cmedsailor
Well-Known Member
Mashed potatoes (ready in the bag to boil), tin of tuna fish, onions, olive oil, salt, mix them all...bon apetite.
Which is the best snack when sailing?
- Thread starter Nostrodamus
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Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Meandering back from Cherbourg on a balmy summers night about 3am fresh caught Mackerel filleted, grilled and wrapped in butted wholemeal bred with Blue Stilton and a glass of Rémy Martin.
Sir, you are the best of us, by far.
Why go to sea for pleasure, then subsist on long-life junk in waterproof packaging, because of the boisterous conditions?
I reckon a bit of wildly inconvenient Keith Floyd flamboyance, turns the experience (and recollection) of even an arduous & comfortless passage into a varied, cheerful, enviable travelogue.
Even my mate & I, mid-Solent in a Topper dinghy, managed to contrive a croque monsieur along with vodka martinis. Ryvitas weren't ideal, but the butane stove did a nice job of gratinating the Roquefort. And cherry tomatoes seemed to benefit from a roll in the bilge.
Grumpybear
Well-Known Member
Diced spam curry, but only with a F8 in the forecast.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Grumpybear
Well-Known Member
Is it true that curry (like horseradish) hurts more on its return journey?
Don't know. It's a long time since I met the victims of that particular culinary triumph.
prv
Well-Known Member
I quite agree. Gives something to do on a long passage, too.
I'm sure there are times when it really is too rough to do more than grab some kind of one-handed bio-fuel - but most of us coastal sailors try to avoid being out in such conditions.
Stoves have gimbals for a reason!
Pete
doris
Well-Known Member
Hot dog
No one seems to have mentioned a simple hot dog. Waitrose pain rustica/decent wieners with mayo and mustard with a pud of home made flap jacks made with syrup and honey. Total energy provision for days. Wrap the HD in some kitchen roll and can be put down in an emergency, if one is so common to have such a disorganised boat.
On the other hand a gentleman might heave to and forego a snack in favour of a bit of roast beef.
No one seems to have mentioned a simple hot dog. Waitrose pain rustica/decent wieners with mayo and mustard with a pud of home made flap jacks made with syrup and honey. Total energy provision for days. Wrap the HD in some kitchen roll and can be put down in an emergency, if one is so common to have such a disorganised boat.
On the other hand a gentleman might heave to and forego a snack in favour of a bit of roast beef.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Naturally! Ovens are gimballed, too. And make sure there's a choice of mustards - and ensure they're in pots, please, each one on a saucer with a spoon - none of those squeezy plastic abominations, like so much yellow toothpaste.
Now...a touch of Dijonnaise with my brisket, if you please...
prv
Well-Known Member
Bockies!
When I sailed with the Army in Germany, bockies and semf was a staple in cold weather. Boil the bockwursts in a pan of water, wrap in bread, and add plenty of German sweet mustard.
Pete
doris
Well-Known Member
Naturally! Ovens are gimballed, too. And make sure there's a choice of mustards - and ensure they're in pots, please, each one on a saucer with a spoon - none of those squeezy plastic abominations, like so much yellow toothpaste.
Now...a touch of Dijonnaise with my brisket, if you please...
Glad someone was brought up proper like.
prv
Well-Known Member
Indeed. Great for cooking sausages in for lunch - put them in a sturdy baking tray along with a piece of bread (crust off the end of a loaf) to soak up excess fat so that they don't get deep-fried. Needs no attention apart from the occasional check to see if they're done yet.
A friend of mine once roasted a chicken and served it with potatoes, broccoli, and carrots, for lunch - on a day sail! Though that's possibly taking things a bit far
The skipper I sailed with in the Baltic did an excellent Sunday dinner of schnitzel and all the trimmings halfway down the Danish coast. Also a fantastic Malaysian curry from scratch (I think his wife hailed from that part of the world) halfway between Sweden and Denmark in February.
Cooking sausage and mash with peas and onion gravy is becoming something of a tradition for me on the way to the Scuttlebutt Cherbourg event
Pete
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Well, one can dream...
...but you may have seen, my most notable command was a Topper.
Still, my crew was a competent commissariat - we ate well, even though most of his duties involved unplugging olives from the self-bailer, and keeping the venison pie out of the inevitable puddles... I'm entirely sure that if we'd relied upon long-expiry rehydratable pasta-pots, and other "convenience" calories, we would remember our dinghy-journeys only as the tense, wet, crouching hours they would otherwise have been. Good food & wine/liquor made it a pleasure.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
A friend of mine once roasted a chicken and served it with potatoes, broccoli, and carrots, for lunch - on a day sail! Though that's possibly taking things a bit far
I think not. Of all the appalling accounts of the '79 Fastnet, the only one which always instantly comes back to me is the description of the scene aboard Ted Turner's Tenacious, where the crew enjoyed a steak-dinner at the height of the storm.
Not necessarily possible aboard humbler vessels, but God willing, it won't often have to be in such weather.
The point surely, is that we all enjoy good food - and quick, easy stuff (particularly if sold and marketed as such) is mostly foul, compared with anything we've taken time over. There's often plenty of free time, sailing on passage, so why not spend it working up a feast?
