Where is the galley located on the ship? One routine working day for Dmitry on a cruise ship

- (Gol. kambuis). Kitchen or cast iron stove on a ship. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. GALLEY. kambuis. Kitchen or iron stove on a ship. Explanation of 25,000 foreign words included in... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (Galley, cooking range, caboose, cook room) a cast-iron stove for cooking food for the ship’s personnel, placed on sailing ships in the bow (on ships and frigates on the opera deck, on small ships on the lower deck, and on merchant ships on... ... Marine Dictionary

GALLEY, husband's galley. a kitchen on a ship, an iron stove, with boilers, etc. Galley, related to the galley Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. IN AND. Dahl. 1863 1866 … Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

galley- a, m. cambuse f. tavern; galley naked combuis. 1. Ship's kitchen. BAS 1. Cambuis. Regulations for skippers and others arriving on merchant ships at the ports of the Russian state. 1724. ES. 2. The ship has a cast iron or iron stove with a boiler. BAS... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language

galley- and an outdated galley... Dictionary of difficulties of pronunciation and stress in modern Russian language

- (from Dutch kombuis) ship's kitchen... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

GALLEY, galley, husband. (Dutch kombuis) (mor.). Kitchen or cast iron stove with boiler on a boat. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

GALLEY, huh, husband. (specialist.). Kitchen on the ship. | adj. galley, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 2 Germanism (176) cuisine (18) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

A; m. [Gol. kombuis] Kitchen on a ship. ◁ Galley, oh, oh. K furnaces. What a pipe. * * * galley (from Dutch kombuis), ship's kitchen. * * * GALLEY GALLEY (from Dutch kombuis), ship's kitchen... encyclopedic Dictionary

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• , . Human civilization has collapsed under its own weight... Small human communities struggle to survive, surrounded by hordes of the living dead. True, it is not known who is worse - ordinary...

Yes, I want to talk about the galley, because it is a more significant thing than its land-based counterparts. In reality, even the ancient Romans or Greeks, who traveled around their flat world, would have agreed with me in terms of the fact that everything is simpler on land. And with a trireme or any other vessel, where can you get away with it?

Meanwhile, the kitchen, that is, the galley on a ship, is not an old thing. People have been sailing the seas for hundreds of years, but they began to cook food on them relatively recently. The same ancient Greeks and Romans, who traveled along the coast, always landed on the shore at night and lit a fire there and cooked their food.

And the galley itself appeared much later. And he immediately gained eerie fame. Consider the names “Purgatory”, “Chamber of Panic”, “Reign of Depravity”.

It is known for certain that there were no galleys on Columbus’s ships. Some 400 years ago. The daily distribution of food was carried out by the provisions master, also called the pickler, and the battalion, in charge of barrels of water, wine and brandy.

What did the sailors eat? Depending on the condition of the shipowner's pocket.

Crackers. This was the basis. It is clear that wooden sailing ships were not equipped with ovens for baking bread, and if they were, how much coal and firewood would they have to carry with them? So yes, sea biscuits.

Huge chunks, so hard that they could hardly be broken with a hammer. Depending on the flour used to make them, crackers differed in appearance and taste. The English ones were light in color because they were baked with wheat and corn.

The Swedish “knekbrod”, “crispy bread”, was called “touchstone” for its hardness and configuration, since it had the shape of a donut. German "knallers" ("crackers") were baked from rye and were a favorite type of cracker among sailors.

In addition, there were also special double-hardened crackers. For the longest journeys. They were also called biscuits, which in French means “twice baked.”

But even crackers dried to the limit, to the point of ringing, quickly became moldy in sea-ocean conditions under the influence of constant dampness. Or hello worms and other protozoa. And this despite the fact that already in the 18th century, crackers began to be sealed in jars.

In such cases, the worm-ridden crackers were simply slightly soaked in sea water and baked again in a regular oven. Well, it would be the same crackers, but with meat seasoning in the form of baked worms. Bon appetit, so to speak.

In general, the ship's dry ration consisted of the simplest things that did not require special storage conditions. Dried or salted meat, salted lard, crackers, hard cheese, vegetable oil, alcohol, dried vegetables, vinegar.

By the way, vinegar was not a seasoning, but a disinfectant. The seasoning was wine until it soured and turned into vinegar, and a little later (after 300 years) - rum or aquavit.

By the way, I can add this recipe to go with rum. British. The dessert was called “dog cake.” Was very popular in the fleet of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

Rusks, or rather, their remains, were ground into fine crumbs, then lard and sugar were added to the crumbs, ground in a mortar (for example, for tobacco) and all this was diluted with water. The result was a fatty-sweet paste, which was given the rather outlandish name “dog cake.”

There is an opinion that sea pudding originated precisely from “dog cake”, because well, there is something in common in the recipes.

A pudding was prepared from flour, sugar, raisins and melted lard mixed with water. This dough was then placed in a canvas bag. The bag was tied, an identification tag was attached to it and, along with the pudding bags of the other tanks, it was lowered into the large galley pot. But this appeared when boilers for cooking were firmly assigned to ships.

Well, in general, about 400 years ago, food was rarely cooked on a ship, and edible food was even less common. The first invention for the galley was an open hearth with a brick hearth covered with sand. Usually one cauldron was hung, in which food was prepared.

The most common recipe was half porridge, half stew (depending on the amount of water that could be spent on the dish) of their cereals and corned beef.

It could be varied. Peas, lentils, pearl barley, beans, rice, millet - depending on the region. And corned beef. It could be added if olive or other oil was available.

On ships of old times there was such a position - a tankman. This is an unfortunate man in his own way, whose duties included receiving food for a certain number of sailors and, most importantly, a portion of meat.

The battalion personally distributed rum to each sailor. As they say, rum is sacred.

But the cook did not enjoy authority in maritime folklore. On the contrary, the nicknames that were awarded to him were usually more than offensive.

But here you just need to figure out why the cook was a condemned figure. It is probably worth noting, for the sake of fairness, that the ships of that time were not huge in size and were really limited in carrying capacity.

What was the galley like in conditions of constant shortage of fresh water?

A dirty, smelly room with a brick slab in the middle. The rest of the area contained kitchen tables, logs for chopping wood and cutting meat, barrels and tanks, boilers, shelves with pots, woodpiles of firewood, bags and supplies of provisions.

