Transatlantic Menu. A Food Chronicle of an Adult-and-Child Crew for All 23 Days Under Sail. Passage from Cabo Verde to French Guiana.

Transatlantic Menu. A Food Chronicle of an Adult-and-Child Crew for All 23 Days Under Sail This is a new section! There will be a link here — General information on provisioning and food storage times: Food List for an Ocean Passage, with Notes from Experience A transatlantic menu for a family of two adults and two children—girls aged 14 and 5. There are no meat products on the menu, because the captain is a committed vegetarian, and we follow his lead :). The exception is fish we catch ourselves. Oh, and our boat has no freezer, while the fridge works only when there is enough sun and wind to charge the batteries. Given the tropical heat and occasional heavy rolling, throughout the passage we mostly ate two meals a day, with a couple of small snacks. Breakfast was at a regular time; all other meals were on demand 🙂 So, here is what a Transatlantic passage looks like from a culinary perspective 🙂 . Day 1 Breakfast “Oh, Mum, look, look! A fish has hopped aboard!” From that happy morning when Laduska discovered a flying fish on deck, walking around the deck in search of breakfast became the young sailor’s morning ritual :). So this is what we had: semolina porridge and fried flying fish. Tea with sweet buns. Bog-standard lunch Squalls are sweeping in and the waves are about four metres high. We eat boiled rice with sauce from a jar, sprawled awkwardly on the cockpit sole and juggling our plates. Between meals, the female members of the crew lie face down in the cockpit or practise dogging and undogging the hatches during squalls. Day 2 Breakfast “Mum, the fish didn’t hop aboard today. It must have learned how to jump and jumped right over our yacht.” So: tea, bread and butter with cheese, and fruit. Lunch Thai-style fried rice with egg and stir-fried vegetables in soy sauce Afternoon snack A milk-and-banana shake made by the captain. He is the only one who can spend any length of time in the galley. The waves are about four metres high :). . Day 3 Breakfast Buckwheat, tea with sandwiches, and fruit. When it is not raining, all meals are eaten on the cockpit sole, Eastern-style. Lunch Tomato salad with avocado, lemon juice, and onion. It turns out rather nice if you add capers. We finished off with canned peaches in the rain. Day 4 The pears, passion fruit, and even some of the oranges are beginning to spoil. We ate the yellow bananas; the green ones are ripening ominously. All six kilos in unison :). Breakfast Soft-boiled eggs. Fruit. Bread with cheese and butter, tomatoes, and tea. Lunch “Mmm... Daddy’s soup!” The captain’s signature lentil and vegetable soup. Dinner Tea. Canned tuna with bread and onion. It is good, but extremely oily. The oil runs down our cheeks and elbows and, we suspect, down our oesophaguses on the inside. We have worked out how to secure a saucepan amidships at the stern in a coil of sheets and eat from a communal bowl. Day 5 Breakfast African baobab drink—we bought buoy-loads of it as a remedy for scurvy, vitamin deficiency, and upset stomachs, and to boost the immune system. It comes as a powder and does not spoil, and contains six times as much vitamin C as lemons. Recipe : 2 teaspoons of powder per glass of water. Tasty with honey and a drop of lemon. Millet porridge with powdered milk. Jam and tea. Lunch Porridge for Lada; for us— the signature “Lady Mary” salad: finely diced tomatoes, cucumbers, apple, cheese, and onion. Olive oil, salt, and black allspice. Afternoon snack Canned pears, with the syrup as compote We are finishing the fresh pears and passion fruit because they will not survive much longer. And three oranges are preparing to give up the ghost. We managed to save the parts not yet touched by decay ). Of the fresh fruit, we have about seven oranges, a couple of kiwis, lemons, and a crate of apples left. Siiigh... what we wouldn’t give for African mangoes right now! Day 6 Breakfast Oranges, kiwis, and bananas; muesli with banana and milk; black tea with mint; bread, butter, and cheese. The ocean is calm, our appetites have returned, and we even have room for Second breakfast What else is there to entertain ourselves with? ... A milk-and-banana shake with honey, made by the captain. We can make it too, technically, but by now it is his trademark :). We still eat on the cockpit sole almost all the time, sheltered from the scorching sun only by makeshift awnings made from sheets and pareos. We had to take down the proper awning because it gets in the way of setting the mizzen. Sea gypsies—that’s us :). Our wagon (check out the awnings): Lunch Shchi, because the cabbage was unlikely to last much longer without losing quality. For the main course—fried kamikaze flying fish. During the night, the captain caught some squid. I either undercooked them or overcooked them; either way, here is the outcome: I am eating rubber all by myself, my jaws ache in every direction, and the crew are teasing me. Day 7 Breakfast Fruit, banana shake, and “oatmeal, sir” for Dad. Instant mashed potatoes for the children. A squall came through by lunchtime and the boat began to roll. Lunch Rice and the remains of the canned tuna, fried with onion. The canned tuna is extremely oily. Nobody can stand eating it for long; I alone persevere and keep finishing it off for another three or four