Canning on board: papaya chutney

Some amount of eating from cans is a reality for most cruising boats. Between limited refrigeration, passage making (19 days at sea to the Marquesas!), and minimal resources available in some of our destinations- it's necessary to keep our bodies happily fueled.

Provisioning staples for six months - Mexico, 2010

Much better than buying commercially canned food, though, is canning your own. No BPA. No unpronounceables. So much more tasty. The delicious conundrum of whether to use that peach butter for toast, or a fuzzy navel.

Canning food brings with it childhood memories and associations with people I love- making blackberry jam with my grandmother, bringing home pickles from Jamie's mother. Borne from necessity, it became nourishment for the soul as well as the body.

And just as our grandmothers know, it's also a great way to take advantage of local bounty. This is what got me back into canning when we were in Mexico: mountains of gorgeous fresh papayas, coupled with the prospect of weeks at sea during our passage to French Polynesia. The fact that we would face limited (and expensive) food when we arrived didn't help. I made several large batches of papaya chutney, and it turned out to be the perfect addition to kick up many meals on board.

Later this year, we'll be spending a few months sailing through Papua New Guinea. In almost every place we expect to stop, there aren't going to be any grocery stores. We'll trade for fresh produce, but to keep things interesting (and at least a tiny bit predictable), I'll be getting busy canning before we leave.

Good news for me: papayas will be coming into season here just in time for our departure!

Totem's Papaya chutney
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp finely chopped ginger
Grated rind of an orange
1 c vinegar
1 ½ c sugar
Spice it up: pinch in cloves, cardamom, cinnamon
Spice it up a little more: dash in hot sauce to taste
1 large, firm papaya, peeled and chopped

In a saucepan, combine garlic, ginger, orange rind, vinegar and sugar. Bring to a boil, then add remaining ingredients. Simmer until sauce thickens. I process these minimally, similar to the method here.

Provisioning: where does it all go?

I realized after a comment (thanks Travis & Maggie!) on an earlier post that in the series looking back at provisioning that I entirely ignored the big question of stowage. Trading email with Diane while she preps for Ceilydh's Pacific crossing kicked me into gear. Where do you put a few thousand pounds of food on an already packed-to-the-gunwales cruising boat? How do you make it last?


just a hint of the true provisioning chaos on Totem

Yeah. I know. Honestly, we didn't plan this very well. Mostly, we bought the food, then figured out where to put it. It was kind of stressful, and our boat was a mess. Not a lot of wisdom to share except that it's amazing how you CAN find the room! As we put things away, we made notations on our provisioning spreadsheet- it turned out to be really, really helpful later. Stowage locations for different items seem obvious at the time but get lost in the memory fog all too quickly.

A few things worked really well for us in helping things last. Reading up on how to to extend the life of fresh whole foods kept at ambient temperature brought a  few fundamentals:

• Keep a zone of separation from one type of produce to another. No touching, and in some cases (like citrus), not even nearby!
• Keep them out of direct light, in the dark if possible
• Try to have everything as well ventilated as possible
• Mellow temps = mellow veggies: if that locker gets heated up by the sun, it's not going to keep your tomatoes well.
• wrapping individual items for some types went a long way to extending their useful life

Listed below are our long-haul "freshies" stored aboard, and how we kept them from spoiling.

Onions: wrapped individually in paper towels. It felt really wasteful (we normally use dish towels, not paper towels!) but they did get re-used eventually, and the wrapping was KEY to keeping onions (and many other veggies) from turning. After sawing the paper towel roll in half, I tore sheets in half again to find a good wrapping size. They seemed to last forever, but the thing is- you can get onions almost everywhere in the Pacific, so there’s no reason to get tons except for convenience and cost efficiency.


Cabbages: we were able to get cabbages with all the big outer leaves intact, as harvested. One of the only things we washed before stowing, they got a soak in a very mild bleach solution to kill any critters tucked intothe deep leaf crevices. I left all the outer leaves on- they dried and yellowed but it kept the inner leaves well. A 15 minute “bath” in a mild bleach solution, then another to rinse, then dried upside down in the shade of the cockpit. They lasted a very long time. Cabbage sautéed with cider vinegar has become a favorite dish of the kids!