And in the midst of all this hell, the cook reigned. More precisely, I tried to cook something like that. It is clear that in the vast majority of cases, only one dish was prepared for the team. And not the best quality.

The lack of water gave rise to unsanitary conditions. The lack of normal storage conditions gave rise to crowds of rats. And so on.

The cook on a sailing ship was an odious figure. Disrespected, cursed, the cooks were often drowned (mostly out of stupidity), but this did not improve the situation. It is clear that a chef from a restaurant will not serve as a cook on a sailboat.

Nevertheless, something was prepared. I will give a few recipes in addition to the “dog cake” and peas with corned beef.

By the way, on the second day after peas and corned beef, corned beef and peas could have been served. Marine humor, yes. And at the same time the reality of life.

Russian ship cabbage soup.

We take the boiler. We have only one, so we do everything in it. To begin, pour lard, sauerkraut, onions, carrots and parsley root into a cauldron and fry it all.

We chop the fish (it doesn’t matter what kind, whatever we could catch) into pieces and also lightly fry it in this beauty.

Then add water and bring to a boil. Add vegetable oil, salt, pepper and basically call the tanks. The cabbage soup is ready.

Fine? Well, those who know will say - you can eat. I agree. What about potage? Okay, we'll leave it for dessert.

Soup.

We take a cauldron, throw lard or butter and onions into it. Lots of onions. There is garlic - a lot of garlic. It’s useful, and you’ll need to get rid of the smell. Fry. Until golden brown.

Then add water and throw in pieces of corned beef. Without cleaning or soaking, because water is valuable. And that will do. Cook for an hour and a half.

When the corned beef has boiled down to the point where it can be chewed, we go to the battalion and take a bag. It doesn't matter with what. Peas, lentils, pearl barley. Anything that can be cooked. We fall asleep as is, with worms and larvae, there is no need to waste protein. Let's cook!

Then comes the hard part. You need to take pepper and laurel from the reserves and add just enough to fight off the smell. All is good. The food is ready.

It is clear that with such a “menu” the arrival of scurvy is a matter of time. And then food goes into battle, which could easily be swallowed by any scurvy sufferer with bleeding gums and loose teeth.

Labskaus.

They say the recipe from the Vikings has yet to come. I don’t believe it, it was easier for these brave guys to kill a sick person, they bothered like that for weeks.

Take a ration of corned beef and boil it. This is 2-3 hours. Cut the boiled corned beef finely and finely, add also finely chopped salted herring and grind it with a pestle in a mortar. Add some pepper to the resulting mixture (there is already enough salt there), dilute it with water and rum. The first is so that it can be swallowed, the second is so that it doesn’t smell so bad.

True, it is worth noting that Labskaus did not completely solve the issue of getting rid of scurvy. At sea, the corned beef gradually went rotten anyway and smelled like a dead body. Yes, when canned meat came into use under Napoleon, it was not for nothing that they were nicknamed the “dead Frenchman” in the British Navy.

And of course, floorage. The most cursed dish of privateers, pirates and tea clippers. The dish was prepared when food supplies were running low and there was no way to replenish them.

Potage was very easy to prepare. A cauldron of water was taken, into which everything that remained on board was thrown. Rats, worm biscuits, worm meal, scraps, fish tails and so on.

Usually the preparation of the potage was followed by a revolt of the team, but...

The world of sailing ships was somewhat different from the civilized world. And first of all - food.

Hot food on sailing ships was delivered from the galley to the crew's quarters in tanks. Of these, and if, since bowls on a ship are such a luxury. While eating, each sailor took turns throwing a spoon directly into the common tank. Anyone who could not maintain the rhythm and climbed out of turn received a spoon on the fingers or on the forehead.

Overall, everything is so sanitary and hygienic that there are no words.

But it's half an orange! Okay, food quality. What about water quality? It is clear that most often the team received cheap and not entirely good-quality products. Corned beef, beans, cereals, lard... But water, which was mainly collected at best from pothole wells, and at worst from nearby rivers, was not a gift either.

The main thing is that she was missing. And it spoiled quite quickly in the only container at that time - wooden barrels.

Considering that the most common preservative was salt, the question of the edibility of salted meat also did not arise. Simply because it had to be properly soaked in the same fresh water. Which was completely lacking, and which also quickly deteriorated, especially in hot latitudes.

With each month of sailing, the water became thicker and smellier. Later, wooden water tanks were replaced by iron ones. However, water on a ship is still considered valuable: a person can overcome hunger for a week or even more, but must drink a certain minimum of water every day.

In general, cooking on ships of former times was not the most fun or rewarding task. And it’s not even about ships and cooks.

More precisely, mainly in ships. Even more precisely, as I already noted, in their size. If a normal cook who loves people does not have the proper amount of kitchen utensils, then no amount of punishment will force him to work miracles. And the lack of water negates all dreams of “tasty and healthy” food.

I don’t know how the British dealt with their traditional “five-o-clock”, that is, evening tea on ships. It probably wasn't the most delicious drink. Repeating what was for lunch, only in a diluted form.

Plus constant water savings.

On Vasco da Gama's ships, when sailing to India, each sailor was entitled to:

680 grams of crackers;
- 453 grams of corned beef;
- 1 liter of water,
- 40 grams of vinegar,
- 20 grams of olive oil,
- onions, garlic, dried and fresh vegetables.

This is probably why Vasco da Gama came back. Here is an example of another diet. A sailor of the English expedition on the Bounty transport, which ended in a mutiny and the disembarkation of the captain:

3 kilograms 200 grams of biscuits;
- 1 pound of corned beef (450 grams);
- 160 grams of dried fish;
- 900 grams of peas or cereals;
- 220 grams of cheese;
- water, rum.

For comparison, I can cite the rations of a Russian sailor from the time of Catherine II. With “Bounty” at the same time, actually.

For a month, a Russian sailor was entitled to:
- 5.5 kg of beef meat in the form of corned beef or fresh;
- 18 kg of crackers;
- 4 kg of peas;
- 2.5 kg of buckwheat;
- 4 kg of oats;
- 2.5 kg of butter;
- more than 0.5 kg of salt;
- 200 g vinegar;
- 3.4 liters of vodka (28 glasses).

Potage was not cooked on Russian ships...

