half a teaspoon of vinegar
Half a cup of neutral oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Whip together the mustard, the egg yolk, the vinegar, salt and pepper.
Then, without ever stopping to whip vigorously, cautiously add the oil, half a teaspoon by half a teaspoon until the mayonnaise gets a nice and creamy consistency.
This adapted version uses the very fresh prepared placenta meat left raw and spiced up with anything you might be able to lay your hand on:
Salt and pepper, onion or garlic powder, dried parsley or minced dried celery. And of course if you can get Worcester sauce, Tabasco or any other spicy sauce it is more then welcome, as the taste of the raw placenta is rather intense.
Heap the placenta tartar onto a big plate giving it a volcano shape and top it with a lake of mars-mayonnaise and eat without lingering.
Tartar de Placenta is an extremely nourishing dish, complete with all sorts of minerals and vitamins not diminished by heat.
I found this supplementary recipe on the internet. You might find it helpful:
Dehydrating your placenta
Instead of cooking your placenta whole, you can dehydrate it and keep it for later. The following method is from a website called “mothers 35 plus” who extracted it from an article entitled "Thinking About Eating Your Placenta?" by Susan James, which appeared in the winter 1996 issue of "The Compleat Mother". It was discovered posted on a newsgroup noticeboard, so I cannot absolutely guarantee its authenticity, or that it is an actual verbatim account of the magazine article.
Method:
Cut off the cord and membranes.
Steam the placenta, adding lemon grass, pepper and ginger to the steaming water. The placenta is "done" when no blood comes out when you pierce it with a fork.
Cut the placenta into thin slices (like making jerky) and bake in a low-heat oven (200-250 degrees F), until it is dry and crumbly (several hours).
Crush the placenta into a powder - using a food processor, blender, mortar and pestle, or by putting it in a bag and grinding it with rocks.
Add a spoonful of the powder to your cereal, blender drink, etc.
The recommended doses vary, some suggest up to 4 spoonful a day, others just one. Perhaps the best advice is to take what makes you feel good.