For midwinter's day celebrations, a
mixture of one teaspoonful of methylated spirit in a pint of hot water,
flavoured with a little ginger and sugar, served to remind some of cock-
tails and Veuve Cliquot.
At breakfast each had a piece of seal or half a penguin breast.
Luncheon consisted of one biscuit on three days a week, nut-food on
Thursdays, bits of blubber, from which most of the oil had been
extracted for the lamps, on two days a week, and nothing on the
remaining day. On this day breakfast consisted of a half-strength
sledging ration. Supper was almost invariably seal and penguin, cut up
very finely and fried with a little seal blubber.
There were occasionally very welcome variations from this menu. Some
paddies--a little white bird not unlike a pigeon--were snared with a
loop of string, and fried, with one water-sodden biscuit, for lunch.
Enough barley and peas for one meal all round of each had been saved,
and when this was issued it was a day of great celebration. Sometimes,
by general consent, the luncheon biscuit would be saved, and, with the
next serving of biscuit, was crushed in a canvas bag into a powder and
boiled, with a little sugar, making a very satisfying pudding. When
blubber was fairly plentiful there was always a saucepan of cold water,
made from melting down the pieces of ice which had broken off from the
glacier, fallen into the sea, and been washed ashore, for them to
quench their thirst in.
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