Bins with cabbages and chemoya (top) and onions (bottom) under the bench in Totem's main cabin

Tomatoes: purchased in stages of ripeness, tomatoes were also wrapped individually in paper and carefully packed in a bin. The greenest tomatoes went on the bottom and the ripest stayed on top. We kept tomatoes for nearly a month this way.


Potatoes: wrapped in paper, kept separately from other produce in their own bin. These also lasted approximately forever in a relatively dark / relatively cool spot. I seem to remember we had plenty of potato and potato-like veggies available in the islands, though, so… great for the passage, but in the scheme of things, not a real priority for provisioning.


Limones: oh we miss the Mexican limon! These lasted really well, individually wrapped in wee little squares of aluminum foil. Yes, foil. A tip from another cruiser- the wrap made a big difference… unwrapped / poorly wrapped did not keep nearly as well.


Eggs: contrary to popular practice in the USA, there is no refrigeration required. We kept them for a long time... longer than I should probably admit... I think it was probably pushing two months, in fact. They were stored in the flat trays we purchased them in, and turned when I remembered. It wasn't very often, to be honest.

Oranges/grapefruit: these citrus fruits were stored away from everything else, a strategy to keep one from spoiling another. They were also in ventilated bins put in a locker (dark / ventilated) in the girls’ cabin. We didn't wrap them, and they may have lasted better if wrapped. We washed these in a diluted bleach bath. I’m not sure if it helped. We found that we loved the sweet Mexican grapefruits and didn't get through the oranges as easily. There is an abundance of fruit in the Marquesas, so if that's your destination- don't go too crazy!



sorting citrus in the cockpit, somewhere in the Pacific ocean

Provisions in French Polynesia

Paths across the Pacific vary, but almost everyone goes to French Polynesia. Based on our experience, here's what to expect in FP. Generally speaking, what's available varies by island group.

Marquesas:
As the first landfall after weeks at sea, it's impossible to resist the lure of fresh produce. Like everything in FP, though, it will cost you! For the first (and hopefully last) time in my life, I spent $12 on a single smallish melon. It was juicy, delicious, and honey-sweet, but I hope I never pay that much for a single piece of fruit again!


Yes, this is a grocery store. Small shops, known as magazins, are the typical source for groceries

The fruit in the Marquesas is beyond glorious, and I probably didn't need to satisfy my fresh-fruit craving at such a price- laden trees seem to be everywhere. Mangoes, pamplemousse, bananas, and more. It all belongs to someone, and it's important to ask permission before helping yourself... but it's almost always permitted with a broad smile. For the first time, we experienced the nectar that is a tree ripened pamplemousse. It was beyond spectacular. We've had them since, but never quite as sweet as the beauties from the Marquesas.

Tuamotus:
These dry atolls grow precious little of their own produce; almost everything is flown in from Tahiti. Goods are expensive to start with in Tahiti, and don't get any cheaper being put in short hop flights to these islands. The only "deals" were subsidized goods, but other than the $.50 baguettes, they were not a bargain. On the other hand, bring as much fruit as you can carry from the Marquesas. The kids we met in the Tuamotus thought our fresh papaya was a huge treat- as it probably was.

Tahiti / Society Islands:
Anything you could want, from middle eastern dates to French lentils, can be had (for a price) in Tahiti. This was the only stop in the south Pacific where supermarkets resembled their US counterparts. Frankly, it was kind of weird reverse culture shock and took some adjusting: I hadn't been in an aisle dedicated to cold cereal in a VERY long time! Stock up at the Carrefour in Tahiti, supplement with produce from the marche municipal (public market) in downtown Papeete, and try to get out with a few francs.

