The days are long gone, if they ever really existed, when sailing folk opened a tin of something for dinner or like Tilman, cooked up a pot of gumbo or burgoo which was added to for weeks until it got too mouldy to eat. Most cruising people eat very well and spend a lot of time thinking about and preparing food. Over the years I’ve been putting together boat recipes and listening to lots of other cruisers who like good food and bit by bit this book ‘just growed’.
I am not a gourmet cook. I don’t even think I am a great cook. What I like is food and that naturally leads to an interest in cooking good food and once you start there is no holding back. We eat well in harbour and on passage without resorting to ready-meals or frozen made-up meals. There are a lot of tasty meals, often quite simple, that you can put together on passage when things are a bit bumpy and you don’t want to have a long list of ingredients strewn around the galley. Conversely there are also more complicated recipes you can cook up in harbour or in calm weather at sea. On passage from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus in the Pacific the ocean lived up to its moniker and we were becalmed on a flat sea. We adjusted the passage plan to arrive a day later at the coral pass and put together a feast while drifting around in the
