What is your best provisioning tip?

[Inthewind]

Rice goes with anything and a good staple, carry a 20 pound berlap sack of it.

[oldsalt_1942]

Originally Posted by Inthewind

Rice goes with anything and a good staple, carry a 20 pound berlap sack of it.

I love rice and naturally stocked up before leaving for a nine-month cruise in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. BIG TIP...if you're travelling anywhere in latin America a two-pound bag bought in the States will last forever. They LIVE on rice and beans in countries below the Rio Grande so there's no need to tote it with you. Peanut butter, on the other hand, is abysmal anywhere outside the good old USA.

[schoonerdog]

just to repeat, everyone, everywhere buys food. Groceries in the rio dulce cost $30 for a week for two people. A good tip that we had is to bring unusual things that are special treats for mutual happy hours. When everyone else is bringing goldfish crackers, it's nice to have something special to share.

[livingstone]

Whats the deal with pressure cookers? Is it because they're faster and so use less energy or what?

[GordMay]

Pressure Cooking is faster, uses less energy, heats the galley less, and is more nutritious.
Because food cooks up to 70% faster in a pressure cooker, and the fact that food is cooked in less liquid that gets boiled away, more vitamins and minerals are retained than with conventional cooking methods (vitamins such as the "B's" and C" are water soluble - antioxidant compounds and vitamin “A” are sensitive to heat, etc).

[oldsalt_1942]

Originally Posted by livingstone

Whats the deal with pressure cookers? Is it because they're faster and so use less energy or what?

When underway cooking in a pressure cooker with the lid on, but not under pressure, will save you a lot of clean up time should it fall off the stove and onto the cabin sole.

[Brent Swain]

Buy Rose Elliot's book"The Bean Book," learn to cook beans many different ways . You can cruise a year on less than $50 worth. They keep forever, take little space , and cost penies. Also good emergency supplies.
Brent

[AdamY]

We've been cruising in Mexico and we've discovered that there are few things that you can't get in Mexico. There are Costcos everywhere, not to mention good grocery stores and farmer's markets.

If anything, I recommend that you avoid buying too much of anything and just eat fresh foods that the locals eat. We've been doing this and haven't regretted it. The food that locals eat tends to be local prices too, as opposed to gringo prices, which is nice.

I agree with previous posters...stick to stocking up on those few particular gourmet-type items that you will really miss. For me, I miss peanut butter Clif bars and Toblerone chocolate bars. I also miss spinach.

Also, we love asian/Thai/Indian food so we bought a mega-bag of Jasmine rice from Costco and vaccum sealed it in small bags. Haven't found jasmine rice anywhere, so it was a good move.

Kris
s.v. Estrella

[savvy]

powdered wasabi and wheat free soya sauce. crystallized ginger and carr's crackers. lemon joy for everything salt water related.
great thread

[cnj]

I like Lipton Sides. They come in all sorts of flavors. Cook according to instructions. All of them say to let sit for 2 minutes before serving. During that 2 minutes I add a tin of canned meat and stir. Viola, a decent meal in half an hour and only one pan to clean.

[JusDreaming]

we stock up on paper goods. They seem to be the one of the priciest items to buy in the Bahamas. And tortillas, seem to last forever, and make great sandwich wraps, also packages of nori,(roasted seaweed), and powdered wasabi for sushi.

[hellosailor]

"wheat free soya sauce."
Has become damned hard to find in the States, even in the Health Food stores. The Japanese have two distinct words for soy sauce made with/without wheat, like we say "Coke not Pepsi!" In the US, we used to reserve the word "Tamari" for the wheat-free kind, but somewhere in the past 30 years it has all become soy sauce, with wheat.
Except for LaChoy, bless their pointy little heads. In the 60's LaChoy brought tinned Cantonese food to a US that largely didn't have Chinese Restaurants (unless they also served "polynesian" platters<G>) and once we learned there was more than that, UGH, no one who orders Chinese takeout these days buys LaChoy tins. But...they still use wheat-free soy sauce (or "a miserable excuse for soy sauce" according to some) and gluten-free products in their tinned dinners. Bless 'em.

Tortillas: Heck, what could go moldy in a sluge of ground corn and LIME?!<G> But now tortillas have also become a big deal in the US, be careful because all the "fancy" ones are now back to FLOUR tortillas, not just corn, and the flour ones don't keep the same way either.

Lipton Sides remind me of another product they had in the 70's and eventually pulled from the market, "all in one" freeze dried meals with beef stroganoff and other "meat and noodle" dishes all in one. Considering there weren't many freeze dried camping meals back then and no MREs for civilians <G> they had a window of opportunity.<G>

These days I read some of the ingredient lists and decide a cup of rice and some dried or frozen catch-as-catch-can mixed in has certain attractions too.<G>

[Mustang Sally]

Dryed mushrooms. Get lots before you leave, if heading to the Caribbean, cause they are very hard to find. Dryed ones will last for years, just soak in water and they are good to go. If heading to the Bahamas stock up on everything. If heading to the VI's don't worry, lots of big supermarkets at great prices.

[hellosailor]

Many (all?) of the fried chicken chain restaurants pressure fry their chicken. And modern pressure cookers are all "safe" if you read and follow the directions. Jam 'em up and safety valve should blow out without a major explosion--but you're still going to have a problem.

[cat man do]

What is your best provisioning tip?

You can never carry enough beer, spirits and mixers

(Having flown rum into Lizard Island Qld by Seaplane)

Dave

Dave