Today we will turn to the eternal. Who said: “To Shakespeare”???
No. We will leave our dear comrade William Shakespeare for another forum. So what on the ship is so archaic and little influenced by progress??? And oddly enough, it's a galley!

This is how he was on the sailboat.

A fire, a cauldron, and a person who, in such conditions, must provide hot food to a gang of thugs.
Galley is a room on a ship, suitably equipped and intended for cooking (kitchen).
The galley and cook were always on the ship at all times. Why? Yes, because every person from a cabin boy to an admiral and the commander of any fleet wants to eat. Yes, 3-4 times a day.

Cook - ship's cook. The word is Dutch (Dutch kok), derived from Lat. coquo - cook, bake, fry.
The cook performs the task of providing food to the personnel of a military unit or ship. His responsibilities include preparing high-quality breakfast, lunch and dinner, distributing food to personnel, as well as receiving, maintaining and storing food. The cook must know the basics of cooking, the rules for storing food and their cost, and be able to work with electric ovens.
Military registration specialty - military nutrition specialties.
The standard military rank is sailor, senior sailor.
To master a specialty, primary or secondary vocational education is required.
To be appointed to a position, it is necessary to undergo training in training detachments (schools for junior specialists) of the Navy.
Both on ancient sailing ships and on super modern cruisers, aircraft carriers and submarines there are people engaged in preparing food and rooms for this very process.
Yes, these are not gunners, not captains. They do not fire at enemy ships, they do not make fateful decisions on which the lives and deaths of hundreds of people depend. But how all this will happen depends very much on their work. Because any person, if he is poorly fed, will think not about completing a combat mission, but about visiting, excuse me, the latrine.

So here it is. Previously, on sailing ships and steamships, the cook's work was especially difficult. Imagine. There is no refrigerator, the stove in the galley is on coal, the provisions are corned beef or even live on the deck in the cages, clucking and mooing. And the deck itself dangles under your feet. And morals are simple and artless. If you feed him poorly, you might be thrown overboard.
Now, of course, they won’t go overboard, but they can also knock on the dome. Especially when the flight or hike is long and the personnel are a little angry because of it. But from the lyrics, let's move on to practice and look at the design of the galley at the end of the last century in more detail. Welcome to the galley of the average bulk carrier or timber carrier from the times of the USSR.

Usually, for a team of 40-50 people, food is prepared by 2 cooks and 1 galley worker (auxiliary worker).
Theater begins with a hanger. And the galley begins with a food warehouse. Or simply from an artel. There is a warehouse for storing dry bulk products. Sugar, cereal, pasta. Refrigerators for storing groceries and freezers for storing meat and fish.

Beef meat comes in the form of half carcasses and quarter carcasses. Pork carcasses and half carcasses. Lamb carcasses. And it is stored in the freezer hanging on hooks. The funniest thing is that loading meat is reminiscent of the fairy tale about Zhikharka. Like the fox couldn’t put her in the oven. So it is here. The elevator is small and beef can't fit in there. When people get tired of fighting this, the carcasses are simply dragged onto the ladder and sent flying down with the help of a magic kickstand. The main thing is that no one looks out of the artel at this time.

Cereals and potatoes are easier here. Soft bags fit into the elevator quite normally. It's more fun later on the flight. The elevator door opens onto the open deck. And, oddly enough, there are storms during the flight. Especially in winter in the Atlantic. As a result, I put the bag on my back and climbed up the 50 degree ladder.

But, our people, I remember they carried sugar in bags, and they happily climbed up the vertical ladder from the hold with the bag. And one hold deck is the height of a 2-story building. These are the kind of feats that love for freeloaders pushes people to.
But in the Navy things are even harsher. There are many people, little mechanization.
Loading has begun. Five Kamaz trucks of food. Mountains of boxes. No sleeping, no eating - load! All the way! We have a sliding support so that he...
Come on, come on, Slavs! Nada! They piled on, it failed!
Boxes, boxes... boxes...
- Mesh-kii! Bags up! Cans... Bags... Sugar on the deck... followed by meat - into the mud, then it will be used for cutlets...
- Hold it! Who's in HATCH?!! What kind of infection is on the serve?!!
Seven boxes of sugar on one rope.
- It will break!
- It won’t tear, let’s quickly throw it in and go to sleep!
Almost flew away after the boxes.
- Pa-ra-zi-ti-na! Did you want to die?!!
Seven boxes of sugar - one hundred and fifty kilos.
- Hey, upstairs, take it easy!
- They don’t hold it, it’s an infection!
- Stop throwing!
- I’m going to punch someone in the face now!
Sugar on deck. The packs crunch under the boots; cans, bags, kidneys, fish, compote - all this flies down, falls, breaks.
The chopped compote does not come out of the jar - it is frozen.
Damn, I'm thirsty. Where is it now, impaled? Overboard!
- Where did you throw it?! You can warm it up - put it on the transformer - and drink!
- I didn’t realize.
Loading. There will be five KamAZ trucks in total, let's throw them in and go to sleep!
Sleep...
Hangover day. He barely opens his dull eyes. At least put in some matches.
Polar night. Dawn is at twelve, and at two it is already dark.
Unshaven. Shaved means you've had enough sleep.
The snow is falling. There is a mountain of garbage covered with snow on the pier; trampled boxes - loading in progress.
- Let's! What are we standing for? Come on guys, we'll finish soon!
- When we finish! There's no end in sight.
- Upstairs! Did you fall asleep, or what? Bastards, there's no one there! Everyone ran away. Petrov, the root is vigorous!
- Why, am I alone, or something, I’ll be here, as soon as Petrov comes, and everyone is sleeping in the cabins like marmots.
- Mikhalych! Play big gathering! You need to walk through the cabins and skerries! Kick up...
Someone is lying in the cabin; It’s dark, like a black man ... The beak was removed from the bag, scum, so that they would not be disturbed. And we take them without light, by the legs - and onto the deck...
- Why are we sleeping?!! People get ugly there, and you have a bed here? Come on, get up!
There is a pile of garbage on the pier, and tomorrow it will be in the sea. Love for the sea is instilled by unbearable life on the shore.
- Why did you run away from loading? Why, I ask?! So, into his hold, and just let his ears stick out!..
- It hurts!
- Attention to the ship! The car came for the garbage! Take out the trash!
But okay. We received the products. Let's go to the galley. The door is a healthy clinket door with hinges. So that if anything you can hide from the waves. Let's open it. Let's go in.
On the right is the elevator to the team mess and the campaign cabins. The worm elevator takes 6 minutes to reach the next deck. That’s why we send only the first meal and the cold cuts to the team canteen. And the orderly runs along the ladder after the second one. He won't fall apart when he's young. But we will turn to distribution later. Now let's start with the worst. What scares everyone in the army and navy. This is from peeling vegetables.

