Top 10+ Cookbooks for Boaters

Recipes to keep your crew from jumping ship

Birthday cake I baked for myself while on an Atlantic crossing.

Alex catches a small tuna mid-Atlantic.  

Anyone who has done any extensive cruising will have had to deal with provisioning and stowing food, cooking while underway in rough conditions, keeping a diversity of crew happy, dealing with unfamiliar ingredients, having either too much (fish) or too little (fresh veg) food available, substituting ingredients, the art of the pot luck dinner, and disposing of packaging. There are plenty of other elements to deal with, like cramped quarters and availability of gas, so voyaging by boat can be a tricky thing, and getting ideas from other people doing the same thing is always helpful.  

I decided to compile a list of cookbooks for boaters and was surprised to find there were so many new ones on the market. Most are available in both print and electronic formats, so you can have your preferred edition and access an electronic version from anywhere with an internet connection. 

Some of the books cover the full range of issues, which can make the planning easier. Others offer only recipes, which can make the execution more successful. Some were written for sailors others for larger yachts.  They are listed here in no particular order. 

Aleria's galley is fairly spacious
"like a kitchen" according to one friend. 

We have some articles and recipes on our website here coastalboating.net and Alex has written an oyster cookbook called Oyster Delight. Being a marine biologist, former owner of an oyster hatchery and oyster connoisseur, it's a delightful book that is so much more than a cookbook.  It tells stories about oysters, recounts historical references to oysters, tells how to open them, how to cook and how to enjoy them at their best. You can read more about it here. Alex's motto is "Eat Oysters. Love longer." He loves to cook is very creative in the kitchen. Me, I need that cookbook for inspiration.  

Anyway, we hope this list proves helpful to some of you. So for now, Slainte.  That's the Irish toast to good health!  If you have any to add, I'd love to hear from you.  Thanks! 

The Boat Cookbook: Real Food for Hungry Sailors (2014)
by Fiona Sims

For anyone with a tiny galley kitchen and an appetite for fresh, gorgeous food, there's good news: no more tins or bland leftovers aboard. These fabulous and easy recipes (all using no more than two pots and taking no longer than 30 minutes) will allow you to spoil yourself in harbour, keep things simple at sea, and make delicious meals and tasty snacks in advance. Featuring baked eggs with salmon, chorizo and chestnut sausage rolls, spicy lamb burgers with tzatziki, herb-stuffed trout, salted caramel and banana crunch, chocolate fruitcake and an amazing rum punch, this is seriously tasty food that's genuinely easy to make.

As well as the author's recipes, there are contributions from top chefs (Chris Galvin, Angela Hartnett, Kevin Mangeolles and Ed Wilson) and sailing legends (Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Brian Thompson and Dee Caffari). There are handy tips on setting up the galley, an idiot's guide to filleting fish, and how to host the perfect beach barbecue, all illustrated with tempting colour photographs and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations.

'There really is something for everyone to try, and enough scope for you to really spoil yourself and your crew the next time you are on board. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I intend to - happy cooking!' Chris Galvin, sailor and Michelin-starred chef

The Boat Galley Cookbook: 800 Everyday Recipes and Essential Tips for Cooking Aboard (2014)
by Carolyn Shearlock & Jan Irons

A solid reference book, containing basic recipes and more for a self-sufficient galley. Every recipe was carefully tested aboard in a galley and selected for ingredient availability, ease of preparation without the need for mixers, blenders, etc., and special cruiser considerations such as propane consumption and galley heat. Includes more than 800 everyday “from scratch” recipes, sprinkled with a taste of Mexican, Asian and other cuisines. 

Website

From the Galley of…recipes from the world’s most adventurous sailors (2014)

The Members of the Ocean Cruising Club certainly have experience cooking when underway and in exotic destinations. They are among the most adventurous souls on the high seas.  To become a member, one has to have completed a 1000-mile passage point to point by the shortest route along the rhumb line in a boat no bigger than 70 feet.  Hundreds of OCC members contributed recipes, tips and stories which were compiled to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the OCC.  What to do in small spaces, in exotic places, and with never before encountered ingredients actually provides fun reading and hysterical accounts of attempts to provide sustenance to crew.

