The logistics of providing interesting food on a cruising boat compared to eating while living on shore are very different. Quite often you are living out of cans and don’t have the usual fresh produce or ingredients available that you are used to, but with a little imagination you can quite often produce that culinary masterpiece from a couple of cans.

Currently we are getting our boat ready for a short cruise over Christmas and New Year and part of that is getting the food on board for the days we will be gone. This made me reflect back to the time we were cruising full time, and what it involved having to provision for up to six months. I have to admit that after two years back on land I’m a little rusty in that department. A few things do come to mind though, things we found that made cruising just that little bit nicer.

1) Popcorn is one thing every cruising boat should have. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, last forever and is easy to produce as a snack at just about any time. Particularly popular at sundowners.
2) Don’t be afraid to try new things. I found that once we got out of the Caribbean the fresh produce that you are used to getting in large grocery stores in the US and Australia is very hard to find, and is expensive if you do. Usually you could get onions, capsicums/peppers, carrots, potatoes, sometimes tomatoes and lettuce. On the smaller islands quite often even these are only available sporadically. Some of the locally available vegetables are very tasty and can be used in place of more commonly known ones. Some of the vegetables commonly available in the village markets are taro, yams, breadfruit, bananas, mangoes, coconuts and many others.
3) Of course there is always fish. We don’t have a freezer on our boat so we only had fresh meat when we were in a port. Chicken was usually available at a reasonable price and in the pacific NZ lamb could be found as well. Sometimes you came across goat and pork. The cuts of meat were available were rarely ones I recognised.
4) Beer bread is also another find. It is very simple to make and can be either cooked in the oven in a traditional loaf pan or on the stove in the pressure cooker. It only contains three ingredients. The hardest part is convincing your husband to let you use a can of beer to make it.
5) Kraft cheddar cheese in a blue box lasts for ever and doesn’t need to be refrigerated but tastes like normal cheese. Again great to have aboard to produce as cheese and crackers at sundowners and use however you would normally use cheese.
6) Flavoured powdered drink mixes such as Tang or Crystal Light are another good thing to have. When made up they can have rum added to them for sundowners. They also hide the taste of the water from your tanks, which can occasionally be a bit nasty.
7) Sao biscuits or cream crackers are another essential in my book. They can be used in place of bread. Many times we have had Sao’s for breakfast or lunch with cheese, jam or tuna salad on them.

The trick is to eat what the locals eat, and not expect all the foods you are used to.