Potato peeler machine. This is her either on large cruise ships. Or on exemplary show ships. As for the rest. Of course she is. But only as a monument to herself. Why? Because it's either broken. Or out of savings. Because it uses a lot of water.

Why does it use a lot of water? Because she constantly arrives there. Then after the car the potatoes still need to be peeled. And therefore, most often potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. have to be peeled by hand. For 40 people. Introduced? And the potatoes are Soviet. It seems that it was specially grown in rubber peels. Which, let alone a car, refuses to take a knife. And I’m generally silent about modern fashionable potato peelers. In principle, she cannot cope with such a root crop. Therefore, all the galley workers of that time had a silent agreement. Grind this root vegetable made in the USSR as quickly as possible. To buy normal potatoes that are easy and convenient to peel. And these potatoes often flew overboard right in bags. But this is on a cargo ship. And in the Navy. What did they take? That's what we chew. Especially on a submarine.
We've peeled the potatoes and carrots, now we need to peel the onions. What's scary??? In fact, peeling onions is not a big problem. The onion itself does not sting your eyes before you start cleaning. After cleaning, it already floats in a pan of water. Also, phytoncides do not fly away anywhere. Here is the PROCESS! At first the fighters suffer. But they adapt quite quickly. A porthole and a door, or two portholes on different sides and a draft is guaranteed. He carries the caustic phytoncides into the corridor. But this is no longer our problem. Especially if combined with the aroma of borscht. Let the people in the car choke on saliva. :trollface:
Great. Root vegetables have been peeled. We need to start cooking directly.
To cook broth in large quantities, we use a preparation kettle. This is such a monstrous unit. The devils in hell will be jealous.

It's all great in the picture. In reality, the safety valve is leaking. The lid does not close properly. And if there are several such boilers, then the cooking room is all in steam like your bathhouse.
Now do you understand why the galley on battleships is designed like this?

Otherwise you simply won’t be able to stand there for long. And you have to work there every day. No weekends or holidays. The whole trip. And this is several months.
OK, while the broth is boiling we need to saute it. That is, fry onions and carrots for dressing. Large ships have special vegetable cutting machines. As a rule, this is a drive and has replaceable attachments so that you can cut vegetables and puree them. Yes. This is certainly not hand-cut. But if you need to feed a thousand people, you can’t do it without cars. So! We take a tank of carrots, we take a 20 liter boiler. The boiler is under the working chamber, the machine is turned on, we pour the carrots into the receiving funnel. They poured out. And they ducked down. I said duck down!!! Because it happens that the root crop from this device flies out not only down in a cut form, but also into the forehead of a gaping cook. The cutting process takes seconds. On ordinary bulk carriers. Everything is more prosaic. Nowadays they make do with food processors, but before, everything was done by hand. Knife, board and hands. The carrots were cut. You can pour it into the frying pan. And start chopping onions. Remove the feed funnel. We remove the knife that cut the carrots into strips, and put a knife for slicing with plastic. Feed funnel in place. Knife in the sink, galley. The water was drained from the cauldron where the onions were floating. The cauldron where there was a carrot under the working chamber. Let's turn it on. Deep breath. We dump onions into this shaitan unit. And we retreat to a safe distance. Because compared to what this machine will produce now. Gas attack is like that. Baby talk on the lawn. 5-7 kilograms of onions are cut almost instantly. The area of ​​its contact with air is huge. Phytoncides are released intensively from destroyed cells. In general, we inhaled. They came over, took a pan of chopped onions and dumped them into the frying pan. The lid was closed. You can use a hose to rinse your car. So that the onions do not smell particularly fragrant. Dismantled. They gave it to the galley keeper. Let him wash. Now the lid on the frying pan is opened. They interfered. And this is the frying pan we have.

Everything is simple with a frying pan. Set the desired temperature. And she supports you. After frying/stewing. We washed the pan itself and drained the dirty water from it. Rinsed it clean and good.
You can also cook scrambled eggs, cutlets, chops and fried zrazy there. In general, the frying pan and frying pan are simply large. The sautéing is done and now you can pour the finished broth from the boiler into a 50 liter boiler. Boiler for tap. Place a colander with gauze in the cauldron to filter. And the broth started flowing. We open the lid so that there is normal air access and it drains more fun. And in the cauldron of broth, the pig’s head appears covered in clouds of steam. Picture, Hitchcock is resting. The broth has drained. We take out the bones. Separate the meat. And it's hot with lard. But it's okay, since it's hot. Two is hot. Then you adapt. Bones into the lagoons and thrown away. Cut the meat and put it aside. And we put a 50 liter cauldron with broth on the stove.
Galley stove.
A galley stove is generally no different from a regular stove in a catering establishment. Its only difference is the special sides and spacers that prevent the boilers from moving across the stove during pumping. The plate itself may look, for example, like this.

They are installed only during pitching. Because the stoves were made by one research institute, the boilers were made by others. As a result, after installing the spacers, exactly half of its standard load is placed on the slab. The stove itself, you understand, is far from metal ceramics. And the old hotplates with heaters. Moreover, the shadows somewhere are warming as if they were not themselves, but somewhere they have already partially died. And therefore, they do not change the heating of the burner, but move the cauldron or frying pan to the burner that gives the required heat. OK, lunch is getting ready. Let's talk about our daily bread.
About our daily bread.
During a voyage or long voyage, bread is baked right on the ship. For this purpose, all ships and vessels intended for long voyages have bakeries. The size of the bakery depends on the estimated number of personnel. The more people there are, the more bread is needed. There's another nuance here. You can only bake white bread while camping. Rye dough does not rise due to vibration on the ship. Therefore, rye bread is taken with you frozen. And by the way, it stores quite well in this form. Up to half a year no problem. And before serving, you just need to defrost it and heat it in a steam bath. This is called cunning, but in reality everything is simple. Large saucepan. Place the loaves in a colander and a lid on top of the lid, and a towel on top of the pan. And ice cream bread becomes quite normal. But we already bake white bread.

