Edwardian yachtsman's menu (pies do NOT count)

RobbieW said:
I've found those tins to be dissapointing when tried, often rather salty. Cooking the same sort of thing from tinned beans, preserved sausage, onions etc is usually better
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I used to like frankfurter type sausages but then started reading the tin, mechanically recovered meat! yuk!
 
Hmm, rather important to distinguish between fine quality tinned stuff, and cheap nasty muck which would have been revolting even if it were freshly made.

The reservation I remember having about the French tinned stuff, related to the sausages - but French sausages are not like English bangers. More akin to something called boudin blanc, as repellent as anything I've ever been offered.

As to the salt content, I have a feeling that many of those French recipes are darned salty, even when made fresh.

I am SO hungry now. Excuse me...
 
Late to this. But when beating down channel in the 60s. Ok, not Edwardian, but pre refrig. My mother supplied a pressed tongue, which I am normally quite fond of. We had some slices off the north foreland after leaving The Crouch. Good. Battering the wind after Dover, we had a few more slices, except that it looked a bit green. It lurked in the stern locker, quietly festering, until we arrived at Alderney. I was delegated to dispose of it, which I did outside the breakwater, holding my nose. Many fish were probably happy.
More recently, I find the French canned stuff quite good, along with a bit of pasta or rice. But I don't go out long enough to worry. Chorizo is a favourit for chicken stews, just keep them going until consumed.
 
Lodesman77 said:
I have no idea where you got that from - definitely not the case (and I don't like food to be even slightly over salted)
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I didn't say I didn't like it salty. I always buy the double size tins of petit salé - 800 grams, and eat the whole ruddy lot myself.

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Lodesman77 said:
I think you're confusing them with the cheaper versions sold in Aldi/Lidl. Buy quality and buy them in France...
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Certainly bought in France, may have been Carrefour's best though. One of the disadvantages with cruising/deliveries is that you tend to buy whatever the store you can get to stocks without much abiilty to do comparative shopping
 
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I do wonder if I've misjudged 'long-life' foods which don't need refrigeration. This Sainsbury potato and bacon dish looks delicious...

...although I wish they could just preserve the bacon, and let me boil my own potatoes.

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Daydream believer said:
As I cannot cook...
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That's kind of like saying you are illiterate, and i know that you aren't.

A recipe is simply an instruction set which i have no doubt you could follow if motivated to do so. Basic cooking is lots less complex than many things you have to learn as a sailor/skipper/yachtsman, and provides lots of immediate gratification!

If you can read you can cook, so actually you are saying you wont cook or don't want to cook.

I cook, my wife cooks, and we decided that our sons would leave home knowing a bunch of life skills including cooking, swimming, love of reading(not necessarily taught in schools!), skiing, sailing, how to clean toilets and bathrooms, how the vacuum cleaner works and a few others.
My wife told the boys that the true way to a woman's heart was to clean her toilet and bathroom.
One son is a competent workaday cook, but the other is a passionate cook who loves to experiment and learn new stuff. A useful counterpoint to his day-job as an officer in Her Majesties New Zealand armed services.

My own bête noire for some reason was making salads.. Recognising this i have made an effort to learn how to construct a salad. Consequently shopping for sailing trips has included more fresh fruit and veg and (slightly)less brown food.

So liberate your inner Nigella and have a crack! You may suprise yourself.
 
I'm well acquainted with tinned cassoulet which was our staple on a french canal trip. There's a good selection of tinned meat and vegetables in British supermarkets which make a good one pot meal. I've tried an all day breakfast in a tin but wouldn't recommend it to you.
 
John the kiwi said:
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Great pic, John! I was going to say you're lucky to have such a son, but luck has no part in it. I wish my SWMBO had had your kids' basic home-lessons.

ghostlymoron said:
...I've tried an All-Day Breakfast in a tin but wouldn't recommend it to you.
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I tried that, decades ago. Just the one can...that was more than enough. Nice idea, but all the meaty bits were soft and amorphous. Not a success.

