Page 5 - IAV Digital Magazine #432

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100-Year-Old Fruitcake Found In Antarctica Is ‘Almost’ Edible
By Christine Dell'Amore
Famously inde- structible, a fruit- cake has withstood a century in the coldest, windiest, and driest place on Earth.
Conservators with the New Zealand- based Antarctic Heritage Trustrecently found the 100-year-old dessert
in Antarctica's old- est building, a hut on Cape Adare. (See "Electrifying Photos of the Early Age of Antarctic Exploration.")
Wrapped in paper and the remains of a tin, the fruitcake is in "excellent condition," accord- ing to the trust, and looks and smells almost edi- ble.
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott likely brought the cake, made by the British biscuit company Huntley
& Palmers, to Antarctica during their 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedi- tion. (See photos: "Antarctic 'Time Capsule' Hut Revealed.")
The expedition's Northern Party took shelter in the Cape Adare hut, which had been built by Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink’s team in 1899—and left the fruitcake
behind. A team has been excavating artifacts in the hut since 2016.
"Fruitcake was a popular item in English society at the time, and it remains popular today," Lizzie Meek, conserva- tion manager for artifacts at the trust, says via email.
"Living and work- ing in Antarctica
tends to lead to a craving for high- fat, high-sugar food, and fruitcake fits the bill nicely, not to mention going very well with a cup of tea." (See "Opinion: 6 Reasons Antarctic Explorers Were Tougher 100 Years Ago.")
Scott and his four- person crew reached the South Pole in 1912, but all five died on the
return journey to their expedition base, the Terra Nova hut on Cape Evans. (See "Rare Pictures: Scott's South Pole Expedition, 100 Years Later.")
Heritage Trust con- servators have restored the 50- foot-long Terra Nova hut, the largest Antarctic building of its time, and several other portable wooden
huts to look as they did a century ago.
After restoring the huts' artifacts— including the fruit- cake—conserva- tors return them to their original loca- tions within the huts.
"Fruitcake is not something that people usually get excited about, but this discovery shows what a spectacular envi- ronment for his- toric preservation the Antarctic is," Clemson University
historian Stephanie Barczewski said via email.
It also highlights the "importance of protecting its frag- ile environment, because we don't know what other amazing things we might find from the Heroic Age of exploration."
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