There are a common denominators between islands, too:

Baguettes:

Bless the french, for they have brought baguettes to the far corners of the world. One of the cheapest things you can buy (around $.50 for a meter-long loaf) and available almost everywhere there are people in French Polynesia.

Lunch at anchor in Huahine: fresh baguettes smeared with brie. I personally gained about 10 pounds of fresh baguettes smeared with brie during our 3-month stay.

Subsidized foods:

In addition to baguettes, a variety of staple foods are subsidized in FP. Subsidized prices are still almost always more (sometimes two or three times more) than prices in Mexico, but a bargain compared to everything but gifted or foraged fruit and fish. We discovered the trick for identifying the lower cost goods was the color of the price tag. It seemed to vary somewhat by location, but red or day-glo orange generally denoted a subsidized product. Scanning an aisle, you can hone in on the color to speed up shopping. 

Subsidized items include powdered milk, flour, sugar, cooking oil, canned butter, chicken, lamb necks (?!), pork & beans, and canned beef.

Variety canned vegetables.

We bought a lot of canned or tetra pack vegetables to get us through the stretches between opportunities to buy vegetables in the islands. Yeah, it sounds pretty gross, but it's better than no veggies when you can't find fresh! They've been helpful meal fillers, although surely not very nutritious. The problem for provisioning was that the variety in Mexico was very, very limited. Once again, I think we can thank the French: there was a interesting selection of relatively palatable canned veggies available: beets, caponata, and endive. 

Canned spinach, Brussels sprouts, and beets on the shelf in French Polynesia.

Things to buy in FP:

Canned butter was readily available in French Polynesia, but difficult to find everywhere else (until New Caledonia, where it cost 30% more). I. Love. Butter. Having canned butter, instead of butter that has to be kept refrigerated- or turned into ghee- is reeeeaaaallly handy on a cruising boat in the tropics. 

We also found that Tahiti had best selection of cured meat in the Pacific. We had dry salamis purchased here that were with us until New Caledonia, four months later. Don't forget quarantine in your ports of call, though: most ports in the Cook Islands were confiscating all non-New Zealand meat products in 2010. In Suwarrow, we were merely encouraged to destroy the meat by burning it... slowly, over a barbecue, among friends.

Provisions worth their weight in gold

We have the luxury to eat for pleasure as much as for sustenance. So yeah, we could have filled the boat with nothing but rice and beans- as it seems I may have attempted to do- and survived just fine (and quite cheaply) for our seven and a half months of Pacific island hopping. It wouldn't have been much fun, though. Here are some things we chose to bring on board for the Pacific voyage that worked really well for us:

* Cured meats. As mentioned... we make lousy vegetarians. But we don't have a freezer, just a works-fine-most-of-the-time refrigerator; we simply can't keep fresh meat very long. To feed our protein cravings, and avoid cracking into the, ew, canned stuff- we ended up with a considerable volume of cured meat on board. We broke into the last of our Mexican smoked ham in Vanuatu, so as far as I'm concerned, we nailed the quantity on this on perfectly. It was worth every penny of the markup at Carnes del Mundo in Bucerias for quality, vacuum sealed stuff.

* Dried eggs. I know- sounds nasty, right? And frankly, for eating straight up- scrambled eggs or whatever- they are nasty. But I love to bake, and a lot baked goods have eggs in them. Fresh eggs were often hard to find, and expensive when we could find them. This canister worked out to pennies per egg, and helped keep us in scones and cinnamon rolls. It was perfectly acceptable for french toast or pancakes as well. One canister, equivalent to about 96 eggs, was the perfect amount.


Carrot cake bakes on deck in the solar oven. Thank you, dried eggs.

* Specialty foods. Things we love that we might not find (or once again, might have found in Tahiti and paid a small ransom to acquire). Grains besides long grain white rice (I love quinoa, bulghur, and wheat berries; brown rice is a basic staple). Treats to go with a sundowner: good green olives, baby corn (Diane, you were SO RIGHT about those!), and smoked oysters. Favorite sauces or condiments that could be hard to find, from pesto to hot chile sauce or a good curry paste.

