Shipboard food

A couple of nights ago the Captain cooked our evening meal for us! Very nice you may say, so what!
On my ship there are 11 crew members, Captain, Chief Officer(me), 2nd officer, Chief Engineer + 2 engineers, bosun, 2 able seamen(AB), cargo operator and a cook. Of those 11 crew, 6 are Polish and 5 are Brits.
We're lucky as in some smaller crewed ships one of the AB's would double up as cook.
I've never come across a cook at sea who has been happy for someone else to use his galley. They are usually very territorial beings!
The cook we have now is new to this ship and company, it's only his 2nd trip, but I have to say he's a lovely chap. So he agreed to the Captain cooking a traditional Polish dish. It was really nice actually, a pork steak marinated in salt, pepper and paprika. Then cooked slowly with onions and served topped with tomato ketchup, mayonnaise and cheese. It was really tasty, something I would try and cook myself at home.

The cook that was here before, had been in the company for years working just past his retirement age. He was nice enough but could also be described as cantankerous, rude, militant, opinionated or a miserable old git! I noticed after I had been onboard only a day or so how different the atmosphere on board was to when I had been here 3.5 yrs ago.
A lot of the cooks I've sailed with were older blokes, who have been at sea for years. Their staple evening meal of the day would be a roast dinner with fruit duff ( pudding) and custard.

One cook I worked with was another strange character. He was quite short and fat, a Glaswegian, who looked like a bulldog who had swallowed a wasp. He would stare at you through the hatch between galley and mess room, making sure you were eating the food. You would hope someone else would come along for food, to distract him long enough for you to chuck it in the bin. Then you would wash your plate, pass it back and say thanks.


Years ago, before drinking and smoking was banned on ships, I remember one cook who would be in the galley, can of beer in hand, roll up in his mouth, stirring the food. Goodness knows what happened to the ash!
So for our Captain to get in the galley and do a bit of cooking is something I've never seen before but is a welcome change.