When, at the year's end, we think back to the season's sailing (and discuss next year's, with proposed crew-members), how much more enthusiastic is everyone going to be, if your boat is known to serve seriously good grub, nothing cheap or nasty, and cooked with care?
Hard-core racers have other priorities. Too bad. Let them suffer from their NASA-supplied, constipating ration-packs...
...I say yachting ought to be a long procession of memorable pleasures. Every sophistication we take aboard, makes it better.
prv
Well-Known Member
The skipper I mentioned above (him of the schnitzels and curry) was known for running a very well-catered ship. He did all the cooking - he said it relaxed him at the end of a day's racing. He also believed in a good breakfast, doing at least a small fryup every morning.
He and the navigator had sailed together for years, and adopted a perfectly interlocking morning routine in port. The skipper would get up, put the kettle on, then go ashore to the ablutions (most of these little Danish ports had a public loo block on the fish quays where we tended to berth). When it boiled, the navigator would get up, pour the water into the teapot and put milk and sugar in the mugs, then head ashore himself. A couple of minutes later the skipper would return, pour the tea, and wake up each of the crew with a mug next to their bunk. He'd then start on the bacon and eggs, and we the crew were expected to be up and dressed just in time to eat it. A very civilised start to the day, and since he was a Major and half the crew were usually Craftsmen (REME version of a Private), they found being waited on in this way hilarious
On one cruise, we watched the Royal Signals boat loading nothing but case after case of pot noodles aboard. Apparently they didn't want to make a mess of the galley (and hence have to clean it) so used the cooker for boiling water only. As some kind of macho display, they also all wore shorts whenever leaving or entering port (in the Baltic in February) - but clearly the not poodles were the craziest part.
Pete
Seajet
...
Thanks Dan,
that will really put off the peasants making out yotties are snobby gits !!!
As a contrast, my foredeck crew only have to open the mail and sew buttons on my Starfleet Admiral of The Anderson Fleet Of The Red Uniform then they may retire below for a quick puff on their clay pipes before hoisting the sails, I think that fair enough.
Dan, seriously, have you read 'Down Channel' by RT McMullen ? He was a stockbroker in Victorian times, virtually invented sailing as a hobby; he had big traditional style boats but cruised in them, with a couple of paid crew until he got fed up with them, fired them and did it singlehanded...PM me if you'd like to borrow it.
Sorry for thread drift.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
I'll be sure to find a copy, thanks! Pretty sure I've heard the title before. Sounds like Jerome K Jerome, in a bigger boat.
The skipper I mentioned above (him of the schnitzels and curry) was known for running a very well-catered ship. He did all the cooking - he said it relaxed him at the end of a day's racing. He also believed in a good breakfast, doing at least a small fryup every morning...
...since he was a Major and half the crew were usually Craftsmen (REME version of a Private), they found being waited on in this way hilarious
...the Royal Signals boat loaded nothing but case after case of pot noodles aboard. Apparently they didn't want to make a mess of the galley (and hence have to clean it) so used the cooker for boiling water only.
There, let everyone see, and recognise the difference: the stark contrast between true gentlemen and idiot savages.
That Major sounds like one of the best blokes anyone could ever hope to meet!
Seajet
...
My Dad is 88, brought up on a small house on the outskirts of Aberdeen with a Wild Cat living in the stone wall, volunteered for WWII and ended up on carriers in the Far East under Kamikaze attacks.
Then he had various rough serious engineering jobs including setting up Battersea Power Station.
When sailing back from Brixham to Chichester all I had to offer was pot noodles;after a tentative try one look at his face and I knew I was within a hairsbreath of being done under the Geneva Convention.
Then he had various rough serious engineering jobs including setting up Battersea Power Station.
When sailing back from Brixham to Chichester all I had to offer was pot noodles;after a tentative try one look at his face and I knew I was within a hairsbreath of being done under the Geneva Convention.
prv
Well-Known Member
Since he'd been sailing in the southern Baltic for twenty years and knew every wrinkle and eddy, we also won quite a few races with him in charge
Pete
Daniel5
Well-Known Member
Sausage cobs. Must be the very cheapest sausages tho, with ketchup.
WestWittering
Well-Known Member
Home-made soup, which I make & freeze in advance. I pour the soup into freezer bags and use a small saucepan as a mold so that it fits into the saucepan on the boat still frozen. Leave to defrost & simmer on a gentle heat till done. Big metal mugs of steaming hot, home-made soup. Yum!
Best diving lunches ever are to be had from the Lochaline Dive Centre. For £5 a head it was - home-made soup, filled roll, bag of crisps, piece of homemade cake and a Quality Street sweetie. Cue 12 divers all swapping their crisps & sweetie - the excitement made up for the rough weather & poor viz!!
Di
Best diving lunches ever are to be had from the Lochaline Dive Centre. For £5 a head it was - home-made soup, filled roll, bag of crisps, piece of homemade cake and a Quality Street sweetie. Cue 12 divers all swapping their crisps & sweetie - the excitement made up for the rough weather & poor viz!!
Di