In a bakery, which is also a confectionery, in theory we should have a dough mixing machine, a dough sheeter, a separate refrigerator and, of course, ovens. But this is ideal. In real. Our dough mixer broke down during the reign of Tsar Peas and there are no spare parts and never will be. That's why we put the dough for bread. And then add flour and start kneading. Everything is hand-to-hand. About 5 o'clock in the morning. Kneading bread dough is harder than carrying iron in a rocking chair. Therefore, our biceps will be beautiful and sculpted. Moreover, all this is happening next to the bakery cabinet, which is already starting to warm up. It will go into mode in about an hour. And we are good if we are in the Arctic. What if in the tropics? Overboard +30 in the bakery +50, but you have to work. And there is no air conditioner. And so on day after day. Then we dose the dough. Form into shape and let it rise.

How will it rise? So into the oven. Our stove also heats crookedly, on one side it’s too hot. On the other hand, not very much. As a result, the forms must be rotated. And all this by hand and in a hot oven. A juggler with burning torches smokes nervously on the sidelines. And at the same time you cannot hit the form. Otherwise, the bread will fall and become flat and not fluffy. And who will eat it in this form? No, conscript sailors can of course be modest about this. In the first year, not even that much will be swept away. But this will not work for officers and civilians. Therefore, accuracy, accuracy and accuracy again.
There you go friends, we've covered the basics of the galley. The cold and meat shops have been left behind for now. But on a bulk carrier there are simply no separate ones. So if you have any questions. Ask. I'll tell you. So that's it. Storing, cleaning, preparing, baking bread was covered. Now it's time to move on to distributing food.
Distribution.
This again depends on the size and type of our ship. In theory, they are trying to make the galley and dining room on the same level. But it doesn't always work out. Therefore, as I said above, the orderly often has to carry a saiga along the ladder with a tray. Because the elevator is slow and small.
And on warships they make a separate dining room for the crew. Where the distribution resembles an ordinary canteen.

After eating, naturally all dishes should be washed and dried. Cauldrons and frying pans too. The galley deck must be washed at least 2 times a day. After lunch and after dinner. Moreover, the deck is scrubbed to perfect cleanliness. Therefore, friends, always remember the hard work of those who prepare food for you. And if something doesn’t work out for them. Understand and forgive them. And help as much as possible. Even just help your mom in the kitchen, even when she doesn’t force you to.
Our little impromptu excursion has come to an end. Traditional THANKS to everyone who read to the end.

It is enough to stand in the galley for a day to lose interest in cottage cheese, sour cream, the first, the second. In the galley you can only eat compote. It's made from dried fruits. There's probably just some dead worm floating around there, or, at worst, the orderly will crawl into the lagoon with his sleeve...
A. Pokrovsky “Cottage cheese”