In some cases, we didn't realize how much we would miss certain items until they were gone or unavailable. We were lucky enough to have friends and family visiting on several occasions, in both Mexico and Bora Bora; they all came well equipped with both wish list items and other things they thought we'd like! Jocelyn and Willie made sure we had some key spices and grains that I couldn't find in Mexico... Claire and Elliot kept us in chocolate chips (Jamie is eternally grateful) and quinoa (quinoa porridge... breakfast of cruising champions!).

Next...looking sample costs and, availability

Provisioning lookback: over-buying

When we arrived in Australia, we faced by far the strictest quarantine encountered so far. So besides just keeping us all fed and happy for the past half year, perfect planning also means that ideally, we consumed all of the provisions which could be confiscated before we reach Australia.

It didn't quite work out that way. I can't stand waste, and it pained me to see the bag with at least 20 kilos of consumable food taken off our boat after we reached Australia. Here's what we over-purchased:

* canned meat. We bought cans of chunk chicken and beef, and a few of ham. To be honest, I still can't believe we even consume this stuff... talk about falling far from our life on shore, where we knew the knew by name the farmers who raised most of the meat we ate! Even before the question of canned meat came up for the Pacific crossing, during our year and a half in Mexico I looked hard at being de-facto vegetarians as an alternative to healthy, sustainably raised meat. We really didn't know much about about how the meat we eat there was consumed, so it seemed like a good options- and a good way to prep for the Pacific islands. Besides, I was a vegetarian for a few years before I met Jamie... it couldn't be that hard, right? But we found, as we waited out the hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez last summer, that we make very, very bad vegetarians. Of course, our Sea of Cortez failure was probably also because of the dearth of vegetables... it turns out that if you want to be vegetarian, having fresh vegetables available to purchase is pretty important! Even when we were catching plenty of fish, it didn't squelch the desire for serious protein fix now and then. The day we cracked into the emergency Spam- literally, ditch kit food- for a "ham" and cheese omelet one morning, I knew we were doomed as veggies. Besides, the reality of being vegetarian in the Pacific islands means eating a pretty limited diet. How do you like cassava? White rice? Good. You'll be fine. The rest of us, well...


Swimming back to the boat with fish on spear - Suwarrow. When the alternative is canned meat, we basically became pesce vegetarians for much of our time in the Pacific islands anyway.

* dried beans. I avoid cans if I can, and dried beans- while they take a wee bit more effort- are both tastier and healthier. We eat a lot of beans, but I probably didn't need to buy enough to get us through Armageddon. Even though we consume at least a couple of pounds per week, I'm frankly embarrassed to admit how much was still on board when we made landfall in Australia. We had a lot of rice & beans, chili, and bean salads in our last weeks before Australia, with recipe help from The Keel and Galley Swap among others (thanks guys!). Everything left was confiscated by quarantine in Oz. It just feels criminal to throw away perfectly good food.

* rice. This kind of shocked me, because we eat tons of rice, but I actually bought too much. The weevils helped me out as several kilos had to be chucked overboard in Fiji, but we still arrived in Australia with about 6 kilos left on board. Still, it was worth it. Long grain white rice was been readily available in the Pacific islands, and generally reasonably priced, but brown rice and sushi rice were very difficult to find (and brown sushi rice? fugeddaboutit! Tracey... I dream about short grain brown rice... *sigh*). The lovely quarantine official allowed us to keep it all, too- thanks, Officer Mortimer!


Whatever you do, bring plenty of sushi rice! Hyo (s/v IO) showing off our tuna and dorado sushi fiesta on Oso Blanco, in Anaho Bay, Marquesas


Next... things I'm really glad we brought!

