Kosher Dining - Eating on a Cruise Ship

Anyone who has witnessed the scene of food preparation on a cruise ship would be shocked by the sheer volume of the task. Preparation begins before anyone even boards. Once all the guests are aboard, food service must continue day and night. There is no doubt that food is the source of a cruise ship's power. A 'Kosher cruise' generally means that the food served on the ship is Kosher. Other aspects related to Jewish law are generally not within the scope of Kosher certification.

Overview of Kosher food on cruise ships

Implementing Kosher supervision on a cruise ship is not easy. A 'mega cruise ship' with more than 4,000 passengers must provide more than 12,000 meals per day! Food preparation is carried out simultaneously in different places, 24 hours a day. A 'Kosher cruise' generally refers to several cabins chartered from a large ship. Such an arrangement means that Kosher and non-Kosher food will be prepared together.

Passengers should trust the Kosher body. To live up to this trust, a reliable Kosher body must pay attention to many aspects.

Kosher dining: challenges and countermeasures faced on cruise ships

The complex situation of cruise ship kitchens and solutions

What should be paid attention to in order to ensure the food preparation process is Kosher? Will there be a kitchen dedicated to preparing Kosher food, or will part of a non-Kosher kitchen be designated to make Kosher food? In most cases, only a small portion of passengers are Kosher consumers, so it is more common for Kosher and non-Kosher food to be made in one place. But this inevitably creates many problems. Sometimes, Kosher and non-Kosher food are prepared on one table, with a temporary partition placed in between. In this situation, chefs may cook pork on one side and Kosher meat on the other, which is a compromise situation in Kosher dietary law.

The Kosher body must hire enough inspectors to cover all the places where food is made and eaten—both kinds of venues may be scattered all over the ship. For example, the kitchen may be on one floor, the bakery on the second, and the dining room on the third. In addition, the storage rooms for meat, fish and other ingredients are likely on a separate floor, which means inspectors must supervise all these places when necessary.

Even with enough inspectors, supervising the making of Kosher food is a difficult task, especially in a kitchen that makes Kosher and non-Kosher food at the same time. Because the kitchen on a cruise ship is extremely busy, the Kosher food preparation area needs to be supervised at all times. Waiters shuttle back and forth, some carrying Kosher food and utensils and some the opposite. At the same time, chefs need to fetch more ingredients from the storage room from time to time. So the inspector must pay attention at all times, ensuring that waiters do not bring non-Kosher food to Kosher consumers, and ensuring that Kosher utensils are definitely returned to the Kosher kitchen. Unintentional or intentional violations of Kosher regulations can both occur.

Special difficulties faced at sea

Since at sea the food and ingredients consumed cannot be replenished, this makes the making of Kosher food even more difficult. This also puts pressure on the crew, making it possible for them to provide non-Kosher food or utensils to Kosher guests.

Kosher and non-Kosher kitchens may share one steam boiler to heat large soup pots. The steam does not enter the soup; it only surrounds the pot to transfer heat in. Afterwards, the steam liquefies, is recovered to the boiler, and reused. Because some soups are non-Kosher, this process transfers the non-Kosher flavor into the Kosher soup, making it non-Kosher. To solve this problem, a chemical must be added to the steam boiler to remove the flavor from the water, so that the two kinds of food can share the steam boiler. However, our investigation shows that some cruise companies are unwilling to add this chemical to the water. They claim it is necessary to ensure that the water remains drinkable after use, for use at sea when fresh water is needed but unavailable. (A mega tanker can use 200,000 gallons of water per day, generally fresh water from the harbor or desalinated seawater.)

The cruise ship's short turnaround time also creates a problem. Generally a ship enters port in the morning and must begin another voyage in the afternoon, which leaves the Kosher body no time to make the necessary kosher preparation of the utensils.

To solve this problem, the inspector must board the ship at the last stop before the ship returns to port, and then kosher the utensils during the return voyage. There was once a report of a conscientious inspector who, having missed the ship, took a pilot boat to reach the cruise ship and then climbed up a rope ladder to start work.

The challenge of the Sabbath

Food preparation on the Sabbath has other challenges. Before the Sabbath, all food should be cooked. On the Sabbath itself, the inspector must make sure the staff prepare food according to the complex set of Sabbath procedures.

Another option

There is a method that works on almost any ship, whether Kosher or non-Kosher. That is to provide packaged Kosher meals, similar to airline meals. Such meals can be heated in any oven, but the seal must be intact after heating. They cannot be heated on the Sabbath, and opening must follow the manner stipulated by law.

Article link: http://www.halalkosher.org/index.php/article?id=382