The galley is the kitchen on the ship, for those who don’t know. They prepare what they call food in the navy.
I became acquainted with the galley at a military training camp after my fifth year at the institute. This is when students play soldiers for a whole month, in our case sailors, so that after that they can proudly press a machine gun to their chest and pronounce the words of the oath, and, having defended their diploma, no less proudly be called reserve officers. Before this, they are forced to make even more unimaginable sacrifices for three whole years: wear blue jackets one day a week and not be late for the first pair on these days. And all for the sake of not giving two years of your life to the Motherland, and if you give these years, then at least with more significant shoulder straps.
Of course, I already knew the word “galley” and what it meant too. And I even expected that on the training ship “Perekop” I would have to deal with some semblance of a lack of comfort, although our training camp, in comparison with the real service, can easily be called a vacation in a boarding house with a beautiful view of the Petrovskaya Harbor of the city of Kronstadt. Nevertheless, the galley made an indelible impression on me, overshadowing the rustling of rats under the bunks, the aroma of nineteen pairs of socks in the cockpit, the “dog watch”1 and the snoring from the neighboring bunks. There is also a latrine on the ship, but so be it, let’s not talk about sad things at all.
It is worth mentioning the ship itself. “Perekop” - a trough with eight thousand tons of displacement, built in socialist Poland, was what is called “slow”. That is, he did not go to sea. The technical condition did not allow it. But it made it possible to take on board up to four hundred cadets undergoing “ship practice”, and for this reason proudly be called a ship of the first rank, although in terms of displacement the ship did not qualify for this very rank. The Perekop crew consisted of a dozen officers and two dozen “lower ranks.” Out of one hundred and seventeen required according to the staffing table. The latter were all “one year old” with the rank of no lower than senior sailor.
His sistership Smolny was moored next to the Perekop. It went to sea, had a full crew, and soon after our training began, it landed in Germany with a load of cadets on board. The third steamship in their series, the Hassan, has long since gone under the torch.
And then we, Korabelka students, appeared at Perekop. After loading onto the ship a motley crowd with trunks of a clearly civilian appearance, this very crowd was forced to change into the tired blue jackets that had to be worn on those days when it was impossible to be late for the first class, and was called a company of cadets. We had to be boys in blue for a few more days, after which we were given work dresses. Our platoon was placed in a cockpit on the third deck on the port side; the portholes, as I already said, opened up a view of Petrovskaya Harbor.
Immediately after check-in, the distribution of outfits began. There were quite a few of them: a company duty officer, a canteen duty officer (appointed from the squad commanders), an orderly (two people), a dishwasher-plater (two people) and, finally, a galley worker (two people). Considering that almost every day there was an outfit for potatoes, half the company was not bored.
Our platoon commander Dima, without further ado, immediately assigned me to the galley along with the botanist Andryusha from the department of nuclear installations. For a whole month he followed me, consistently being my partner in all outfits. Being entirely in his own inner world, a persistent rejection of the external world, combined with incredible boringness, made Andrei extremely difficult to communicate with.
“Well, Andryukha, let’s go to work,” I told him, and we went to the galley, at the disposal of the foreman of the second article Zhenya, who occupies the high position of cook on the ship.
We didn't have to go far. The galley was located just opposite our cockpit on the starboard side. It was preceded by a small room with a bathtub, similar to those in which people perform ablutions, and here it was intended for storing peeled potatoes. There were also three bags of root vegetables, awaiting the cleansing ritual. The galley itself turned out to be a spacious room with white tiled walls and a dirty brown tiled floor. Along the side there were cutting tables, opposite them, closer to the centerline, there was an even row of large metal cauldrons, and at the bow bulkhead there was a stove, a stump for chopping meat, a window into the dining room for transferring food and a large automatic meat grinder. To top it all off, some pseudo-musical sounds were heard from the corner; there was a tape recorder there.
Among all this splendor, in addition to Andryukha and me, I noticed four more living creatures: a small blond cook Zhenya in a white robe, two sailors in vests and a large red cockroach crawling along the stove in the direction of the north-west. We immediately captured the entire attention of three of the above-mentioned representatives of the fauna, only the cockroach continued to crawl about its business, without being distracted by trifles like Andrey and me.
- Guys, who will you be? – Zhenya asked.
- Yes, here we are... From the first platoon... We were sent here... - I was also a little confused.
- Sent, you say. It’s good that they sent us here, and not to hell... - Zhenya said, and the sailors laughed. - Although, one x..., here and there. You are probably cadets?
- Yeah, cadets.
- Well, screw yourself. Get to work. What's your name, by the way?
- Basil.
- Andrey.
- I'm Zhenya. These are Dima and Oleg,” he pointed to the sailors.
- Ahh... What should I do?
“Here’s a mop, here’s a bucket, here’s a rag, and here’s the floor,” the one introduced as Oleg pointed to his feet. - Forward.
Andrey reached for the mop.
- Wait, you fucking! – Zhenya stopped him. - Change your clothes first. These blue jackets of yours are a dress uniform. You'll get it dirty.
“Casual,” I corrected him, and we went to the cockpit to change clothes.
The expression “f... yours” in the navy is not an insult at all, but simply an appeal to a person below you in the table of ranks, or equal to you.
We could only change into training suits. Our meager wardrobe did not provide any other alternative.
- Oh, that's another matter! – Zhenya said when we returned to the galley. - Now let's get to work.
Andrey and I looked at each other. Each of us wanted a partner to wash the floor, not him. For several seconds there was a silent struggle between us, a kind of staring contest. In the end, Andryukha was the first to break down: with a sad sigh, he rolled up his sleeves, took a rag and dipped it into a bucket. Then he began to carefully squeeze it out.
- Not this way! – Oleg stopped him.
We stared at him in surprise.
- I’ll explain. You,” he pointed at me, “are watering the deck with a bucket, and you are scrubbing it with a mop.”
Here Oleg and Dima demonstrated how this should all happen. The deck of the ship is not flat, but convex, so the hull is stronger, so all the dirt and waste from production, along with water, were sent by gravity into the drainage hole in the deck at the side; what did not drain on its own, was pushed there with a mop. Further along the wastewater system, all this ended up overboard.
“And now the same from the very bow bulkhead,” Kostya handed me a bucket and Andrey a mop. - Execute!
We got through cleaning the deck pretty quickly. Andrey worked quite well as a mop, but he was in too much of a hurry, as a result of which I splashed water on his sneakers a couple of times.
- Now what? – I asked when the work was finished.
“Nothing,” Zhenya said after some thought. - Rest for now.
Oleg brought two chairs with broken backs from somewhere in the utility room for us, and placed them between the stove and the tree stump for chopping meat. After we sat down on them, the sailors began to ask us who we were, and we asked them, how they served. And it seemed to me that they served well. The sailors lived two by two in four-bed cabins (afterwards they showed them to us, not luxury rooms, of course, but nevertheless), they were regularly released on leave. “Non-statutory” was completely absent on the ship for two reasons: firstly, the officers carefully monitored the relationships of the personnel; secondly, as I already said, all the conscripts were “one year old”, there was no one for them to drive.
While we were talking, Zhenya stood at the stove and conjured over our dinner today. A couple of times he asked us to fill the large lagoon with water from the boiler and drag it to the stove. So far everything was not bad, except for the fact that the tape recorder was playing a cassette of his wife’s favorite band “Cabriolet”. Those who have heard will understand; those who have not heard, listen and understand.
Soon Kostya, who was acting as company duty officer that day, came running into the galley. Maloy and Lenya the billiard player trudged after him. Both were wearing tracksuits.
“That’s it, your shift is over,” Kostya turned to Andrey and me. - Now Maloy and Lenya are entering the galley.
“What a pity, we’re just getting the hang of it,” I feigned disappointment. - Let's go, Andryukha.
In the cockpit I changed clothes and fell onto the bunk with a book in my hands. I took a volume of Zhitinsky’s fiction with me to the training camp; it should have been enough for me for a week, and they promised to let us go home for the weekend. The majority of my newly-minted “colleagues” sat in cans around two tables, on which bags of cookies and baked goods were laid out in large quantities, and waited for the water to boil in the electric kettle. Despite the fact that our officers strongly recommended three meals a day in the canteen plus “evening tea,” the process of devouring all kinds of buns and “doshiraks” in the cockpit almost did not stop throughout the month. As a result, some people returned from the training camp having recovered significantly.
Half an hour later, a lathered Kostya came running again:
- F..I, guys! Let's go back to the galley.
- Us again? – I was surprised.
- You again. You have to work there until five o'clock tomorrow evening. I just got it all mixed up.
I had to put the book down and change clothes again, and then look for Andrei, who managed to go somewhere. I found it on the left side waist, where we usually had formations during checks. Andrey was sitting on the bollard, fixing his thoughtful gaze on the ferry leaving the pier.
- Andryukha! – I turned to him. - Lafa is over. Let's go back to the galley.
- How can we get back to the galley?
- Silently. Easy and relaxed. Kostyan mixed everything up, the kulibin is riveted. Our labor obligation is until seventeen zero tomorrow.
- Wait, who told you this?
- Yes, he said it himself. Holy shit, Andryukha, stop being boring and let's go to work. And don’t sit on the bollard, you’ll get rheumatism.
Andrey continued to bore for another five minutes. Our above dialogue was repeated three more times. Ultimately, I called Kostya. He was laconic and convincing in a Spartan way:
- Fatty, stop peeing and go to the galley.
Zhenya and the sailors were very surprised when we returned again, kicked Maly and Lenya out of the galley and expressed their readiness to continue working.
“This is the stupidity of our superiors, nothing special,” I told them, and they agreed with me.
Dinner was approaching. I was assigned to cut bread for the whole company, Andrei was assigned to open cans.
I went to the rack with bread and took a white loaf. It was half covered with mold, and seemed somehow light to me. Turning the loaf over in my hands, I discovered a small hole in it. Then I broke it in half. There was almost no pulp inside.
“Rats,” I heard Oleg’s voice from behind. - What, you’ve never seen rats eat bread?
- Now I saw it.
“Take this bread,” he pointed to another rack. - He seems better. And we’ll throw this one to the seagulls.
I chose ten “better” loaves. Then he took a knife and carefully cut off all the mold, after which he began to cut the bread into slices. When I completed my task, I had to help Andrey, who still couldn’t get rid of the canned food. From the window leading to the dining room, excited exclamations were already heard, “let’s eat” or something like that. Zhenya distributed buckwheat and jelly into pots, we took them to the window, where they handed them over to the cover-washers. Following the pots, tin cans and jelly were sent to the dining room.
- Will you eat it yourself? – Zhenya asked. - You are left here.
“We will,” I answered, “of course we will.”
We went to the cockpit to get our mugs and spoons; we were given bowls that replaced plates. Subsequently, they began to buy disposable plastic tableware. Andrey and I washed our hands right in the galley, from the boiler. In general, it was very difficult on the ship with water, as, indeed, throughout Kronstadt. It was given three times a day for five minutes at a time when all the personnel should be in the dining room. Even in the evening you could run to PEZh2 and, after treating the watchman with a cigarette, beg for water in the shower. Oh, if you only knew how kind and helpful a Russian sailor becomes if you treat him to a cigarette.
We had to eat with our bowls on our knees. But instead of jelly, there was orange juice splashing in our mugs, and instead of a stew from 1970, there was quite fresh herring in the bowl. Zhenya snatched all this for us from the officer’s dinner.
Andrey and I did not enjoy our privileged position for long. The cover-washers began returning the pots to the galley that we had to wash. They themselves washed only the bowls, and they had detergents purchased in advance for this. We had to wash the pots and peel off the burnt porridge in the lagoon, having only cold water available. The only boiler in which the heater was working ran out of water, and it was not possible to replenish its reserves earlier than in the morning.
There were no particular problems with the pots; after wiping with a rag, rinsing and not very close visual inspection, they could be considered clean. With the lagoon everything turned out to be much more serious; the burnt buckwheat did not want to part with it. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, I went to the canteen and took the Fairy from the cover-washers of our platoon. Of course, it is said strongly - he took it away, rather, he borrowed it, especially since they were already finishing their work. Andrei and I still had to grace the company with “evening tea.”
In addition to the traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner, “evening tea” was provided on the ship. Exactly at twenty zero-zero, the company personnel (more precisely, those who they could find) were herded into the dining room for the fourth time that day and each was given a glass of tea and white bread with butter. Personally, I was rarely found, during which time I preferred to play table tennis in the classroom, which was located one deck above. And I could drink a cup of normal tea with a normal mould-free bun at any time of the day or night, if I wanted to.
Zhenya told us to take the lagoon that had just been washed from buckwheat, pour a large pack of tea into it, fill it with water and put it on the fire. After that, I cut the bread again, and Andrei divided the butter for each of the four platoons. When the liquid in the lagoon began to boil, we lowered it to the floor, and Zhenya began pouring tea into the pots with a huge aluminum ladle.
After “evening tea,” the company had an “evening walk.” I saw what it was once. People are lined up in platoons in two columns, and they circle around the pier. While our comrades were “walking,” Andrey and I once again washed the pots and lagoons.
“That’s almost all for today,” said Zhenya. “All that’s left is to wash the deck and we’re free until tomorrow.” Come here tomorrow at six.
Before going to bed, I amused myself by going to the formation on the occasion of the lowering of the flag, although I might not have done this, since I was officially in uniform.

