This is a bit odd, three typewritten pages with the Apollo 11 menu, on Whirlpool watermarked paper.
Each meal was planned and packed before the mission, and each crewman could choose from a menu of options, aiming for 2,500 calories/day. Each meal was in a foil-wrapped “TV dinner” tray, the norm from Apollo 10 onward.
A key detail (below): the first walk on the moon was powered by bacon! These bacon blocks were coated with gelatin to combat crumbs.
A major improvement for Apollo over Gemini was the availability of heated water and food in the command module (but not in the lunar module). For the first time, hot coffee was possible, fifteen cups for each astronaut, with Aldrin requesting black, Michael Collins with sugar, and Neil Armstrong’s light and sweet.
Tang was nowhere to be found, as Armstrong patiently explained to me. Buzz Adlrin added “the three of us dutifully sampled the orange drink and instead chose an orange-grapefruit mixture as our citrus drink.” (James Hansen’s First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong). Also missing was that staple of science museum gift shops, astronaut ice cream. The astronauts settled instead on a variety of puddings and cookie cubes.
The freeze-dried food was rehydrated in metered amounts through a pistol-style squirt gun on the end of a hose, dispensing 1/2 oz. of water per click. The water was the byproduct of the fuel cell electricity generators.
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