Funny, I recall feeling quite keen about the advertisement for sausages and beans in a can, back in the 1970s...

...it was presented (in Captain Birdseye style) as the reward for a cold tired sailing crew, with the words "better than a ship's biscuit". :rolleyes:
 
I am not totally convinced by the quality of French tinned and packaged stuff, a lot of it matches that in the UK for bleakness. There is the odd very nice thing though.
The French pasta sauce which comes with meat already in it is cheap and handy - amongst the battalions pasta sauces found in the UK I have never seen one ready to go like this.

I also stock feta cheese with olives, pitted green olives in brine, the cured sausages already mentioned, Boursin cheese and couscous. Eggs keep most of a season in a cool place, as do most spuds.

Tinned chicken seem to have disappeared from the shelves of most supermarkets which is a shame, it is very versatile.
 
Are there any fresh vegetables (as opposed to carbs like potatoes) that keep for a reasonable time?

Also I realise that a lot of the 'stock ingredients' meals I eat at home rely on cheese (e.g. pasta with tomato based sauce), so are there cheeses that are reasonably similar to cheddar (versatile enough to melt into meals or put on sandwiches) but last a long time out of the fridge?
 
I've had a few fiascos with tinned french food.
Pate is the worst. Never again.
Mate of mine used to joke about the liferaft cannister on the transom actually being a cheese locker. I like strong cheese but not travelling with it in summer.
We carry tins of stuff, often just as backup, the plan is usually to shop ashore fairly often.
 
On the theme of French stuff which doesn't need refrigeration, I'd almost forgotten about Apericube snack-cheeses.

Utterly artificial, but the range of flavours is wide enough to please all, assuming the soft but not gooey texture doesn't repel.

apericube-best-cheese-in-the-world-dairy-pinterest-cheese-intended-for-apericube-usa.jpg


The guacamole flavour was astonishing, and very good. There's no polite way to describe it, so I won't try. I may have said too much already. :rolleyes:
 
John the kiwi said:
That's kind of like saying you are illiterate, and i know that you aren't.

A recipe is simply an instruction set which i have no doubt you could follow if motivated to do so. Basic cooking is lots less complex than many things you have to learn as a sailor/skipper/yachtsman, and provides lots of immediate gratification!

If you can read you can cook, so actually you are saying you wont cook or don't want to cook.

I cook, my wife cooks, and we decided that our sons would leave home knowing a bunch of life skills including cooking, swimming, love of reading(not necessarily taught in schools!), skiing, sailing, how to clean toilets and bathrooms, how the vacuum cleaner works and a few others.
My wife told the boys that the true way to a woman's heart was to clean her toilet and bathroom.
One son is a competent workaday cook, but the other is a passionate cook who loves to experiment and learn new stuff. A useful counterpoint to his day-job as an officer in Her Majesties New Zealand armed services.

My own bête noire for some reason was making salads.. Recognising this i have made an effort to learn how to construct a salad. Consequently shopping for sailing trips has included more fresh fruit and veg and (slightly)less brown food.

So liberate your inner Nigella and have a crack! You may suprise yourself.
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I make no claim I can cook. I usually claim I cant. I can make food hot.
My tactic.
If I set my standards and expectations low enough. They are easy to meet.:) This way my crew or guests are rarely disappointed. Sometime they are even quite surprised.
I actually quite like cooking.
 
TLouth7 said:
Are there any fresh vegetables (as opposed to carbs like potatoes) that keep for a reasonable time?

Also I realise that a lot of the 'stock ingredients' meals I eat at home rely on cheese (e.g. pasta with tomato based sauce), so are there cheeses that are reasonably similar to cheddar (versatile enough to melt into meals or put on sandwiches) but last a long time out of the fridge?
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Swede, carrots, onions.
Sweet peppers last a couple of days
Try the wax coated cheese, morrison's do a range that's OK at the price IMHO.
 
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