Long term provisioning

Cerebus

Cerebus

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Serious question,

But in 1960s eg when freezers were not in boats how did long term sailors manage?

Tins?

Sounds unhealthy but Sir Robin Knox did it in the Golden Globe, Ridway, etc, Robin met old age inspite of tinned food (perhaps it was and is healthy?) Perhaps he had good genes?

We try to eat healthily and unprocessed foods, but so much of our food is frozen (frozen food can be healthy) but we note today the freezer is running low.

We cannot shop once a week.

So we are lucky to have a freezer, but not all boats do, or did in times gone past.

Forget dried horse meat and weevils of 18Century, I am seriously asking how best to maintain a lot of good quality food for a few months (let us say three months)?
 
People managed until the invention of the freezer the world over, and still do in many parts of the world. Obviously it’s easier if you can pop in to Tesco every few days for fresh stuff but “we” have been finding ways to preserve food to get us through winter for far longer than people have been recreational sailing.

I grew up without a freezer and my parents remember life before fridges. Making food last on tiny budgets was a skill particularly mastered by mothers; processed food released women from being tied to the kitchen but means we’ve become much more reliant on freezers.

There’s plenty of “preppers” in America (and elsewhere) keeping traditions of “canning” alive ready for the zombie apocalypse. Tinned ingredients aren’t particularly unhealthy, dried are lighter and potentially pack smaller. Probably a bigger concern was fresh water in a time before water makers.

I assume the Clipper Race boats don’t carry freezers and whilst they aren’t at sea for months on end they have fairly big crews.
 
You can dry meat, but the end product may not be the same as you are used to.

About ten years ago I met a Faroese boat in Stornoway. They had what looked like an Iberian ham swinging from the boom. I asked them about it and it turned out to be an air dried leg of ram (not lamb). Given what I understood about their climate, I was a little sceptical that you could air dry anything in the Faroes. But I pestered them in to giving me a taste.
They were reluctant to let me have any, and tried to warn me off. I was with a friend who hails from the north of Lewis and who has eaten his fair share of guga (young gannet). We Scots are pretty hardy, we told them. They agreed to share a little with us, but warned us that we wouldn't like it.
The skipper cut in to the meat, which on the inside was damp and deep red. I was starting to regret my decision but pride compelled me to continue.
Well. I had never tasted anything like it. Guga is like fillet steak compared to this stuff. If you've ever been up close and personal with a wet sheep (who hasn't?) you'll know what that strong ovine smell is like. That's the closest sensation I can think of to describe the taste. It was an assault on the senses. This is not your grandmother's Sunday roast. It did not taste like lamb. It was raw, leathery, and above all, sheepy.
I managed to swallow the tiny morsel, and declined seconds. We bid the Faroese good day and did our best to get out of range of that foul object. We didn't bother asking why they kept it in the rigging rather than the cabin, the answer seemed rather obvious now.

A couple of days later we were out for a sail. I turned to my mate and said- you know what, I must have a bit of that goddamn sheep meat stuck in my teeth, because I just got a hint of the taste of it. And then we looked up and, more than a mile upwind of us, the Faroese were setting sail for home. Coincidence? Maybe. But there's no denying it was powerful stuff.
 
Tinned food lasts years beyond its use-by date.

When I was a kid in the 80's, my mum used to look down her nose when we visited my gran (my dad's mum) because she used to pull out old tins of soup from the cupboard and offer to heat them up. The tins often bore price stickers in shillings and pence, so were over 10 years old, but never actually did us any harm. My gran lived to nearly 100 being completely careless of modern nutrition and food safety concerns.

Recently I've been raiding the boat's stores of tinned chilli con carne, which I bought in 2019. At least 6 or 8 tins of this age, all as good as new. Tinned mackerel in curry or mustard sauce is another favourite.

Rice keeps well. So does flour if you bake, and oven-ready baguettes if you don't (those keep a few months or a year, not several I reckon). After a few weeks the packaging of oven-ready baguettes starts to shrink, tighten and compress the bread, but they're still good when that start to happen. I recently thew out some oven-ready baguettes which were years old because I must admit I didn't dare wish to try them.

Sorry I can't tell you much about unprocessed food. Is tinned fruit ok? You can get chickpeas and some vegetables in tins, although I guess you'd use dried peas rather than tinned?
 
There’s a bit of a selection of lentil, bean, or grain dishes in flat plastic pouches available these days; they microwave warm in about a minute but can happily be eaten cold out of the packet or poured into a salad (or presumably heated up by a more traditional method). Best-before date on the ones I have to hand is a year to a year and a half away. Very low-effort and efficient on space, including disposal of a flat packet being easier than a can. They’re about two quid, some of them are a bit dry and benefit from topping up with olive oil (doesn’t everything?), the Jamie Oliver ones are my favourite.
 
