On cruise ships I kept hoping the soup cooks do not talk to the dessert cooks, or to the fish cooks either! The soups available on a cruise have been made in traditional ways, as there are lots of fresh bones from meat dishes to make delicious fresh-tasting stock used for meat and vegetable soups, so most of the soups can be eaten daily on a low chemical diet, low in dairy and wheat as well.
As usual on a cruise it is frustrating to see the wide variety of food available but not be able to choose many of them. Yes, I know that at home we have a narrow range of foods, but the others food choices are not as frustratingly in-your-face as when you are on a cruise!
Plain beautifully cooked meats are available, perhaps with a taste of gravy if you tolerate. Plain freshly cooked chips are an important addition to all meals, but apart from that choices become limited. Most meat and vegetable variety dishes are highly flavoured with every imaginable hot sauce and spice. Unfortunately fish was not a useful option. All fish was as over-flavoured as other dishes. But plain carrots and peas are often to be had, and plain crisp lettuce is always there. But the plain sweet potato had cinnamon added! Even plain rice is risky. It is absolutely plain occasionally but progresses up to garlic rice, then jasmine and with herbs or spice added. It is annoying as when we were in India, eating meals with our Indian friends, the rice was plain to balance the curry, and there was always plain green vegetables. It is interesting that when we copy flavours from other cultures we seem to need to add their flavours to everything!
Where you may be able to include some bread there was the luxury of absolutely fresh crusty bread every day. A taste of a jam or honey was all that was needed to really enjoy the experience. I just wish one of the many hot shiny pastries was not also covered in cinnamon or cardamom. Fortunately gluten-free bread was available on request and was nice toasted.
Desserts were usually flavoured with large amounts of high salicylate or additives, or chocolate, but made-just-for-you pancakes could be had with plain ice cream. There was a simply delicious caramel sauce to have as a topping. When one night we could have the crème caramel I realized they used the same caramel so that was a delicious experience.
Thinking about cooking some favourite foods when home is also cheering me up. And trying new ideas such as beef soup with barley may make a good change from always having the barely with lamb. Where fruit is concerned we learned that bananas were only put out at breakfast so to always get them then. Pears were occasional as well, though canned was to be seen sometimes. Beautiful water melon, and honeydew became staples eaten twice a day. Pineapple and strawberry were only one mouthful occasionally.
At meal times I thought about food but overall I am really enjoying in the sightseeing of the new places we visited, and the cruising experience, so having enough foods to do that is really all that is needed.
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