Getting up on the ship at exactly six in the morning, but already ten minutes before the appointed time, the rumble of lockers being pulled out from under the bunks began to be heard in the cockpit. Some of the comrades seemed to be unable to sleep, and they were in a hurry to start a new day.
I opened my eyes and found myself on the bottom bunk assigned to me, lying on my back. The first thing I saw was the face of my friend Sanya, our company foreman. He was hanging from the top bunk and looking at me. He looked for a long time, probably trying to remember where he had seen this sleepy, wrinkled face before.
- Vietnamese3! – he said finally. - Why did you fuck me at night?
- Didn't understand? – then I really didn’t understand him.
Understanding came to me a little later. The fact is that Sanyok has a very heavy build, and the bed under him sagged significantly. That’s why, tossing and turning in my sleep, I kept touching him with my knee and shoulder.
- Command to get up, make the beds! - announced the ship-wide public address system.
I rose from the bunk, stood on the cold, blue linoleum deck with my bare feet and began to get dressed. All my comrades, like me, were dressed in training suits; they had to do morning exercises on the pier. I looked out the window. Behind him was a gloomy, damp morning. There was not a soul on the embankment. Only a huge gray cat, defying the bad weather, sat on the forecastle of a minesweeper moored nearby and washed itself. At that moment I thought, it’s really nice that I don’t have to go to the pier with everyone else.
The door to the galley was locked. But Andrey and I didn’t really have time to rejoice at this circumstance; Zhenya came and opened it. Once inside, I heard some rustling and the crash of dishes falling on the floor. These were the rats, who were in charge of the galley in the absence of man, who sensed his approach and began to scatter to their holes. I even managed to notice a bald rat's tail in one of the corners.
- Why don’t you get a cat? – I asked Zhenya. - There is one on the minesweeper, I just saw it myself.
- By the way, I asked them to borrow a cat for a week. No more is needed. Then everyone will start feeding him, he will become insolent and stop catching rats. So far, they don’t give it.
Zhenya put his favorite “Cabriolet” cassette into the tape recorder, pressed “play” and began giving orders. He sent Andrei to cut the bread, and pointed me to a cast-iron frying pan covered with an impressive layer of fat:
- At night these goats, Dima and Oleg, caught fish and fried them. Wash it off, please.
I spent about an hour washing this frying pan. Again, I only had cold water at my disposal, and there was no one to ask for “Fairy”. In fact, the pan remained greasy. I pushed it as far as possible so that it would be less visible to the cook. Then he tried in vain to wash the grease off his hands.
While I was fiddling with the frying pan, Andrei managed to peel the onions, and now he pestered Zhenya with the question of where to put the scraps.
“No fawn in the lumik,” the cook answered, smiling.
- Where?
“Yes, you throw everything into the container, just be careful,” Zhenya clarified.
- Where where?
In the end, he had to take the bowl from Andrey and demonstrate what to do with it. He went up to the porthole, stuck his head out, made sure that no one seemed to be looking from the Smolny in the direction of the sistership, and poured the contents of the bowl overboard.
Oleg brought briquettes of powdered jelly from somewhere, poured them onto the table and began to show me what to do with them:
- You take a mallet and hit the pack. That’s it,” followed by several powerful blows on the briquette. – Now you unwrap it, knead it and throw it into the lagoons.
I had no choice but to crush the pinkish powder with my greasy hands. There was only one consolation: I definitely won’t drink this jelly.
When Andrei and I were thoroughly enjoying washing the lagoons after breakfast, an officer with the shoulder straps of a lieutenant commander came running into the galley, looking like an angry gopher. His righteous anger was directed at the cook Zhenya:
- Zhenya, why the f... wasn’t at the flag raising?!
- Uh... Trish captain-lieutenant, I haven’t heard a big gathering...
- Don't f...di! You heard everything perfectly! In addition, he himself must keep track of time.
- I seriously haven’t heard! – Zhenya also raised his voice. - And in general, I can’t leave the stove, I have to feed a company of parasite cadets! Fuck it all... I'll give it up and go raise the flag!
“You, I see, comrade sergeant major of the second article, are completely oh ... and,” the officer suddenly switched to “you,” “you will be punished.”
- Don't give a damn! – Zhenya snapped and turned to the stove.
Kap-ley also turned and left. I was shocked. So much for discipline and subordination.
“I have three months left before demobilization,” Zhenya caught my perplexed glance. - He won’t do anything to me.
A few minutes later, another commander appeared in the galley, a lower rank - a senior midshipman. But it was in front of him that Zhenya almost stood at attention.
“So,” said the senior midshipman, looking around. - Who is here for what?
When a boss threatens to “fuck” a subordinate, you shouldn’t believe him. He cannot do this; this type of punishment is not provided for in the disciplinary charter.
The senior midshipman's gaze settled on Andrei and me.
- Who are they? - he asked.
“Stu... uh... cadets of GMTU,” I tried to make my face more serious just in case. - At military training here.
- Yeah! Cadets! – the senior midshipman perked up noticeably. - Come on, follow me, guys!
He took us into the hold. It was very damp there, there was barely a dim light on. There were huge quantities of tin cans on the shelves and racks, and bags of various cereals and potatoes lay on the deck.
Once every two or three days, a food van from the warehouse of the Leningrad naval base drove up to the ship, and the food hold was replenished. Our company was sent almost in full strength to unload the vehicle. Participating in this event was very profitable: the midshipman could reward those who showed special diligence and zeal with something, say, two cans of condensed milk. And if you combined a couple more cans of condensed milk, you’d already get four cans... However, it’s not for me to teach you arithmetic.
“Yeah, if we get torn away from the pier, we won’t die of hunger,” I assessed the amount of provisions. – The ship has great autonomy in terms of food supplies.
“That’s for sure,” the senior midshipman agreed. - Only if there are no cadets. These will devour everything at once. So, guys, we each take a sack of potatoes and drag them to the bathroom, you know where it is.
A few days later, a company of cadets appeared on the ship, and I was convinced that he was not joking. The cadets are an eternally hungry people; unlike us, they always demanded more in the canteen, while, just like us, they constantly chewed something in the cockpit. Once I myself saw how the mother and father of one of them drove right up to the ramp in an Opel and handed their child two healthy bags of groceries. He was unable to bring them to his cockpit; his comrades tore the bags to pieces in the corridor.
The sack of potatoes that I had to carry three decks above weighed about the same as myself. Andrey and I rightly decided that it would be much more convenient for the two of us to carry one bag and then return for another. And then we almost overstrained ourselves. And when they went for the second bag, the door to the hold was already locked. This is not to say that we were very upset about this circumstance.
The whole day we washed something, carried it, scrubbed it, cut it, cleaned it and washed it again. And all to the endless tunes of the “Cabriolet” group. When our replacements from the second platoon arrived at seventeen zero-zero, I realized that I was no longer afraid of anything on this ship.
And then I didn’t drink jelly for three days.

