Happy Birthday, Bacon! And other food stories…

This is the Male fresh local-produce market: 
 

... it is really great, although the Maldives (being a collection of tiny, low-lying islands) has very limited agriculture, so they have to import much of their food, and we have to search far and wide to find it.

When one man asked “Where you from?” at our answer “South Africa”, he beamed and said: “oranges!”

Male food supply (the market and stores) is basically it for the Maldives: shopping in many of the villages on the tiny islands will most likely not produce a satisfying result, and if one indeed finds three brownish limes and some hollow tomatoes… you buy them gratefully! However, you can also buy good frozen chickens…in some places, imported from Brazil!

Many products are imported from India, just up the road from the Maldives. We have shopped in tiny Indian stores in Male for garlic, potatoes and eggs. At the same miniscule shop you could buy canned goods,bicycles, hammers, adhesives: almost anything you want, and all is squeezed into a very small space, including the stairs, and into the small storeroom above. Loading is done in pragmatic fashion: balance on the narrow ledge and throw between buddy below and buddy above!

Of course, not everything FITS in the shop, so much of it spills outside and sits in the sun – and the shopkeepers appear not to want their hammers and tins in the sun so, for example, the potatoes, flour, drinks and eggs occupy that space.

Eggs. Brought in from India. Stored street-side at a Male trader’s shop for…? How long? We have bought those eggs: sometimes to our chagrin, like for example the time in 2010 when Irene was seen, in a fit of despair (? Rage?)simply dumping a dozen into the waters of Hulumale lagoon… and they exploded, emitting a foul, green-grey gas.

Have we learned? No. Ever-hopeful, we bought those eggs again in 2013, minimising risk by supporting two different shops. Some were good. However, less than a week after purchase, the port aft cabin – storage area for eggs - smelled foul (the day after Sandy left: lucky girl escaped in time!). No further detail required. We are endlessly grateful to a yachtie friend who gave us packets of powdered egg!

Have no fear if you are going to a resort in the Maldives: they all fly in their own stuff and exist in an entirely different world! One resort manager spoke of their own aeroplane that does a weekly round trip to Australia and Europe to bring in produce for their two resorts in Maldives. 

Storing as best one can

This is a photo looking down on the contents of one of our bilges (under-floor area that conducts pipes and collects water, from where it is automatically pumped off the boat).

A long-term storage area…. Beer, soft drinks, Snickers bars, and a large Edam cheese. Yum!

This is a humid, warm area. The Edam has to be attended to regularly; mostly because it looks like this after a week or two:

See the mould sections on three corners? (Initially, this was a round cheese; it sagged in the warm humidity!) Happily the mould is mostly on the outer surface; regular vinegar wash, then dry and seal in plastic, saves our cheese for another day / month.

Looking at our storage, it seems that we cannot point fingers at the Indian traders and their eggs: we are all doing the best we can with resources and space available to us!

Alien on board?

One night on passage, Irene (on watch) saw a luminous blue glowing glob / puddle in the corner of the cockpit. Seriously! No, this is not a sleep-deprivation tale… 

The night was black, with only a dull glow from the instrument panel, and clouds covering the sliver of waning moon; the swells made the boat pitch and roll, sending water crashing over the back steps, to recede and further crash, adding their noise to the sounds of engines thumping, bridge-deck slamming, rigging creaking, sails snapping…

And a glowing blue glob lurked in the dark and looked at me.

So I put my finger on it, to press it and feel its texture. Liquid: not a globule; but its shape made it appear so.

Torch!

With the light on it, there was nothing there; just a spilled liquid… switch off the torch and it glowed even brighter.

So I put my finger on it again, to smell and taste it (early lesson as yachties is the finger-tip test: water in the bilges… salt or fresh or foul? Now diagnose the origin!) In this case: FISH (oh, and some underlying delicious olive oil / lemon / lemon grass / garlic marinade…. But I digress).

Nothing like a bit of detective-work to while away the hours on watch and the mystery was (partially) solved:

Dorado! We had caught a beautiful dorado for dinner: these fish have dazzling colours – golden, with bright metallic blues and greens; once out of the water they change colour, which then fades when they die. The foil-wrapped dorado fillets had been placed on a surface from where they had leaked and the liquid had settled in the corner…and produced the “alien” glow when night came. 

However, we do not know the actual chemistry of that glow, and are interested…. If you have the time, the interest and decent bandwidth, please research it and place in the comments box at the end of this blog, or mail us the info!

Happy Birthday, Bacon!

Just like everyone else, we have a hanging wall calendar. Except, luckily for us, it is not filled with appointments or dates as we are perpetually unaware of what day it is, nor need we be (except the really vital ones like Visa expires; Depart country  immediately). 

So our calendar is filled with other things really important to us: the birthdays and anniversaries of our family and friends, and when to eat our bacon and ham.

So, for example, the first 10 days of May read:

1 Workers’ Day	2 Alice	3 Sandy	4 Ham	5 Pat	6 Geoff & Sue	7 Elise
8 Bacon	9	10 Boerewors	Etc

 (First off: what is Workers’ Day!?)

Let me now explain… We have very few stocks of certain favourite foodstuffs (specifically: 8 bacon, 8 ham, 4 SA boerewors, 2 kg cheese) and limited opportunity to replenish stocks (well, re those meats - none; we are travelling in Muslim Maldives and uninhabited Chagos); in addition, our oven does not come to temperature sufficiently to bake bread; veg and fruit are absent or limping into the home stretch and our sprouting factory is not yet up to speed. What we have on board, in the case of the meat particularly, must last until Mauritius, i.e. until mid-June.

Food concerns were starting to become oppressive, like little storm clouds building up in my head (this is clearly the Minister-in-charge of Gastronomy speaking here), and with this background, I said to Rolf one day (in fact, on 23 March): what would you like for lunch? His answer, beaming: a toasted bacon and cheese sandwich. (I must hasten to state that this question is seldom put to the skipper – he must eat what he gets, generally.)

Well, this answer did not endear the skipper to the Admiral / m-i-c Gastronomy. His lunch was, therefore, baked beans on a biscuit, accompanied by a lecture which generally covered the following topics: prudent housekeeping, careful resource management, general thoughtfulness and consideration of others’ burdens and needs.Also deemed timely and appropriate were… the frequency with which the Admiral is offered tea, who makes the bed in the morning and the state of the nation re fishing (general explanation: our winning streak / contribution to food stocks in this regard has been, well, pathetic since we resumed out quest to cross the ocean again, (dorado above excluded) and one does observe a general lassitude in getting the rods out and particularly, one needs to question whether fish actually LIKE rusty lures?).

The result? The Skipper said he had enjoyed lunch, thank you: was that a new brand of bean? And would the Admiral like some tea?

And now the bacon, ham and wors provisions have been carefully distributed so the stocks last the course: days have been allocated on the birthday calendar – and who knows, maybe the bacon will be toasted with a suitable birthday drink: as are you!