This is the start of a rambling and highly opinionated series of essays about stocking a galley the propane chef way…
Every modern offshore cruising book I have every read contains a section called "Galley Essentials".
Why do they call it this? Usually this section is packed full of good and not so good information about preparing a galley for cooking offshore. There are sections on storage, needed equipment, needed food stocks, and usually some recipes. These stocks and recipes often reveal the writer’s taste in food. If you find lots of can goods, prepackaged meals, and culinary shortcuts – well – it reveals if you are dealing with a gourmet, or just somebody writing a section in a book.
You can tell a lot about how well a person cooks by the types of vinegar they have aboard. In our old house – my long suffering wife once counted 11 different types of vinegar – several types of balsamic of various qualities, sherry vinegar, raspberry vinegar, red vinegar, rice vinegar,cider vinegar, white vinegar, champagne vinegar – you get the idea.
Living aboard now, though, I usually have only about 4-5 – these are – balsamic, red, cider, white, and rice. (The white vinegar is mostly for cleaning the boat). These meet all of my needs. Vinegar can be used to marinate meats, make sauces, and enliven vegetables. A tablespoon of balsamic, mixed with olive oil, capers, chopped green olives, and a tiny bit of shallot or garlic – makes a delightful sauce for almost any cut of fish or meat. I always have these ingredients on board.
I have talked about Bill Seifert’s Offshore Sailing book. He has a smallish section in this book about galley essentials, and a lot of lists. Under his "staple supplies", he lists balsamic, cider, and capers. He is the offshore gourmet, and clearly no poser!! He gets negative marks for listing bottled teriyaki sauce (lets not even mention the bullion cubes) – since this sauce is so easy to make, and homemade tastes so much better than bottled:
1/2 cup high quality soy (no Kikoman here), 2 tablespoons Sake, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 tsp of arrowroot starch, and 3 minutes of propane yields a great teriyaki. You can use leftovers to make other sauces – add a bit of butter and some dry wasabi (Japanese horseradish) to make a pan sauce for salmon, or black cod, or pork cutlets. We love to drink Sake’ – so I cook a bit of Japanese something every week or two. But I don’t use so much teriyaki that I want to store a bottle of it around in my precious storage space – also, the botttled stuff tastes like salt. I think Bill only sails on large yachts with big crews though, since he is such a rock star and has a book and everything. So maybe its alright for him to buy bottled teriyaki sauce…
So – I think these galley essentials sections are about offshore cookery most of the time. This makes no sense to me. I really don’t intend to cook offshore much – sailing offshore is my diet plan! I have found that offshore, I have little appetite. The days and nights are long, the sleep infrequent and usually unrestful. I was three weeks offshore once and lost 12 pounds – boy it was great. Nothing like a lot of seasickness to really clean a body out…..(more on offshore food later).
These books are largely written by people whose business is to sell you an idea – to get you to go offshore sailing – or buy a boat, or go to their classes or use their services. They are not gourmets (except for Bill). They have a vested interest. I have been to a lot of classes, and they are wonderful for preparing you to go sailing – to a point. But here in America, where our entire culture is based on consumerism – you have to be a little mistrustful of anything anybody tells you when there is something they want to sell you – be it a product, like an expensive class, or a dream, like sailing away and going cruising. They want you to believe that you can live on a boat just like you lived on land, and that offshore sailing is within the reach of everybody – Poppycock!
I went on the Alaska Eagle for an offshore training cruise once. A wonderful experience I would recommend for all wannabe offshore sailors (provided you pick a windward leg). The advertisement said the cook prepared fresh bread while on board. I asked Vito the cook about this and he laughed and laughed and laughed. So, the next day, I baked up a batch of beer bread with a couple of the cans of beer out of the case I had brought aboard – but was not able to drink because I was seasick. We want to preserve truth in maritime advertising, I told Vito, and he thought that was so funny….
When preparing a meal I ofter use 3-4 different types of knives – for chopping, boning a meat, or trimming a vegetable. I like to keep them out of the way, and this magnetic knife rack works really well on a bulkhead. Naturally, when we are sailing we take them down and store them in a knifeholding type of bag and in the drawer.
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