Food at meal times

[Rod Nissen]

Des. Cottage pie is made from beef. Shepherds pie with lamb.
Bank Line was the place to be for curries. Especially if you were a junior eng and had to check the bandari's stove diesel burners and got the crew's curry.
However early years the food was sparing. No food left out after dinner except for a sandwich box left in your cabin. You knew what was in it from the day of the week. Looked forward to sunday...boiled egg sandwich and a cube inch of sponge cake for afternoon smoko.

[Donald Young]

Hello--sailed as eng with bp on indian crew ships--lost a lot of weight because of the curry menu --thank heavens for cray fish while on the aussy coast--nine months of curry--i lost 20 lbs and was not fat to start with.
The other stomach turner was the creamed veggies--creamed because they were going off i am sure.

[Dennis McGuckin]

Best curry I ever had was on the Iberia.
Goanese cooks.

[John C Bell]

Food on Ellermans City Ships was always good. The cadet ship "City of Lucknow" was where I first ate curries and never looked back. On a business trip to India I stayed at a hotel in Goa where I complained about the lack of Indian food on the menu. The waiter asked what I would like and said he would speak to the chef. Some time later a conga appeared from the hotel heading towards me at the pool. As they got close I suddenly recognised the man leading was the head chef from my last ship! The result was a fantastic Prawn Curry lunch washed down with a large bottle of Kingfisher. Needless to say the food for the rest of my stay was outstanding. It is a small world. Incidentally I would love to hear from anyone who sailed on City Ships between 1962 - 1973, particular if we were shipmates. Incidentally I did a coastal as second mate on the City of York - a great shipI I was always known as John Bell and spent mason of my time on the MANZ run.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Rod
Both my wife and i went spare when we read that menu as she cooks Shepherds pie herself, next time I see it up I will be having a word ha ha.
Cheers Des

[Doc Vernon]

One surprise for me was the first time I saw Kippers at breakfast time, but I still wolfed them down, had a stomach like a dustbin in those days,
at home I'd only ever known kippers as a teatime meal also for us at home, the midday meal was dinner and the evening meal was tea and all
my mates knew the same, cheers

Always have loved my Kippers,have them many times for Breakfast on Toast,like a wee bit of Brown Viniger over them and lots of Pepper Yummy
On the UCL Ships battled a bit t get my Kippers ,as the Bloods seemed to just love them as well,but managed to scrape a few and put aside for our Mealtime.
As for Curries and other Spicy foods well there was a lot of that so no troubles getting our shares.
Cheers

[Doc Vernon]

I need to start eating a lot more now,after this Operation i have lost some 14 Kilo's and look like a Skeleton LOL
So more Kippers,Eggs (Like them Poached as well but cannot find a good old style Poacher) so have Scrambled or Fried!
Cheers

[ian avery]

I remember when I was on a ship with a Russian chef; he had a special; cooking sheep brains and heart, god it stuck. I don’t think there was much of a rush to get to the hot plate for it. We were due to sail up near Russia, (early 70's) and he had to leave the ship, that was good, back to normal food. (funny thing was we never went near Russia, went to Norway, Narvik)

[Tony Taylor]

I remember when I was on a ship with a Russian chef; he had a special; cooking sheep brains and heart, god it stuck. I don’t think there was much of a rush to get to the hot plate for it. We were due to sail up near Russia, (early 70's) and he had to leave the ship, that was good, back to normal food. (funny thing was we never went near Russia, went to Norway, Narvik)

My granny used to boil a sheeps head, I could smell it 100 yards away and would decide to visit some other time.

[Captain Kong]

Fyffes skin boats were BAD Feeders,

When I was on the Corrales in 1956, We loaded stores in Garston and six days later carried them ashore onto the back of a wagon, a few pounds changed hands and we were on our pound and pint.

Every meal was made of Bananas, fried bananas, stewed bananas, boiled bananas, grilled bananas, mashed bananas, banana soup. and so on , we were going bananas.
we couldnt sleep at night due to hunger pains. We got Irish Stew made with Bananas, no potatoes.
The crowd voted me to go and kick to the Skipper, Mighty Joe Young.
I went onto the Captains deck, with my plate of "Irish" banana stew.
He opens the door, towering over me, I said , The crowd want to complain about the Irish stew, He says , Whats wrong with it?. I said, forgetting he was Irish, `Its OK if your Irish but...... Then a Big Iron Fist hit me between the eyes and I did a somersault backwards and down the ladder onto the boat deck and ended up under the lifeboat,my plat of Irish Banana stew disappeared over the wall.

I crawled down aft and all hands laughed at my face that was covered in blood. I went hungry again that night, all hands had eaten theirs.