days. I have devised a method of squeezing the oil out through a piece of gauze. Day 8 Breakfast Cornmeal porridge, tea with sandwiches, and fruit (still alive!) Lunch The captain’s lentil soup. We soak the lentils beforehand to save gas. We have worked out how to brace the dishes on the cockpit sole inside the Lifesling rescue sling. It looks funny, but it is effective in the battle against airborne frying pans. . Day 9 Breakfast Omelette, milk-and-banana shake, and tea with biscuits and honey Lunch The ocean is calm, so we managed to make proper vegetable soup, just like at home Afternoon snack Chocolate milk + Nastya’s fritters (flour, cocoa powder, powdered milk, carob, honey, water). Day 10 Breakfast Nastya’s fritters with jam, fruit, and tea. Nastya is winning the contest for chief ship’s cook by a mile :). Lunch Pizza, baked sweet potato, and potatoes. The milk-and-banana shake is no longer made only by the cap’n 🙂 Dinner Instant mashed potatoes (we have got lazy), green peas, + fried flying fish—it flew aboard during the day today, the lunatic... Our wagon on a working afternoon Day 11 Breakfast Fried eggs with tomatoes, onion, and garlic; milk-and-banana shake. Andrei put the bowl of shake in the sink and then, entirely by accident of course, pumped some seawater into it from the dedicated tap... We drank it anyway—what else could we do? )))). It was all right, more or less: “You can drink it, but it tastes like shit.” Lunch By lunchtime, we had grasped the sheer vastness of our cheese supplies and their bleak prospects without refrigeration. We launched Operation Cheese Annihilation, and so for dinner— Pizza, baked potatoes, and sweet potato ) Day 12 Breakfast Fruit, oatmeal with raisins, dried apricots, and banana. Today we had a tremendous catch! Fried bonito and bonito sashimi. Apparently we sailed into good fishing grounds, because within half an hour we caught a second fish almost with our bare hands; that one went into the pot. Tomorrow I’ll make curry with it. If the heat doesn’t turn it to mush (the fish and me). It is already turning me to mush by eight in the morning. (Nine by our clocks.) Late lunch-early dinner Pizza with lemonade and tea (Operation Cheese Annihilation continues). . Day 13 Breakfast Apples (what a blessing that they keep for so long!). Oatmeal, sir. Nobody but the sir and lady-sir eats oatmeal, so everyone else gets Nastya’s pancakes with jam and tea. Lunch Thai fish curry soup with coconut milk, vegetables, garlic, and potatoes. Deliciousss! It went down a storm. And yes, neither the fish nor I turned to mush in the heat 🙂 Catching fish is a whole adventure. To land one, we have to reduce the boat’s speed—in other words, take down some sails. A bite: we furl the genoa; one crew member eases the sheet while another hauls on the furling line. The cap’n can do it by hand; we use the winch. The boat loses way, while the fish waits patiently on the hook until we have put the sail away (or it doesn’t wait, but bites through the hook and swims off). Then the cap’n hauls the fish in, provided it hasn’t escaped, of course. Meanwhile, Nastya runs to fetch the rum (these sprats are already finishing the second bottle). And I run for the landing net or gaff. The captain hauls in the fish; we catch it with the net/gaff. Then the fish-gutting and fishy clean-up begins on the port side (our designated fish-cleaning side), using salt water scooped from the ocean in a bucket. Especially pleasant when the boat is rolling—particularly for those who get seasick 🙂 . Day 14 First breakfast Apples, tea with biscuits and chocolate spread (little by little, we are digging different treats out of the secret stash to keep morale up). The cap’n and I decided to snaffle a little during the morning watch while the children were asleep :). We giggle, our faces smeared with chocolate. Second breakfast Nastya’s pancakes filled with cheese, garlic, and mayonnaise, + olives. Afternoon snack Fruit cocktail in syrup. We had no strength left for dinner: heat and waves. Day 15 Breakfast Apples. Millet porridge with pumpkin and powdered milk; tea and biscuits with jam Lunch We boiled some cheap African pasta, but even with cheese and sauce it tastes more like wallpaper paste. So we are having paste for lunch. Where can we get some wallpaper? Dinner No wallpaper was delivered. So we will turn our lunchtime paste into lazy lasagne. Recipe for lazy lasagne made from African paste during an ocean passage: Fried pumpkin in a creamy sauce with garlic and onion, plus tomato paste with basil and oregano; layer the whole lot between two layers of paste + cheese. It smells amazing and is edible. . Day 16 Breakfast Apples, tea with jam, and lasagne (the same one, but upgraded with lots of garlic!). What a blessing that the fridge is still working! Lunch Lasagne, third iteration: we added 2 onions, lots of cheese, and the remains of a jar of mushrooms to what was left of the second iteration of paste, then fried the lot. It came out almost like julienne. As a side dish, the remaining olives and two fried flying fish that came hurtling aboard during the night. Afternoon snack —canned pineapple. Day 17 Breakfast Apples. Tea with papaya jam (a rare delicacy from a market in the Cape Verde Islands. I am already polishing off the second jar before the crew develops a taste for it). Biscuits and cornmeal porridge Lunch Khmer-style vegetable curry