The penultimate day of training. I'm a galley worker again. Again I have Andryusha as my partner. I’ve just cut bread, I’m sitting on a chopping tree stump, watching the cadets wash the porridge out of the cauldron. Now they do all the dirty work. There’s a tape recorder next to me, I’m rearranging the cassettes, so I’m working as a DJ. I hid the cassette with “Cabriolet” as far as possible. I wonder if Zhenya even found her later?
Guys from the second platoon appear in the galley with a video camera, recording events “for history.” I take them to the bread cutting table, take a loaf with a hole in the side, break it in half and hold it close to the camera lens:
- Here, the waste products of rats.
“I also ask you to note that the bread is moldy,” says the “director” of the film to his “cameraman.”
They leave, I return to my starting position. Andrey comes up to me:
- We need to open the cans.
“Don’t you see, I’m busy,” I change the “Cinema” cassette in the tape recorder to “The King and the Jester” and press “play.”
The company duty officer comes running:
- All outfits for today are canceled. Everyone was ordered to get themselves in order and prepare for the oath.
- What are we going to eat for dinner? – the head of the canteen attendant appears in the window.
- Who ordered? - I ask the duty officer.
- Hakobyan.
- Ahh... Hakobyan...
Captain of the first rank Hakobyan is a serious person. If he ordered, you must obey. I leave both attendants to argue with each other and go to the shower myself. Our war games are coming to an end. Tomorrow is the oath, and go home.
_________________________
1 The watch period is from 3.00 to 7.00 am. At this time I really want to sleep. I propped up the door with a stool so that the inspection officer would not come in unexpectedly, and lay down, without undressing, on top of the blanket.
2 Post of energy and survivability.
3 One of my nicknames. Hu Do Shin.