For someone who is very fond of food, living aboard a sailboat is a little tough. Particularly when the sailboat has no refrigeration, only one burner and one pot. How exactly is one supposed to make food when there are no fresh vegetables, no fresh meat, no dairy products of any kind, and limited water and propane? Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of food…
The first meal I ever made aboard the boat was incredibly stressful. All I had were cans and dried grains! What do you do with cans and dried grains??? Back at home, the only things I ever made that involved cans had beans in them, or tomato sauce. But now? What was I to do? I wanted to wow my new crewmates, I wanted to make something tasty and nutritious. I have never made a more stressful batch of couscous.
In time, I’ve learned to cope and am now fairly certain that anyone on the boat will tell you I am the best cook. Not that I have much competition for that role. On any given crossing, we will probably eat plain pasta three days out of five, it is certainly Boyscout’s favorite dish to make, and is by far the easiest option. I have resisted making pasta so far and have done my best to get creative with rice, potatoes, beans and couscous. My goal with most meals is to force in as many vitamins as possible; I have zero interest in getting scurvy and I’m pretty sure plain pasta does not contain every nutrient I need to survive.
However, getting too creative can be a bad thing, especially for the boys. The first meal that I ever couldn’t eat was Adub’s pasta/canned tuna/meat sauce special. Another was pasta that got forgotten for an hour in hot water while we were anchoring. Brazen’s lentil/noodle/rice soup was a rather difficult experience but, the worst by far was an abysmal creation of Boyscout’s. It involved rice, minestrone soup, stale peanuts and (here’s the kicker), beetroot. The final concoction turned out pink and when I bit in, the texture of too soft peanuts, slimy noodles (from the minestrone soup), chunky beets and semi-crunchy rice was almost enough to make me gag. I remained very hungry until the following evening.
Even when the food is decent, eating it for breakfast is always a struggle. The goal to make enough for the following day so we can easily eat without needing to use our precious propane again, but day old food sitting in a pot is never attractive. And if it doesn’t get finished, we’re supposed to work it into dinner that night. Waste not, right?
If the food limitations don’t make things difficult enough, the moving kitchen always serves as a source of entertainment. A cooking experience generally starts with bracing yourself around the galley as you collect your ingredients from their hiding places, then stuffing round objects into seat cushions if there’s a danger of rolling. You cut up whatever you might need to cut while braced between the counter and the table and, if it’s calm enough, open the cans you will need ahead of time. If it’s not calm enough, definitely wait, an upended can that has been opened is the last thing you want, and is likely to happen if the waters are rough. Generally the boat will be tilted over the side, so make sure that nothing will spill if you put it down. The oven/stovetop is free swinging, so make sure not to get smacked by it as you stagger by.
Once you’ve prepared everything, it’s time for the gas. To avoid propane leaking into the bilge and causing our boat to explode, we store the propane in a separate container under the seat of the person at the wheel. So when you want to get the fire going, you yell up to the person at the wheel “propane on!” and then wait two minutes as they get up, open the box and turn the knob. Then its up to you to get the flint and steel sparker to work in the first few seconds of the gas being on before Boyscout starts worrying that you’re going to blow up the boat.
Assuming you do get the fire going and don’t get the sparker yanked away from you by your skittish captain, the rest is easy. Everything goes into the same pot, and then you close it and walk away. Sometimes, depending on the cook, things go in at different times, but that’s about it. Despite your best efforts, everything will have an undertone of tin from the cans, but what can you do? Yesterday, at a Thanksgiving feast that we gate-crashed (with legitimate invitations but no payment), Brazen commented on how exciting it was that everything on the plate tasted different. We laughed because it was true.
