We're back on track...

I really like food...

I mean I really like food. I'm sure a lot of you understand the emphasis.

The problem is cooking on a boat in a world spiraling towards harder times and keeping the boat stocked with good and healthy ingredients on a budget takes no small amount of work and creativity. That's the downside.

On the other hand, the upside is creativity is an enjoyable pastime from where I sit and, whenever you make a good meal aboard, the gratification is there for the tasting.

When we were cruising in Spain we met a well off American couple who were sailing their boat home to the States to sell it and buy an RV because they could not find Hellman's mayonnaise in Europe. Seriously the lack of "proper" mayonnaise in Europe was the deal breaker...

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

At the time I thought they were nuts... Firstly because mayonnaise is pretty easy to make. Secondly because I'd never actually thought of Hellman's as being real mayonnaise but more a sorta/kinda chemical sludge doing a bad mayonnaise imitation, and lastly, how had they escaped the fact that Europe was brimming with awesome freshly made mayonnaise and not taken advantage?

Over the years I've reflected on this more times than I can count because it tells a story and that story is just how important food is to how happy/unhappy we are... Mayonnaise is a silly example but it so perfectly illustrates just how important food can be.

Food is a lot more than just being a fuel that powers our engine and, as times become harder, it's going to be even more important to fulfil those more esoteric needs in a frugal galley.

So, consider this a restatement of purpose of sorts.

The cost of cruising... First steps

One way or another when you begin to cruise you will change your eating habits... Face it, it's all part of the gig and it is a lot easier to embrace this as a positive than to bitch and moan and be an unhappy camper.

Some years ago while in the Canary islands we were talking to a couple with a great boat, a large budget, and all the toys, who could not wait to get back to the US of A and quit cruising because they could not find Hellman's mayo (and suchlike) ... REALLY! The fact was on Las Palmas there is really great (exceptional) shopping and any number of excellent mayo's available and all the fixings for making mayo from scratch but for them, life without their favorite brand was just not in the cards...

Which brings us to the bottom line of eating happily on boats is you will have to be able to adapt and if anything, you should look at it as a positive and enjoy it.

Since you will have to adapt, in the long run, it makes a lot of sense to adapt with a plan rather than simply react... Whether it is evolving a more frugal diet, a healthier one, or simply taking the opportunity to get involved with various ethnic foods and means of preparation, it is always easier with a plan! Since the subject at hand is the cost of cruising we will be talking more about the frugal side...

For most folks, meat is the first problem they run into. Meat has a limited shelf life, requires either refrigeration or preservation of some form (canning, drying, smoking), and when you get to far flung places it is often not at all like home in such things like the way cuts of meat are presented or aged. Face it, when a steak is not a steak for a lot of people it is serious culture shock.

Most people simply adapt by cutting back on meat which is no bad thing health or budget wise and some even cut out meat entirely... Both options you should consider or at least factor in to the equation as one of the easiest ways to cut down on the grocery and provisioning bill is to cut back on protein costs to a need rather than want level.

Which might be a good time to point you towards a couple of great links... 10 in 10 Diet is a great resource and makes it both easy and rather tasty to adapt towards a $150 per person per month food cost scenario and The Hummus Blog which I've recently found to be a finest-kind source of frugal and very tasty recipes for a meat light diet.

The cost of cruising...

One of the problems with modern society is the cost of things seldom reflect their actual value... In fact, to say things have become somewhat nuts is something of an understatement!

Down here in the Caribbean very little is produced food-wise, so pretty much anything you find to provision comes from some faraway place. As a result the price really has nothing to do with the cost of the food but everything to do with the cost of getting that food to you and various middlemen taking a profit in the process.

Take the cherries in the picture... Coming all the way from Washington state (and they certainly show the wear and tear) the price is $6.99 a pound which in this case translates to roughly over sixteen cents a cherry! I guess I should feel better as in Japan they often cost as much as a dollar a cherry, so it could be a lot worse. Then again, I am way too cheap to spend that kind of money on low quality cherries!

The other downside is that being at the end of the line of the food train we get the lower quality, picked over and damaged goods at premium prices... Bummer!

Sadly, what few locals foods there are, tend to reflect the price established by the imported products  as opposed to what they actually cost to produce... Which means if someone here was growing cherries he'd price them to match or exceed the imported Washington state cherries which creates an even more distorted market.

Cherries are something that most of us can do without so it is easy to deal with the high prices by simply not buying them but what do you do about the items you really need and staples? How to you keep the food budget in check?

More on that soon...