In ALMA, there are staff members working at a high-altitude site called Array Operations Site (AOS) at 5000 meters for the maintenance activities of observing instruments such as antennas. As it will be a one-hour drive to go to the Operations Support Facility (OSF) at 2900 meters, it’s impossible for the staff working at the AOS to have lunch there. So, as a solution for this, lunch boxes are brought for them from the OSF every day, which are quite similar to those that Japanese people make. Let’s see what are inside the lunch box for the ALMA staff.

Main dish is meat or fish, which are accompanied with generous helping of mashed potatoes, rice or pastas as sides and a lot of salads with ham and avocado. There is a wide variety of lunch boxes with different ingredients every day but one thing is common all the time; Quantity. Lunch boxes are always big to provide sufficient energy for the maintenance staff working hard at the high sites.

1: Grilled chicken and pasta. Pasta with tomato ketchup has a kind of nostalgic taste for Japanese people.
2: Pork and rice. One of the good way to eat this is to mix rice with sauce that comes with pork.
3. Fish called “Merluza” and mashed potatoes with pumpkin.
4. A lunch box contains all of these! Today’s lunch is beef with rice.