Neil Armstrong at the table

In the Ohio of the 1940s–60s where Armstrong grew up, the family meal fits on a single plate: a meat, a starch, a vegetable, and often a pie to finish, all washed down with coffee or juice. NASA deconstructed this structure and reassembled it in pouches: aboard Apollo 11, the same 'plate' becomes a series of freeze-dried packets rehydrated with water, organized into meals A, B, C for each day of the mission.

Freeze the food, then remove water under vacuum: the great preservation technique of the space age. It allows carrying an entire chicken in a flat pouch weighing a few grams, which is revived with a water gun. This is the 'cooking' that defined Armstrong's journey to the Moon.