Americans' food expectations on non-American ships

[shipgeeks]

One of the things I especially enjoy on a non-American cruiseline is eating some things differently, and trying things I haven't had before.  Apparently not everyone agrees with me.

A long post on CC a few years ago complained about how bad the pizza was on his Italian ship.  After much discussion, it appeared that his complaints included the fact that the sausage was different, and there was never any cheddar or American cheese on it.

More recently, a big issue has been made of the fact that a cruiser, again on an Italian ship, did not always get butter with her bread.  Despite being told that butter is not standard in Italy and elsewhere, but that she could request it, as well as suggestions to try the Italian bread, croissants, Danish, and sticky buns, she continued to complain, and is thinking of taking her own bread and butter on her next cruise.

Another review stated that a serious issue on her cruise was ketchup not always being readily available on an Italian ship.

And now someone is concerned about a rumor that there might be no soft-serve ice cream dispensers on an Italian ship.

 

Your thoughts?

How far should cruiselines go to satisfy a minority group of their passengers?

[CntPAcruiser]

I gather this earlier post about how the food wasn't "right" when traveling was created by someone who goes all over the world only to dine at McDonalds and Pizza Hut. Yes, I'm a food snob (though I do sometimes eat at fast food places), but the whole point of traveling for most of us is to have new experiences. And, gasp!--that might include not using ketchup. 

 

How far should they go? I say not far, nor will they. Cruise lines may retool their menu and supplies slightly depending on where they are sailing to/from (for example, placing kettles in all the rooms and offering English bacon on UK cruises), but to install soft-serve machines, nope. Granted, keeping a case of bottles of Heinz ketchup in reserve wouldn't be difficult. But to expect major cultural changes to just be in place, like having butter for bread, sorry. That isn't required, and as was mentioned, it would be available on request, so what's the problem there anyway?

[Harters]

On 5/8/2023 at 3:27 PM, CntPAcruiser said:

How far should they go? I say not far,

I agree. And wonder how far they might go to offer, say, halal food.

[CntPAcruiser]

10 hours ago, Harters said:

I agree. And wonder how far they might go to offer, say, halal food.

 

If halal would be handled similarly to kosher, they might use an outside provider that does frozen meals. I'm not as familiar with halal requirements for cooking and serving, but strict kosher doesn't permit contact with non-kosher surfaces, utensils, etc., so the meals come prepackaged with utensils and are heated and served sometimes still wrapped. 

 

Years ago I worked for a banquet facility, and we had an interfaith leaders' dinner once a month. A co-worker heated a frozen kosher meal for a rabbi and proceeded to replate it on one of our plates to make it look nicer. Sadly, he had to refuse it since it had touched a non-kosher plate. Instead, he had a fruit plate (which, apparently being a neutral food type, didn't matter if it was on one of our plates).