Around the World in 21 Days
Crewman Barry is so enjoying the meals on board that he has requested a blog be written to memorialize his gastronomic glee. I’m happy to comply as it is every cook’s desire to feed an appreciative crew and an honor to be asked to write about it.
It’s no easy task to plan a menu, provision, store, and prepare meals for a transatlantic passage. But as this was my one and only duty on board, then by golly I was going to try to do a stellar job of it. I started months before our November departure by reading everything I could find online about how best to feed a crew with limited storage, a small refrigerator and freezer, and a galley moving under my feet. I instinctively knew that variety would be key and my international recipe file came to the rescue!
While our passage takes us only 2900 nautical miles across the northern Atlantic, our palettes are traveling the world, with waypoints in 12 different countries. This culinary circumnavigation of flavor was inspired both by countries we have lived in as well as countries we have visited.
Yes, plate and palette are traveling the world: from the bayous of Louisiana to the lush tea estates of Sri Lanka; from the provinces of China to the isthmus of Panamá. Stops along the route also include India, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, Cuba, and Italy. From the ubiquitous American burger and Italian pizza to the more exotic Indonesian nasi goreng and Middle Eastern couscous, we are forging our own spice route across the Atlantic.
What facilitates such a diverse menu was my decision to cook many of the meals back home in Virginia, freeze them, and then carry them to Las Palmas in a suitcase that I’m sure lit up the security scanner like a Christmas tree. I’m happy to say everything arrived intact and still frozen solid.
I knew there would be days when the crew would land a fish or two. They did not disappoint. These fresh mahi mahi steaks landed on lunch and dinner plates as our “sea to table” fare as Louisianan blackened fish and Caribbean fish tacos.
We are nearing the end of our passage, and whether or not I did a “stellar” job at my duty I’ll leave to the crew to decide - with apologies to those crewmen who thought they were going to lose weight on the passage.
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