Long-term provisioning

When we left Mexico for the south Pacific just about a year ago, we had Totem loaded down with our best guess at the provisions to sustain basic needs for half a year. How did we figure out what we needed? I made a basic spreadsheet in Excel (those who know me well will not be surprised by this), put in our estimated weekly consumption for staples in our diet, multiplied that volume over the time period, then broke it down by package size and determined how much of each item we needed to acquire. Additional columns on the spreadsheet helped track of storage location on the boat, and comments on usage.

Why leave with six months of provisions?

1. Availability.

When was the last time you went three weeks without a single grocery purchase? We had our initial passage to the Marquesas, ballparked at around three weeks, but for many months afterward there were limited options available for stocking up. In Tahiti, supermarkets resemble their American counterparts. Elsewhere, the average shop is smaller than a two-car garage. Goods which are available often came at a high cost. You may not find even basic items that you count on in your "normal" diet. In areas we visited, people often supplied their own needs through subsistence farming; in many other areas where we spent considerable time, markets weren't always accessible. Also, although I've considered myself a big locavore fan, this doesn't turn out to be very appealing in many parts of the Pacific. The Polynesian diet was very heavy on starches (cassava, breadfruit, yams, etc.), coconuts, and fish or meat. In general, there are few fresh vegetables and no grains outside of white rice. That's fine upon occasion, but we like consume a diversity of grains and veggies. Fruit was either wildly abundant, or available only for purchase at high cost (in the freshwater-poor atolls). We love to forage as we go- and we've had lots of great fresh fish and fresh fruit for our efforts- but you can't count on it all the time.

PJ and Andrew shaking mangoes out of a tree - Nuku Hiva

2. Simplicity.

Although it's a lot of work upfront, it's very convenient to have a deep stash of provisions on board. Usually, one of the first things I do in a new place is scope out the market and stores to see what's available. Having deep stores on board means I can focus on what's fresh, instead of worrying about staples. Poking around in the farmer's markets is much more fun than trolling dusty, windowless stores. In Mexico, outside of our summer months in the Sea of Cortez, there was generally easy access to well-priced supplies. It made it easy to carry less on board, but that often translated into carrying heavy loads back to the boat- bags of flour, liters of juice and milk. Doing this too often meant I left Mexico with a shoulder injury that has taken the entire intervening year to heal.  It's been kind of nice to be able to keep the shopping bags lighter, since all transport is human powered!

This awesome ridgetop view was brought to you by... the desire to find the nearest groceries, a 3 hour round-trip hike to a tiny shop on the *opposite* side of the ridge from the anchorage.

3. Economics.

The cost of food in Mexico was a fraction of the cost of food in most of the Pacific islands. Purchasing staples  before we left that we knew we'd consume kept our food costs down, even though we traveled through some very expensive islands. Had we relied on acquiring it weekly or even monthly while we traveled, our expenses would have increased significantly. In the Pacific islands, much of the food is imported, and carries a higher cost for transportation. In super expensive French Polynesia, even the subsidized staple foods (flour, sugar, rice, cooking oils, etc.) were generally twice as expensive as prices we paid in Mexico, and often more. It was a little painful to spend so much money on food last March, but it meant we ended up spending considerably less on food overall in 2010 than we did in 2009.

As a further incentive... imported goods in the islands also tend to sit around on shelves longer, and as a result, are more likely to come with... shall we call them... "little friends" incubating inside. Eww!


You can get foie gras in Tahiti for about $100/kilo. 

Next... hindsight is 20/20. If we didn't eat it already, we probably won't start.

Salsa, salsa, or salsa?

We're preparing ourselves and Totem for our biggest journey together yet, the passage from Mexico to French Polynesia. Over the last few months, we've felt a little smug about our general state of preparation: no question about it, Totem is ready to cross an ocean. This may help explain the karmic whiplash which has put sucked us into a range of suddenly urgent, last minute projects...

...like which salsa to choose.

We have heard over and over from fellow cruisers that if there's something we want to have while we're in the South Pacific, we should bring it with us. While I am sure that fresh baguettes with New Zealand butter will quickly become a Totem favorite, it's hard to imagine giving up our Mexican routine for salsa with, well, just about everything. Fresh tomatoes will be unavailable or a king's ransom, so we're stocking up on these instead, and if we're going to have a case on board... we better like it!

