In “Fruitcake in Space,” Gravy reporter Bronwen Wyatt explores a bizarre footnote in the annals of human space travel. In 1968, a scientist at a military research facility developed a very unusual recipe: a nutritionally-fortified fruitcake designed as an emergency ration for astronauts. It might be easy to dismiss this fruitcake, but we’re here to argue that it’s part of a larger story—one that takes us from the early days of NASA’s space program to our current quest for Mars. Wyatt investigates the importance of safe preservation techniques in space, how NASA determines what food astronauts will actually eat, and why fruitcake actually makes perfect sense as an emergency ration.

A slice of fruitcake encased in plastic.
The original NASA fruitcake recipe as prepared by Bronwen Wyatt.

In an archival interview from 1966, dietician Mary Klicka at the Natick Laboratory Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center points to the unique challenges of preparing acceptable menus for long-term space travel. Wyatt speaks to Vickie Kloeris, who managed NASA’s food systems for nearly thirty years from the laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Jennifer Levasseur, a curator specializing in food at the Air and Space Museum. Finally, retired astronaut Cady Coleman shares her perspective on dining on orbit. Coleman, who volunteered for the role of “food czar” on the International Space Station, tells how food becomes a form of currency and a tool for building camaraderie among astronauts.

Kloeris, Levasseur, and Coleman emphasize that dining space is about more than the mechanical function of obtaining enough calories to survive. Even in the most barren environments, our cultural drive to bond over food is a connection to our lives on earth, and part of what makes us human. The selection and preparation of food—work that is often dismissed as inconsequential domestic labor—is a crucial part of the success of any mission in space.

Gravy producer Bronwen Wyatt is a baker and writer in New Orleans.  She’s worked in restaurants across America, including Baltimore, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. In 2020 she opened Bayou Saint Cake, a boutique cake studio specializing in layer cakes featuring seasonal Southern produce.  These days you’ll find her working as a writer and recipe developer and teaching an occasional baking class. Want to learn more about her? Subscribe to her Substack, Bayou Saint News.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Vickie Kloeris, Jennifer Levasseur and the National Air and Space Museum, and Cady Coleman for their insights. Additional context was sourced from Cady Coleman’s autobiography, Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change, as well as Vickie Kloeris’ book Space Bites: Reflections of a NASA Food Scientist.

Thanks to MIT for permission to use archival audio from the MIT Science Reporter.

The Natick laboratory fruitcake recipe was sourced from the article “Moonmen’s Fruitcake Recipe Given,” from the Gettysburg Times, December 16, 1972.

Mary Klicka’s original reports were sourced from the Defense Technical Information Center.

Thanks to co-producer Katie Jane Fernelius for loaning recording equipment and offering advice and encouragement.

Top photo: (8 Jan. 2011) — NASA astronaut Catherine (Cady) Coleman, Expedition 26 flight engineer, prepares to eat a snack in the Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station.  Photo courtesy of NASA.

Subscribe (Spotify)   Subscribe (Apple Podcasts)