Some fresh foods last really well at sea: white or red cabbage, pumpkin, onion, oranges, apples, pineapple come to mind. Some fresh foods last ok peppers, courgettes, potatoes.... Soft fresh foods generally suffer from the rolling so we don't bother with them. So for example will take tinned tomatoes rather than fresh. We go vegetarian offshore apart from fish when we catch it. Never had a freezer as always consider the amp draw too demanding especially when in warm climates (generally turn the fridge off too for the same reason). Amps aside having a freezer would be great for fish because sometimes there is so much it would be great to freeze some. Don't take dairy with us apart from parmesan cheese. Always found keeping it simple works and is v healthy.
 
Not just in the '60s even today there are sailors with no freezer and indeed even no fridge - like me. It doesn't suit everybody but it is perfectly possible to eat and live healthy without either. I think it helps if you can forgo eating meat - apart from corned beef in cans obviously for delicious corned beef hash. As Mike says there are plenty of fresh foods that do keep really well without a fridge and as ShaneO mentions lots available nowadays in sealed pouches. I never found it a problem in my 6 years as a liveaboard in the tropics including 30 odd days across the Pacific. Some of it is adapting your tastes for example no fresh milk for tea well there is always powdered or perhaps better develop a taste for green tea no milk, reputably better for you anyway. Going adventuring you shouldn't really want to carry your western 1st world values with you - they just weight you down.
 
RunAgroundHard said:
Can anyone recommend a book, or online resource for provisioning for long voyages without a fridge or freezer?
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I think Annie Hill covers this in 'Voyaging on a Budget'.

The book is pretty dated now. At the time that it was written, going without refrigeration was an obvious thing to do for the budget conscious sailor.

Nowadays with £200 Alpicool fridges, and solar panels costing ten pence a watt, adding a fridge and enough solar to run it is so cheap that the only reason not to do so would be because your boat is tiny or you're deliberately trying to keep things simple.
 
If you have a fridge but not a freezer then vacuum packed meat is OK for a few weeks or more. However dried pasta, pulses etc with bottled sauces will provide a good meal. the vegetables that will keep well have been mentioned above. I have always managed to keep eggs without the trick or necessity of coating in vaseline. Then it's down to tinned meats which are not too bad ( find the ones you like low in salt, M&S and if you visit France then Carrefour is a good source) Ultimately a vegetarian diet for most of main meals but it's perfectly possible to have a balanced meals with some meat and fish for 3 weeks which covers most if not all Atlantic sailing.
 
RunAgroundHard said:
Can anyone recommend a book, or online resource for provisioning for long voyages without a fridge or freezer?
Click to expand...
Eric Hiscock long distant sailor includes a list of food he provisioned for his world sailing .We are more easily bored by plain food so crave stuff that needs a fridge but basic food like onions,potatoes dried beans etc supply adequate variety and tinned food lists for ever…..Voyaging under Sail by Eric hiscock
 
On my provisioning for my world trip I stocked up with tinned fish.My cruise was aborted in Galicia but it’s the the heart of tinned fish .My wife’s mother worked in one of the biggest fish processing factories in the world in Cangas in the ria de Vigo were whales would end up in little tins🙂So wait till you get to Galicia before stocking up with tinned sardines😂
 
I you look at the past days when long distance traveled made overland trips, they would use jerky of as where I live biltong both a form of dried meat
 
RunAgroundHard said:
Can anyone recommend a book, or online resource for provisioning for long voyages without a fridge or freezer?
Click to expand...
The very best advice I ever heard on the subject was on YouTube.

“If you leave the Canaries with no food on board, you’ll still be alive when you reach the Americas. “

We stocked up on pasta and rice for our two month sabbatical and it took two years to eat the last vac pack. We didn’t buy a lot, just a couple of big bags of each. It’s surprising how far food goes.
 
We sprout mung beans and various other seeds when sailing across the pond. The freezer and fridge will keep stuff good, all the way to the Caribbean.
We do stock up on staples in the EU as lots of stuff is unobtainable or very expensive in parts of the Caribbean. We don't find the need to stock up on everything for 3 months as we aren't sailing none stop for that length of time. Everywhere these days has fresh stuff. It varies in quality and choice, but no need to get scurvy. We have kombucha onboard and kefir. We make our own muesli.
We avoid soft drinks as they are just liquid sugar with bubbles and preservatives. We make our own ginger drink and have a sodastream.
We carry tins of sweetcorn, peas, beans, etc. There is no evidence that these tinned items are bad for you. You just need to avoid food originating in the USA as so much of it is full of sugar and corn syrup. We have to check the origin of food in the Caribbean as lots is imported from the USA. We stock up in the French islands where food is better quality.
 
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rogerthebodger said:
I you look at the past days when long distance traveled made overland trips, they would use jerky of as where I live biltong both a form of dried meat
Click to expand...
At home I have a dehydrating machine and make my own spicyed/marinated dried meat (beef, pork), fruits like apples and bananas, dried salmon gravlax style; I would not live for weeks with such diet but they are a nice complement, occasional snacks. etc. Underway on long passages, we sometimes put the excess fish to marinate in soy sauce then put in skewers and dry under the sun: cut in small dices it gives a good fish savour to sauces etc.
 
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