Quails, swordfish and duck were among the delicacies enjoyed by astronauts invited to taste experimental haute cuisine created by leading French chefs for outer space.

“It was absolutely delicious,” said the German astronaut Thomas Reiter, who is more used to a daily diet of rehydrated chicken soup on his seven-month mission in the International Space Station. “It was a new taste.”

The gourmet food was ordered by the European Space Agency and put together by a team of cooks under France’s most successful chef, Alain Ducasse, who has 14 Michelin stars, at his up-market catering school in southwest France.

The chefs were asked to produce outstanding examples of French cuisine that could be canned and reheated in the space station’s oven. Two other conditions were attached to the challenge. There could be no bacteria, because food poisoning can take on dramatic proportions in space, and minimal humidity to avoid the release of bubbles of liquid.

Mr Ducasse’s team came up with a three-course menu, including quails in Madeira wine, sand carrots in orange and coriander and semolina cake with dried apricots.

The food was transported to the space station by an unmanned Russian cargo ship in October and sampled by the astronauts last week.

Although the European Space Agency says that astronauts will only enjoy three-star meals on special occasions — such as to celebrate the end of a mission — Herr Reiter was happy to have been chosen as a guinea-pig for the experiment.

“Food is something which gives us a break,” he said. “It’s something where we find some joy and we are really trying to take some time for our meals.”

However, he added that he regretted not being allowed to enjoy Mr Ducasse’s creations with a glass of wine as alcohol is banned on the space station.

Frank Salzgeber, head of commercial development at the space agency, said that tastebuds were dulled in space, making the standard fare served to astronauts even less tasty than it would be on Earth.

Many astronauts complain that what they missed most was a good meal. The former French astronaut Jean-Jacques Favier said: “Everything is insipid in space. You can’t tell the difference between turkey and spinach with cream when it’s prepared by Nasa. And that’s not good for keeping you’re spirits up.”

Most astronauts lift off armed with condiments and spices and the first words spoken by France’s most famous astronaut, Jean-Loup Chrétien, when he returned from a six-month mission were: “My God, the food was awful.”

The gourmet meals were part of an agency programme to study and improve the way astronauts eat. The agency said: “History offers a host of examples where lack of nutritional knowledge dealt a fatal blow to exploratory expeditions.”

As part of the programme, it has asked Mr Ducasse to come up with delicacies made from eight plants that could at some future point be grown in greenhouses on Mars: lettuce, onion, spirulina, tomato, potato, soya bean, wheat and beetroot. Among his creations are a tomato and potato mille-feuille.

Next week the Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang will join the space station, taking delicacies, including dried moose meat, crispbread and gingerbread.

Mr Ducasse has also been asked to create menus for planned trips to Mars and told that at least 40 per cent of the ingredients should come from vegetables that could be produced on the planet. The rest — dried vegetables, herbs, salt, pepper, oil, butter and spices — could be transported to the planet from Earth.

Martian bread with green tomato jam and spirulina gnocchi are two of his other “plats savoureux”.

The space agency said that it was attempting to end “the major nutritional imbalance” that was historically part of space travel. Bad food could have a “physiological and psychological impact on crews”, the agency said.

As space missions grow longer, so the study of “the effects of microgravity on nutrition” will assume increasing importance.

French scientists believe that the land of gastronomy is naturally the best equipped to understand this area of research.

Star food

- John Glenn was the first man to eat in space on the Mercury spacecraft orbiting Earth in February 1962

- Early astronauts consumed bite-sized cubes of food, freeze-dried powders, and toothpaste tubes filled with food puree. The cubes were coated in gelatine to stop crumbs damaging instruments

- Squeezable tubes were scrapped after the astronauts complained

- Apollo astronauts were the first to have hot water and, in 1973, Skylab was fitted with a dining table with foot holders so that its crew could sit down to eat

- During the Skylab mission, a freezer for foods such as filet mignon and ice cream was introduced

- Foods on board space flights are determined by the Recommended Dietary Allowances of vitamins and minerals

- Daily calorie intake is set by the astronaut’s height, weight and age

- A typical meal on board Gemini missions would include shrimp cocktail, chicken and vegetables, toast squares, butterscotch pudding and apple juice

- Gemini astronauts required 2,800 calories a day or 3.8 lbs of food

- The Space Shuttle’s galley is equipped with an oven and a water dispenser for rehydrating foods

Sources NASA

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