Besides, what better way to formally evaluate the local salsa brands than a blind taste test over sundowners with our fellow cruisers?

Discussing salsa merits over a margarita was delightful. Comparing fruit cocktail during a bouncy ride across Banderas bay was not. There's just something not right about eating canned fruit. It's right up there on the scale of personal appeal with canned peas or asparagus. Ick. But again...there will be times, we are told, when we will be very happy to have depth in our provisions and not need to rely on what we can find upon our arrival. On the other hand: it's very difficult to imagine consuming or enjoying something which simply has not been a part of our diet before.

We don't know exactly when we'll depart on our crossing...watch this space for updates!

Provisioning adventures

Getting food to our home is a little more complicated than it used to be.


Frutas y verduras, Zihuatanejo

First, of course, the obvious- we don't have a car. We get everywhere on foot, sometimes aided by buses, on rare occasions by a ride in a taxi or a friend's car. But consider the quantity of food needed to keep our family of five fueled, and carrying the milk and produce to support them. Daunting! I can come home from one of these adventures looking like a pack mule.

Then, there's the simplicity of having a single store to visit. Sometimes it is the case in Mexico that I can do all of a week's shopping- a provisioning run, in boat-speak- at a single store. But in many towns, this isn't an option: there are no large supermarkets. And even when there are, to be honest, it's the second to the preferred choice to stocking up at individual vendors, who typically have higher quality products in their niche area. It's a mode of purchasing food which has been pretty much lost back in the states, with our quality of eating as the casualty. A given shopping jaunt here would typically the tortilleria (what did we do before we had fresh tortillas in our diet?), the panaderia (bakery... delicious little bolillo rolls, perfect for sandwiches, and the occasional treat of sweet pan dulce), the carneceria (the butcher- who will grind or cut to order; sometimes, it takes visiting multiple carnecerias, as they will specialize in different animals as well), the fruteria (for fresh produce), and then a more all-purpose tienda for staples like rice, beans, or cooking oil.


Believe it or not, this is a little store selling cheese from the family goats.

Many of these are doubled up: the butcher often has fresh cheeses, and an all-purpose-tienda may be the only place in town for produce and staples.


yes, that's a grocery store...and if what you want is not there, you have over 100 miles to get to the next one.

It's not difficult, just a little more complicated, and a lot more time consuming. We learn to work with what we have, since running off to get a forgotten ingredient is highly impractical.

Last week, shopping in Zihuatanejo, I had local help and practically flew through what should have been an all-day adventure. Noemi owns a small restaurant in town, and we had enjoyed dinner at her cocina economica the night before. When I told her we planned to go to the public market the next day, she wouldn't hear of it. They'd charge too much! Their produce isn't good enough! She knows a better place for chickens! OK, OK, OK... so, happily, we trundled off with Noemi the next day.

What a difference she made! Visiting the full complement of tiendas (except a baker, which I didn't seem to miss) with Noemi meant flying through. No wandering between stalls in a big market, wondering where to buy what. We went to her hand-picked butcher (two, actually- she had preferences for where to buy beef and pork vs chicken) and produce shops. Orders were made and paid for, help was rallied, and we had her restaurateur's negotiated prices. I rattled off an endless list at the produce shop, having willing help. If they didn't have what I was looking for (dried coconut was one), he ran down the street and sourced it at cost from another vendor. This was a young guy who could actually pick avocados for me: four to eat today or tomorrow, and six more that will last a week.


Thanks to Noemi, our orders were DELIVERED. Note the tricycle at the bottom of the photo.

I was able to provision the boat with seven people on board (our friends Jim and Diana are here) for over a week in under three hours, round trip. This might not sound like much, but it was a huge achievement in our world.



Noemi with Jim & Diana...she immediately remembered them, although it's been 15 years since they were in Zihuatanejo on their boat.