Website

The Care And Feeding of the Sailing Crew  4th Edition (2013)
by Lin Pardey

Despite the title, this is hardly a cookbook; rather it’s a primer on successful cruising. Certainly, anyone contemplating, or preparing for, off shore passages would want to read and then keep this volume aboard. A 50 day passage from Japan to Victoria, Canada in 1979 provides Lin a base for discussing everything from menus to clothing, to choosing a fresh chicken, to dealing with port officials, to preventing sea sickness, to buying liquor abroad as well as the best material for underwear. 

By structuring the flow of information in and around the process of food preparation while experiencing the joys and travails of a very long passage, she provides the reader with a good cruising tale enhanced with a thousand useful tips. Tips vary from entertaining aboard to coping with money transfers. There are great tips on provisioning in foreign ports as well as a strong suggestion to only go a short distance before anchoring following a farewell party. Excellent chapters will help insure your crew stays healthy and well rested. Others deal with creating an ideal galley. From big ideas to small tips, all are presented logically and with useful illustrations. Learn why credit cards are safer to use than debit cards, how to keep eggs for up to 3 months without refrigeration.

Website

One-Pot Wonders …James Barber’s Recipes for Land and Sea (2006)

English born Canadian cookbook author and TV celebrity chef  James Barber, used his years of cruising experience to write a cookbook geared toward people who are wet and cold, are cooking in small spaces, and want dinner in a hurry.

Over the years, Barber has whipped up meals while cruising on seiners, yachts and even a wee Davidson dinghy, so he knows first-hand the challenges of cooking on the ocean in a tiny--or non-existent--galley. One-Pot Wonders makes gourmet cuisine accessible to the average cook, featuring over one hundred simple recipes for mouth-watering soups and salads, hearty breakfasts, delectable desserts and exquisite one-pot main dishes that can be served for lunch or dinner. Each dish is easy and quick to prepare, uses readily available ingredients and only a few essential kitchen tools. There are also tips on how to stock your galley and many suggestions for recipe substitutions and variations to address diminishing supplies--a common occurrence at the end of a long trip.


From Georgian Salmon Stew to Sweet Pear Omelette to Shrimp and Cucumber Curry, these recipes will buoy your spirits and keep you afloat! So come aboard: let James Barber share his passion for good food and inspire you to enjoy a fine meal after a long day out on the water.

Barber died peacefully of natural causes in 2007 at his farm while reading a cookbook at the dining room table with a pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove.

There are many books by the title One Pot Wonders.  Only this one is intended specifically for the galley.

Website

Feasts Afloat: 150 Recipes for Great Meals from Small Spaces (2004)
by Jennifer Trainer Thompson & Elizabeth Wheeler

This James Beard Award nominee for Best Single Subject Cookbook is a practical and inspiring guide to crowd-pleasing meals. It will teach small galley chefs to prepare mouth-watering meals with a minimum of effort.  Pack a day-sail picnic for two, plan a beach BBQ and clambake, or serve hors d’ oeuvres at anchor, but you’ll be using it long after the boat has been stored for the winter.

  

Feasts Afloat also provides detailed advice on how to buy and store provisions for trips around the bay or around the world.

Website

Galley Guru: Effortless Gourmet Cooking Afloat (2008)
by Lisa Hayden-Miller

For the cook who sails and the sailor who cooks, the Galley Guru is a connoisseur’s guide to simple ways to keep your grip in the galley. Featuring a delicious mix of recipes easily prepared and enjoyed on board, from survival food to gourmet feasts, all 120 recipes are tagged with appropriate sailing conditions, from anchorage to heavy seas. Galley Guru will even tempt landlubbers, as Lisa makes the exotic accessible and the simple, simply wonderful.

Website

No Baloney On My Boat! : Recipes to be Enjoyed in the Great Outdoors (2011)
By Marcelle Bienvenu

A cookbook filled with dozens of recipes for tasty and nutritious foods that can be prepared in advance for outdoor adventures fishing, sailing, hunting, camping, etc. It’s a small cookbook, portable, easy to carry around and filled with simple recipes. And the baloney sandwich isn’t one of them! It contains recipes for summer spaghetti, antipasto salad, marinated shrimp & corn, grilled tuna and other nutritious foods. All the dishes are easy to prepare either before leaving home or once you re on the boat, at the camp, or on the beach. Ideal for fishing or hunting trips, camping trips, picnics, beach parties and patio events.

