Food prevents crew members from fully assimilating, perhaps more than anything else on large ships. Access to ‘food from home’ at sea varies dramatically because ‘home’ varies dramatically. Some cruise lines have more Indian, Eastern European or Caribbean dishes, depending on the composition of the crew. Fortunately, cruise lines take crew meals very seriously. It’s the real deal, unlike, say, the food court in the old mall. Sure, it has Mexican, Italian, and Chinese food, but only through Taco Bell, Sbaro’s, and Panda, respectively. And those, of course, are hopelessly Americanized. Before international corporations, I doubt that native Mexicans, Italians or Chinese would have recognized such foods as ‘theirs’, especially after eating them. But I digress.
Strangely, the ships cater to American tastes below the waterline, despite the scarcity of them on board. The irony is complete when you realize that almost 100% of said Americans are artists who will not eat anything that is provided to them. Why? Because hotdogs and hamburgers don’t lend themselves to attractive bodies. So why then do the ships bother? Because hotdogs and hamburgers are cheap. Even better, you can both sit under a heat lamp for hours and you’ll never know. Or at least an Indonesian guy wouldn’t. Mystery solved.
But every day on every ship of every cruise line on every sea is Asian day. Large quantities of steamed white rice are always available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, bowing to the preponderance of the East Asian crew. I’ll never forget my first trip to the crew mess, on Carnival Fantasy. While I heaped a couple of steaks on my plate (I’m just an American), my colleagues opted for a mound of white rice topped with a ladleful of fish head soup. This explained our radical disparity in weight and, perhaps, in temperament.
Fortunately for me, I am deeply interested in food and have found that different cuisines from different cultures have benefits. Many did not. Considering how hard we all work, the desire for a familiar, comforting meal was understandable. Additionally, most of the crew came from rural backgrounds with limited diversity and limited interest in it. Just as a small-town kid from, say, Kansas may not be as interested in foie gras as a New York City native, a small-town kid on an island in the Philippines may not be as interested in burritos. of microwave. And after working more than 80 hours a week? May the poor man have what he wants, for crying out loud!
But the real reason foreign crew members are hesitant to join is not the food: it’s the eating habits.
Food is not allowed in the crew cabins, although all types of crew, sooner or later, sneak out. Many keep a ready supply of dry goods, some of which are even allowed on occasion. Asians, for example, tend to stockpile entire bowls of instant noodles, and who’s to know about a hidden hot plate that allows for a late-night snack? But this food-restricting maritime discipline was enacted for good reason. Two, actually, because on some ships there are cockroaches.
The real reason food is denied in the crew cabins is because it invariably ends up in the toilets in a very unbiological way. Ship toilets are very, very sensitive. The gang? Not that much.
When we worked on Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas, we had to deal with this last issue to the extreme. Fish bones filled the sewage system so frequently that the entire aft crew deck smelled of feces. Literally. What killed me was that getting rid of evidence of illicit feeding was the only time many flushed the toilet! I still cringe at the sight of overworked zombies brushing their teeth next to toilets filled to the brim, lids open. Equally confusing to me was why a crew member dropped a shoe. This resulted in a backup of the entire ship’s waste systems, with none other than the hotel manager himself being forced to search the cabins for the culprit. There will be more on that later, but I will add that he cursed a lot that day.
Despite all this, some of us on board have access to room service. However, that doesn’t mean the crew is happy to provide it. One night my order of several sandwiches (I was hosting a party) resulted in a loaf so deeply impressed by the thumbs of an enraged chef that I could almost see his fingerprints.