with tofu (or is it not tofu?) and vegetables. Afternoon snack —canned pears Dinner Tea with biscuits, papaya jam, and chocolate spread; apples; and a film right there in the cockpit. Calms are wonderful. For dinner in an open-air cimena... We have run out of carrots and potatoes; all that is left is onions, garlic, apples, and 1 pumpkin. Day 18 Breakfast Buckwheat, tea with biscuits and chocolate spread, and apples Lunch We are finishing yesterday’s curry with buckwheat, and probably ought to cook something else... Day 19 Breakfast Semolina porridge for Lada; muesli with dried apricots and raisins for Dad; fried eggs with cheese and spices for Nastya and Mum. Tea, biscuits, and jam. Lunch Rice with our signature ocean sauce and vegetables. Sauce recipe : A can of mixed vegetables, fried onion and garlic, tofu, milk, soy sauce, curry powder, and dried basil. Afternoon snack —canned fruit cocktail; in our excitement, we opened a second can too—pineapple. There is hardly any distance left to South America! We have begun switching off the fridge from time to time because there is not always enough sun and wind to charge the batteries (now, who is the greediest member of the crew!) And this is the cap’n. He doesn’t eat much. . Day 20 Breakfast Apples, Nastya’s pancakes with cheese-and-garlic salad and jam. We have to eat anything we cook in one sitting. The semolina spoiled overnight without refrigeration. We will have to part with the fridge for good: keeping the cheese alive costs us more than buying it did, considering that an hour’s engine time costs about 5 euros and we start it almost every day for around 2 hours. True, that also gives us 2 hours under power—otherwise there is no persuading the cap’n to run the engine; it wouldn’t be sporting :). The boiled rice made an excellent “rice-and-pumpkin.” Recipe: boiled rice + diced pumpkin + cream sauce. I added too much seawater, so it came out salty. Tomorrow I’ll upgrade it with beans. Dinner “Sad face”: we have decided not to start the engine any more. Now we are bobbing around in the calms—goodbye, fridge. As well as our sorrow, two cans of fruit were consumed at dinner. And Nastya’s pizza. ...Should we award her the honorary title of chief cook of the crew? We watched almost two episodes of Countess de Monsoreau with a packet of crisps. . Day 21 Breakfast For breakfast—an upgrade of the oversalted “rice-and-pumpkin” with beans that had been soaked overnight and cooked separately. + tea, apples, biscuits, and chocolates Lunch I upgraded the “bean rice-and-pumpkin” further, until it became tomato soup. It is no longer as salty and has acquired the respectable name “Tomato Soup with Beans, Rice, and Pumpkin” 🙂 Dinner “A daughter who has been cutting things since the age of two, and clever-hands Nastya... or perhaps Marya the Master Craftswoman... That’s who you got!” Lada pronounced thoughtfully as she sliced pumpkin for the pizza topping. The young sailor meant that she has been cutting salads with a knife since the age of two, as part of Mum’s “children should be useful” programme. An evening film accompanied by herbal tea and Nastya’s scrumptious pizza topped with whatever came to hand: sun-dried tomato, pickled cucumber, and fresh pumpkin. It came out tastier than yesterday’s (yesterday’s pizza with sun-dried tomato, sweetcorn, and boiled egg was a little dry). Day 22 Breakfast Apples, tea with homemade Cape Verdean papaya jam (I have finished off the second jar—it is so delicious! Fortunately, no one else in the crew has yet discovered the delights of papaya cooked down to caramel.) and fried eggs with onion. Lunch The remains of the bean soup with rye rusks (we bought up all the Borodinsky bread in the Canaries and dried it), boiled eggs with mayonnaise. Dinner Nastya’s pizza (this seems to be the second week of pizzas; we have nothing left to top them with, but there is still cheese). Boy, are we good at stocking up! 🙂 Pizza topping at the end of the passage: sauce, cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, boiled eggs, and a little inspiration 🙂 . Day 23 (night)—Laaand!!! The 23rd day of our journey. By nightfall, the lookout spotted the scattered lights of French Guiana ahead. At half past midnight, Lady Mary dropped anchor off the now uninhabited Îlet la Mère. In our excitement, everyone who had been asleep woke up, and we celebrated our landfall—we drank tea with chocolate in the cockpit, then each went off to sleep in our own little burrow. It smells of decaying leaves and something else pungent, brick-red. There was still plenty of food aboard, so we did not set foot on land for more than a day; we watched and inhaled the delicious scent of land from the deck :). We ourselves cannot understand why it felt so strange—we had thought that once we arrived, we would all throw ourselves overboard and swim straight to shore! But no... The next morning, we celebrated our arrival in South America with “children’s” champagne bought especially for the occasion. And a day later, we finally launched the dinghy :). Well, happy landfall! Children’s champagne against the backdrop of our first South American land :) And here, in 10–12 posts (link to the final post), is our fascinating, detailed transatlantic diary, complete with weather, sails, and adventures. If you found this article useful and would like to thank the authors but do not know how—click the button below 🙂