# Galley Tours for landlubbers



## tuutuutango (Oct 9, 2008)

Having little ship experience myself, but have taken numerous tours of berthed ships, one of my favorite places to visit has always been the ship's galley. To me, it always seem the galley is the busiest place on a ship, and I suspect one of the most popular places (but some will probably say the least popular depending on the skills of the cook

Last two ship tours I had was of a Liberty Ship berthed in San Francisco and before that, The Brittannia, berthed near Edinburgh, Scotland. While touring Brittannia, they were preparing for a dinner of visiting land lubbers, and it was obvious to me the ships galley was in service to cook the meals, but it appeared that fresh and frozen foods were being delivered for the event.

I have never figured out how a ship at sea manages to store all the frozen foods needed for a long journey. I guess on the tours I've been on, we never really get to see the ships freezer. *Are/were they typically like a freezer ran on freon, ammonia? and #2 were/are they walk-in freezers like in a restaurant? *


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## ruud (Dec 6, 2004)

Ahoy 2to2tango,
On small coasters in those days[early 60ties] there weren't walk-in freezers,and mostly overstocked,and ran often on freon,once we had a leak in the freon system conduit,and no freon on board,and to save all the meat,I had to preserve it by cook it all and store it butyric wise,lots of stews of steaks and meatballs,took me almost 3 days to handle this 24/24,wasn't happy at that time.Later on the freezers were walk-in freezers,and much bigger,don't know on what system they ran.


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## tuutuutango (Oct 9, 2008)

*Saving the food...*



ruud said:


> ,and to save all the meat,I had to preserve it by cook it all and store it butyric wise,lots of stews of steaks and meatballs,took me almost 3 days to handle this 24/24,wasn't happy at that time.Later on the freezers were walk-in freezers,and much bigger,don't know on what system they ran.


Hey, thanks for the story... Being totally incompetent myself in culinary skills, I have always admired the talents of people working the galley. To this day at my ripe old age of 57, I really enjoy the cooking shows on TV, but I am still amazed at the galley on ships. Nearly everything else on a ship makes sense to me (I have mechanical skills) but cooking (especially on a large scale) scares the bajeepers out of me.

Blue skies to you mate.


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## ALAN TYLER (Dec 22, 2007)

tuutuutango said:


> Having little ship experience myself, but have taken numerous tours of berthed ships, one of my favorite places to visit has always been the ship's galley. To me, it always seem the galley is the busiest place on a ship, and I suspect one of the most popular places (but some will probably say the least popular depending on the skills of the cook
> 
> Last two ship tours I had was of a Liberty Ship berthed in San Francisco and before that, The Brittannia, berthed near Edinburgh, Scotland. While touring Brittannia, they were preparing for a dinner of visiting land lubbers, and it was obvious to me the ships galley was in service to cook the meals, but it appeared that fresh and frozen foods were being delivered for the event.
> 
> I have never figured out how a ship at sea manages to store all the frozen foods needed for a long journey. I guess on the tours I've been on, we never really get to see the ships freezer. *Are/were they typically like a freezer ran on freon, ammonia? and #2 were/are they walk-in freezers like in a restaurant? *


Having worked in a alot of galleys on deep-sea ships, you usually found the fridges were of the walk in type simply because of the amount of frozen stores required for the long trips. The first door led to the Handling room, this was where meat/fish was left to defrost overnight. Then you would have a vegetable fridge for fresh produce, then a Meat room for beef& poultry etc and finally a Fish room which usually had the lowest temperatue of all the fridges. The fridges were usually cleaned once a week prior to the Captains inspection. Cleaning of the fridges was rewarded with a bottle of "Rum" ( plus overtime).
What the fridges ran on I,m not sure but freon rings a bell, after all I was only the Chief Cook!!
Regarding cooking at sea it did have its moments trying to keep all the pots&pans on the Brighton&Hove in bad weather. Still they were happy days for me.
Alan.


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## tuutuutango (Oct 9, 2008)

*Galley Tours*

Alan:

Thanks for galley the story. It made me conjure up images of what this must have looked and been like.

Being a land-locked Texan having grown up in the desert region, I've only read about ships and adventures on the oceans and I guess before I become too old and lame, I'll just have to cut loose with some cash and take a ship ride across the Atlantic someday.

For me, it would be more interesting to take a ship voyage on a freighter and not a "cruise-ship." Fancy food for tourists (and simply being around tourists) has no appeal, but working ships such as tankers, cargo ships and the like seem a lot more interesting.

Thanks and good luck to you.

Sterling


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## ALAN TYLER (Dec 22, 2007)

tuutuutango said:


> Alan:
> 
> Thanks for galley the story. It made me conjure up images of what this must have looked and been like.
> 
> ...


Hi, Sterling,
Great idea to do a trip on a cargo ship, and believe me the food on this type of ship ( I was Chief Cook ) on a 12 passenger ship to South America can be just as good as passenger ships. I worked the Western Ocean with Cunard in the 60s running to New York and Montreal. It would certainly be alot more interesting especially if you could avoid the big container vessels as i believe they don,t get as long in port. Anyway wishing you all the best, heres hoping you make that trip someday.
Alan.


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