Provisioning Mistakes

[Stingo]

I was having a good natter with a cruising noob and one of the topics was mistakes that I've made. Yep, there were plenty, but the one that made me shake my head the most was me buying forty five tins of Fray Bentos Bully Beef. You know, an expected 30 day crossing x 1.5 = 45 days of food needed. This,despite having 45 days worth of pasta, other tinned stuff, etc, etc so about a years worth of food in all, I still bought the forty five tins of Bully Beef. Tw*t!

During the crossing, I did open at least ten of the Bully Beef tins and attempted to cook something edible. Alas, only one attempt was vaguely palatable. The rest were tossed overboard after just one bite and a pot of Pasta Surprise was prepared. Yum!

Go on, your turn to admit what your mistakes.

 

[michael_w]

Tinned Spanish meatballs. Tried one brand which were reasonably tasty; stocked up with another variety which turned out to be what I imagine Pedigree Chum tastes like.

 

[ctva]

We ran out of gin one weekend...

 

[veshengro]

Not a stores mistake, but a painful one with food...
I went ashore in Dominica in the Leeward Islands after quite a long sea passage. As usual I was hunting fresh milk and any kind of fresh fruit or veg that I could eat on the spot. Found the milk, a carton of ice cold delight..also found some little round red Tomatoes, like those little ones seen in UK supermarkets usually from Morocco or Italy. Found a shady place and sat down, big swigs of lovely milk and a handful of Tomatoes down the hatch.....

Does anyone know the name of the small red round painfully hot Peppers that look just like Plum Tomatoes ?

 

[st599]

Scotch bonnets?

 

[veshengro]

Scotch bonnets?

I've just Googled those, You could well be correct... Tongue scorchers...

 

[Stingo]

Another one. I bought a can of Roast Chicken. Once back onboard, I opened it and without risking tasting it, the contents were thrown overboard. Even the fish fled in panic.

 

[Stingo]

Another one. I bought a can of Roast Chicken. Once back onboard, I opened it and without risking tasting it, the contents were thrown overboard. Even the fish fled in panic.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pgsTE82uJ...k-no-nu/43f2afe475f2ee2340939a3e8d2642e0.jpeg

 

[westernman]

Not a stores mistake, but a painful one with food...
I went ashore in Dominica in the Leeward Islands after quite a long sea passage. As usual I was hunting fresh milk and any kind of fresh fruit or veg that I could eat on the spot. Found the milk, a carton of ice cold delight..also found some little round red Tomatoes, like those little ones seen in UK supermarkets usually from Morocco or Italy. Found a shady place and sat down, big swigs of lovely milk and a handful of Tomatoes down the hatch.....

Does anyone know the name of the small red round painfully hot Peppers that look just like Plum Tomatoes ?

Something like these:-



These are from Guadeloupe.
The little red ones are among the most powerful peppers known to mankind.

 

[Poignard]

My worst provisioning mistake was signing on for an Atlantic crossing aboard an otherwise well-provisioned yacht that had no sausages in the freezer!

 

[capnsensible]

Something like these:-

View attachment 166596

These are from Guadeloupe.
The little red ones are among the most powerful peppers known to mankind.

The crown has been taken....

n August 23, 2023, Guinness World Records officially recognized Pepper X as the world's hottest chili pepper, measuring 2.69 million SHU, beating the previous world record of 1.64 million SHU held by the Carolina Reaper.[5]

 

[KevinV]

Loading up for the Atlantic crossing with a enough fruit for three weeks, and including bananas! Needless to say it was a farty first week, desperately trying to eat it before it all went off

 

[Stingo]

Loading up for the Atlantic crossing with a enough fruit for three weeks, and including bananas! Needless to say it was a farty first week, desperately trying to eat it before it all went off

Yep, the problem with a hand of bananas is that they will all ripen on the same day. How do I know this? Well, one can only eat so many bananas in one day, was the lesson learned.

Another thing about a hand of bananas, spiders live deep in there.

 

[KevinV]

Yep, the problem with a hand of bananas is that they will all ripen on the same day. How do I know this? Well, one can only eat so many bananas in one day, was the lesson learned.

Another thing about a hand of bananas, spiders live deep in there.

And they give off a gas (ethylene?) that makes all other fruit ripen too - even keeping the boat well ventilated didn't stop it all ripening at once

 

[Devon Boy]

Loading up for the Atlantic crossing with an enough fruit for three weeks, and including bananas! Needless to say it was a farty first week, desperately trying to eat it before it all went off

Oh no!! Not bananas!!!

 

[mattonthesea]

Tinned Spanish meatballs. Tried one brand which were reasonably tasty; stocked up with another variety which turned out to be what I imagine Pedigree Chum tastes like.

I did the same with tinned chicken. The second lot, the ones stocked up on, turned out to be chicken balls! Even casseroling them with herbs couldn't make them edible. .

But the tinned fruit at 50 cents was a fab buy; I was still eating them a year later!

 

[BobnLesley]

...Tried one brand which were reasonably tasty; stocked up with another variety...

We made that mistake more than once... if it's a bulk/passage purchase only ever buy the brand which you know you like. The only disasters i can recall (only four tins anyway) were tinned brussel sprouts - we were on passage over Christmas - which were inedible and four cartons of milk that turned out to be custard. We avoided tinned meats/pie fillings like the plague and instead just jarred our own.

 

[veshengro]

Something like these:-

View attachment 166596

These are from Guadeloupe.
The little red ones are among the most powerful peppers known to mankind.

Long time ago, but I recall the ones that I started to eat were very similar in shape to the Orange one. Fortunately I did not swallow them, just some juice but even so it was extremely painful, not just simply unpleasant. It was a couple of days before I could taste any other food.

 

[Stingo]

Long time ago, but I recall the ones that I started to eat were very similar in shape to the Orange one. Fortunately I did not swallow them, just some juice but even so it was extremely painful, not just simply unpleasant. It was a couple of days before I could taste any other food.

Yep. And they burn you on both entry and exit.

 

[michael_w]

Always test before you buy. Before my last Atlantic circuit, two of the tinned meats wanted was stewing steak and corned beef. Over two memorable evenings we held a tasting session with 4 different corned beef and 3 of stewing steak. The result was a win on the corned beef from Tesco. Sainsbury and M&S were a dead heat on the stewing steak.

After this session, neither of us felt the urge for tinned meat for several months!