What foods do the crew of a cruise ship eat?
Food continues crewmembers of full integration, perhaps more than anything else in the big ships. Access to ‘home cooking’ at sea varied dramatically because ‘home’ varied dramatically. Some cruise lines have more dishes from India, or Eastern European, Caribbean Gold, depending on the composition of the crew. Fortunately, the cruise lines have food for very gravement crew. It is the real deal, unlike, say, the food court at the old mall. Sure, it has Mexican, Italian and Chinese, the goal only through Taco Bell, sbaro, and Panda, respectivement. And those, of course, they are hopelessly Americanized. Before international corporations, I doubt that Mexican natives, Italians, Chinese gold even had recognized such foods as ‘theirs’, especially after eating. But I digress.
Interestingly, the ships cater to American tastes below the waterline, despite a dearth of them on board. The irony is complete when you realize that almost 100% of said Americans are artists who will not eat anything that is provided to them. Why? Because hotdogs and hamburgers don’t lend themselves to attractive bodies. So why then do the ships bother? Because hotdogs and hamburgers are cheap. Even better, you can both sit under a heat lamp for hours and you’ll never know. Or at least an Indonesian boy wouldn’t. Mystery solved.
But every day on every ship of every cruise line on every sea is Asian day. Large quantities of steamed white rice are always available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, bowing to the preponderance of the East Asian crew. I’ll never forget my first trip to the crew mess, on Carnival Fantasy. While I heaped a couple of beef tenderloins on my plate – myself being nothing if not American – my colleagues opted for a mound of white rice topped by a ladle of fish head broth. This explained our radical disparity in weight and, perhaps, in temperament.
Fortunately for me, I am very interested in food and found different cuisines from different cultures to benefit. Many did not. Considering how hard we all work, the desire for a familiar, comforting meal was understandable. Also, most of the crew comes from rural backgrounds with limited diversity and limited interest in it. Just as a small-town kid from, say, Kansas may not be as interested in foie gras as a New York City native, a small-town kid on an island in the Philippines may not be as interested in burritos. of microwave. And after working more than 80 hours a week? May the poor man have what he wants, for crying out loud!
He points out that the real reason foreign crew members hesitate to integrate food is not: it is eating habits.
Food is not allowed in crew cabins, although the crew sooner or later all sorts sneak some in. Many maintain a ready supply of dry goods, some of which are even occasionally permitted. Asians, for example, tend to stockpile entire bowls of instant noodles, and who’s to know about a hidden hot plate that allows for a late-night snack? But this food-restricting maritime discipline was enacted for good reason. Two, actually, because on some ships there are cockroaches.
The real reason food is denied in the crew cabins is because it invariably ends up in the toilets in a very unbiological way. Ship toilets are very, very sensitive. The gang? Not so much.
When working on Majesty of the Seas of Royal Caribbean, we had to deal with this lath end to end. fish bones backed up the sanitation network so many times that the entire aft deck crew smelled of feces. Literally. What killed me was that disposing of evidence of illicit food is the only time the toilets empty Many at all! Still shuddering at the sight of overworked zombies brushing their teeth next to the toilets to the brim, lids open. Equally confusing to me was why one crew member blushed a shoe. This resulted in backup waste systems for the entire ship, and none other than the hotel manager himself was forced to search the cabins for the culprit. There will be more on this later, but I will add that he swore a lot that day.
Despite all this, some of us on board have access to room service. However, that doesn’t mean the crew is happy to provide it. One night, my order of several sandwiches—I was getting a party of bread—as a result was so deeply impressed by the thumb of an enraged chef that everyone but I could see the fingerprints on him.