Food at meal times

[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.

[Ken Norton]

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

My Aunty in Bolton used to make "cow heel pie" that stunk the smell reminded me of wood glue. I beleive they made it from the same stuff. Not for me.

[Ken Norton]

Will take a while Doc, good to see your posts. Kippers are good for you I beleive full of protein and Plenty of Omega 3 very good on the system. Belated birthday best wishes I seem to have missed. Take care and steady as she goes.

[Ken Norton]

I was always told that cottage pie had grated cheese on top and when finished in the oven that was thatched on the roof of the Cottage

When it comes to kippers I was shown many years ago the best way to cook them you took a deep jug put the kippers in them poured water boiling from the kettle into the jug let it stand for 5 minutes and a kippers were cooked with absolutely no smell

Great tip Rob, wife is going to try that will let you know how they taste.

[John F Collier]

The post by Ken and Tony brought back a load of memories for me, after the war dad did a lot of carpentry and used Scotch glue all the time,
I can remember dad heating up his metal glue pot on the gas stove, it was a real stink, the glue was put in the wood joint as a hot liquid it was
a very strong glue. In the late 40s with rationing etc, people didn't have a lot of choice and had to get whatever they could get hold of, we had
sheeps head and pigs head, whale meat, and rabbit if available, the first time I tasted mushrooms it was stalks only, so it seems greengrocers
sold the stalks and heads separately in those days, dad kept chickens so we had eggs and the occasional chicken for Sunday dinner, not many
overweight people about in those days , cheers

[Tony Taylor]

Fyffes skin boats were BAD Feeders,





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.

HA HA, made me laugh as well, as I recall one job where we spent a few months round the Caribbean and Central America calling at all the little banana ports discharging fuel oil for banana boats.
Was sick of the sight of them after a couple of weeks. Everyone had them hung up in their cabins and the chief steward must have nicked a load as well (was usually the deck apprentices). At one time if you went in someones cabin you would be offered beer, but that offer changed to bananas, we had them on very menu but fortunately not as stew.

[John Arton]

In 20+ years in C.P. only ever sailed on one ship where the feeding was not top notch and that was the Empress of Canada, where despite eating in the 1st class dining saloon, all junior officers were seated together in an area dedicated to us at the opposite end of the saloon opposite the lifts, and were fed from a very pared down menu of soup, entree, main and dessert. No steak, lobster or fancy dessert, just basic fish, chops etc. Mind you having had to go through the galley every morning on 02:00 night rounds and seeing the the state of the ranges etc I was quite happy not to be eating the food served to the passengers. The Beaverfir Scottish cook, when sober, was o.k but at times the ships cat was better fed than us but being on the north Atlantic run being thrown around for most of the crossing, food was often not a priority and spending as much time in port as at sea, there was always a shoreside establishment to get a decent feed in.
Rgds
J.A.

[robpage]

With Union Castle we ate in the first class and had access to everything on the menu. A lot of the time with the pendennis we ended up eating in cabins because by the time you've finished your watch at 8 at night you was really pushing it to get changed and get down to the saloon.

[Richard Quartermaine]

A pair of big fat juicy kippers, at the Salmon Lane Mission for 1 shilling and sixpence in the late 1940s was scrumcious finanicus shikadoodalis.
Richard