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'Haute Cuisine' on Mars
Roland Piquepaille writes "If you're lucky enough to be a crew member of one of the next European Space Agency (ESA) long-term missions, you will have the choice between eleven new delicious recipes, such as 'martian bread and green tomato jam' or 'potato and tomato mille-feuilles' when it's time for dinner. In 'Ready for dinner on Mars?,' ESA says that these recipes will use fresh ingredients grown in greenhouses built on Mars colonies or other planets. The future astronauts -- should I write 'farmonauts'? -- will grow potatoes, onions, rice, soya or lettuce. And it's interesting to note that the new menus were elaborated with the help of Alain Ducasse, the French chef who has almost as many stars in the 'Guide Michelin' as there are planets in our Solar system. This overview contains more details and references about eating in space."
As a chef, I think you are uninformed as to exactly what French cuisine is and how much the French have contributed to modern techniques used in all types of cuisine around the world.
For some background, I suggest these two wikipedia.org articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cuisine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provence (note the culture section)
I prefer the flavors of the Southwest, Latin america and India in my own cuisine, but there are very good reasons that most modern chef schools teach primarily French techniques in their curriculums. In the majority of dishes I prepare, there is some piece of the dish whose core is a French invention, or at least has a parallel in French cuisine. For instance, read wikipedia's article on sauces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauce), where you will learn about the huge effort French chefs put into creating and codifying the various root types of sauces. These sauces are heavily used in nearly all types of cooking.
In regards to use of vegetables, I'd think a classically trained (read: French) chef could come up with many tasty dishes with just a few vegetables.
I think you have some misconceptions about French cuisine.
Taft
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
First, most spices are not nearly as easy to cultivate as you describe. Take black pepper, for instance. There is a reason that it was once one of the more valuable spices in the world. Read up on wikipedia for the details of its cultivation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper). A key point in the article is that getting an initial harvest of a consumable size would likely take a few years. Cumin and corriander (which would also produce cilantro) are far more viable options. But I'd just like to point out that if a spice so integral to most cuisines as pepper is difficult to grow, these astronauts better prepare to make some sacrifices. Many spices require so much cultivation time and/or post-harvest treatment as to make them impractical, especially on another planet. I would think vanilla, saffron and cardamom would fall into these categories. And then there are the spices which would be nearly impossible to cultivate without an extended stay and a large amount of land. Cinnamin comes to mind...
As for shelf life, spices generally don't fare very well. In ground form, spices generally lose their pungency well within a year. In whole form, you can eek another year or two out of them. But that isn't a long time in planet-hopping years. Storage mechanisms might be created to extend their potency, but I use air-tight containers at home for whole spices and I never keep them for over a year. You can taste the difference, trust me.
In terms of herbs, they would fare much better. A little herb plant can go a long way. And so long as there is enough light and water, cultivation is a snap.
Taft
You were so close to the answer. Even used the correct word: hydroponic. Yet you still missed it.
Plants just need water and nutrients to grow. They do not care much about the soil, so long as the roots get enough (but not too much) water and nutrients. Tomatoes have been grown in just water and fertilizer for years! No soil needed at all. Most plants are more picky than tomatoes, but many grow in gravel sprayed with water and fertilizer.
This is old by now. Tomatoes were first grown in the lab this way in the 1930s. (There are claims to have done it before then, but they are hard to pin down) Though tomatoes are particularly easy to grow with hydrophonics.
I'm not sure what nutrients potatoes need, but they prefer sandy soils, which generally doesn't have much in the way of nutrients. Most of the other plants in the article seem to have been selected in part because they don't need much in the way of nutrients.
In short, we know we can find CO2. We can crack that to get a little O2 to start things out. We are pretty sure we can find water. The amount of fertilizer needed is small for many plants, and thus trivial to bring. (Not to mention it is a by-product of digestion once humans are nearby) The only worry is nitrogen doesn't seem to be plentiful. It could easily end up that getting the nitrogen is the hardest part. Depending on how the greenhouse needs to be designed of course.