Website

The One-Pan Galley Gourmet : Simple Cooking on Boats (2004)
by Don Jacobson & John Roberts

Turn even a one-burner galley into a gourmet kitchen and enjoy hot, wholesome, delicious meals wherever your boat takes you. The One-Pan Galley Gourmet has it all: one-pan simplicity, delicious recipes using fresh ingredients, advice for provisioning anywhere in the world, and plenty of spice and personality. [Spiral-bound]

Special features include:

·         200 boat-tested meat, fish, and vegetarian recipes

·         Soups, stews, breads, and desserts
·         Menu plans for cruises of three-day, seven-day, and longer duration
·         Provisioning advice emphasizing fresh ingredients with selective canned substitutions
·         Every recipe can be prepared in a single pot, pan, or small oven

Website

Cruising Chef Cookbook, 2nd ed. (2010)
by Michael Greenwald

The bestselling, most extensive sailors’ cookbook ever written–a book of nautical wisdom in the guise of a cookbook. Twenty-two years in print and ten reprints prove that sailors consider it essential. It contains hundreds of tips, useful cooking techniques, plus more than 300 delicious recipes, all spiced with Greenwald’s salty humor.  Includes an extensive discussion of preparing for a voyage and resupplying in native markets. "Special Cooking Techniques" describes pressure cooking, stir frying and grilling, particularly useful techniques for the galley chef.

Website

SEAsoned: A Chef’s Journey with Her Captain (2011)
by Victoria Allman

Victoria’s Recipe for Marriage: Take two adventurous newlyweds and place them on a floundering yacht where the wife is the chef, and her boss, the captain, is also her husband. Add two inexperienced crewmembers, an anorexic diva and her bully of a husband, a CEO who thinks he’s in charge, a drunken first mate, and a randy wife looking for diversion. Stir with a violent storm and a rapidly flooding engine room. Apply pressure and watch the situation simmer to a boil.

Sprinkled with over 30-mouthwatering recipes and spiced with tales of adventure, SEAsoned is the hilarious look at a yacht chef’s first year working for her husband while they cruise from the Bahamas to Italy, France, Greece and Spain, trying to stay afloat.

Victoria Allman is a wandering chef who followed her love of food around the globe. Trained at the Statford Chef’s School in Canada and the Culinary Institute of America, Victoria’s pursuit of food knowledge led her to kitchens in Hong Kong, England, Vietnam, Tahiti, South Africa, the Caribbean, and Nepal. From misadventure to romance, her travel stories provide a perspective and depth of understanding that can only come from someone who’s actually been there. Each new destination adds recipes and stories.  Her first book was titled Sea Fare: A Chef’s Journey Across the Ocean

Website

Essential Galley Companion (2000)
by Amanda Swan-Neal

The Essential Galley Companion has been designed to introduce you to on board cooking, both at anchor and underway. Amanda wrote this book to answer the frequent requests seminar students and expedition members have, wanting to know how to make their lives at sea simpler and safer.
When she joined John Neal in 1994 aboard Mahina Tiare and started conducting sailing expeditions between foreign ports, she began gathering information ranging from how to prepare local seasonal produce, to easy solutions for feeding a large crew on an extended passage. I learned that a well-provisioned and efficient galley is essential in providing easy, quick and nutritious meals for a hungry crew.

Material for the book came from discovering terrific recipes while sharing memorable meals with cruising friends, from new friends ashore, from local restaurants, and from fellow expedition members, some of whom are great cooks, and others who definitely needed a helping hand.
The Essential Galley Companion was written while underway on an 11,000 mile, six month series of passages from New Zealand to Alaska, ending in the San Juan Islands of Washington. 

Website

Catch of the day is mahi-mahi. 

Bonus title:

Cooking Under Pressure (20th Anniversary Edition)by Lorna J. Sass 

Although not strictly for boaters, the 20th Anniversary Edition of the classic cookbook from the leading authority on speed-cooking, Lorna Sass, Cooking Under Pressure offers a mouth-watering array of extraordinary dishes that can be prepared in minutes—from classic ossobucco to chocolate cheesecake—using a pressure cooker. A James Beard Award–winning cookbook author and food writer who has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Food & Wine, Woman’s Day and other publications, Lorna Sass shows you how to turn out meals in one-third the time of conventional methods without sacrificing moisture, flavor, aroma, or nutritional content. Newly updated and revised for contemporary tastes and more efficient machines, Cooking Under Pressure is the cookbook that inspired a whole generation of home cooks to dust off their pressure cookers.

Website

Roberto bringing us fresh oysters in the Caribbean