How much of the food on NCL is made fresh?

[BuckHamilton]

Last year I was on a disney cruise and one day at breakfast I see the guy behind the counter open a large box of eggo waffles and run them through a toaster. well that got me asking myself asking how much of the food is made fresh on the ship and how much is premade and just opened up on the ship.

[WashyWashyHappyHappy95]

lots of fresh food on ncl. with the exception of some fish in the mdr

[DinaS]

Here's an older post (just last year) with a similar question:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2296312

[casofilia]

If you look over the side at any embarkation port you will see that there is an enormous quantity of fresh food being examined by the staff. They make almost all their bread and baking on board, you can smell the baking first thing. The main frozen foods are meat and fish and probably early in a cruise some of that will be chilled.

[chengkp75]

As an amplification to my posts on the linked thread, the typical galley onboard will have the following spaces, that cater to all the galleys onboard by preparing the food before it goes to the main cooking and plating galleys.

 

Veg prep, meat prep, fish prep, cold buffet prep (salads), bakery, pastry, dessert. Each of these (except the bakery) will have walk-in coolers.

 

The main galley will have a salad station, a soup station (large kettles making soups), a vegetable station (large pressure cookers), a roasting station (the large ovens capable of handling 10 roast beefs, or two dozen chickens), and then there will be the cook station with the stove tops, flat tops, salamanders, grills, and finally the steam table where it all comes together for plating.

 

The buffet will have its own, smaller galley, and the specialties will have their own, or share a galley between a couple of small ones. Even the pizza places have their own galley, and the bakery preps their dough in the proofing cabinets daily.

[Lido_Deck]

Last year I was on a disney cruise and one day at breakfast I see the guy behind the counter open a large box of eggo waffles and run them through a toaster. well that got me asking myself asking how much of the food is made fresh on the ship and how much is premade and just opened up on the ship.

 

You could ask that same question about any restaurant. The reality is that food is much less expensive to prepare on a mass scale and then flash freeze. Most soups in the vast majority of restaurants come in frozen and you just add water or milk depending on whether it's a broth or cream based soup.

[Lido_Deck]

If you look over the side at any embarkation port you will see that there is an enormous quantity of fresh food being examined by the staff. They make almost all their bread and baking on board, you can smell the baking first thing. The main frozen foods are meat and fish and probably early in a cruise some of that will be chilled.

 

Like most restaurants and pizza joints, the dough comes in frozen, pre-portioned and the restaurant merely bakes it in a convection oven. It's very rare to find a place that makes bread from scratch because it's too labor intensive and too hard to keep bakers that know what they are doing employed.

[njhorseman]

Like most restaurants and pizza joints, the dough comes in frozen, pre-portioned and the restaurant merely bakes it in a convection oven. It's very rare to find a place that makes bread from scratch because it's too labor intensive and too hard to keep bakers that know what they are doing employed.

 

 

That might be the case for places like Dominos and Pizza Hut, and perhaps for other pizzerias where you live, but it certainly isn't true in New York City and its nearby suburbs.

[df5250]

On the Dawn, in an aft facing balcony on the starboard side you can smell the fresh baking bread and cookies!

 

 

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[newmexicoNita]

That might be the case for places like Dominos and Pizza Hut, and perhaps for other pizzerias where you live, but it certainly isn't true in New York City and its nearby suburbs.

there are exceptions to every rule, but I think it is safe to say more restaurants use frozen dough for pizza just like restaurants and cruise ships have a combination of fresh foods and frozen.:confused:

[Loonbeam]

It depends on your definition of 'fresh'. Almost everything in the MDR and Buffet is made from scratch (there are some exceptions, like Disney uses frozen waffles as you noted and other lines do, simply because waffles are high volume and time intensive). That doesn't mean they are always made from fresh ingredients. Ships may use frozen product, pre-produced stocks and sauces etc...

 

One advantages ships have over land based is the cost of labor and economy of scale. When you are preparing a fairly limited menu to a known population you can do a la minute cooking much more efficiently than a land based venue (as an example, based on historical trends they can tell almost exactly how many servings of X item they need for dinner. Most restaurants don't serve the same volume and thus are not as accurate.

[hawkeyetlse]

For the waffles specifically, on NCL the waffle irons are right there in the buffet so you can see them making the waffles. You can also tell that they're made on board because the quality is really unpredictable. When they're in a rush, they come out raw in the middle, and you wish they would just use frozen ready-made waffles…

 

The question is whether they make the batter completely from scratch using fresh eggs, flour, sugar, etc. (very unlikely in my opinion, too much trouble), or if they load big barrels of industrial long shelf life waffle batter onto the ship (also unlikely, because of volume/weight). If I had to guess, they have giant boxes of industrial instant dry waffle mix that they just add water to every morning. Cheap and easy.

 

There are a lot of fresh and frozen raw ingredients on board, if you take a ship tour you can see them. And the galley crew do an enormous amount of work, there's no denying that. But I'm sure they also use a lot of pre-prepared industrially-made shortcuts, whenever it's cost-effective and the quality is acceptable. I don't expect everything on my plate to be made totally from scratch. Just like in a restaurant on land with a similar menu, unless you're paying a lot for the food, you're probably eating reheated sauces from a tetrapak, desserts that they bought in bulk or made from a packet, etc.

[chengkp75]

As I've said, there is a separate pastry galley, with a "tart press" machine that presses the dough into the fluted molds perfectly, and a variety of other specialty machines. Tarts, napoleons, cream puffs, eclairs, and other delights I've seen being made onboard.

 

While the hollandaise and bernaise sauces are made from pasteurized egg product rather than whole shell eggs, they are made onboard.

 

As for the waffles, yes they use the industrial equivalent of Aunt Jemima for the batter. Same with the pancakes.

 

As for pizza, while I agree that chain pizza joints use frozen dough, most of the non-chain places (far better than the chains) use scratch made dough. And most restaurants don't have dedicated proofing cabinets (you can control the temperature and humidity), which the ships have, where dough is allowed to rise.

 

And Lido_deck is right about economy of scale, but the ships themselves have their own economy of scale, since soups are made in 35 gallon steam heated kettles.

 

Another item that almost no shore restaurant have, are "blast chillers". These chillers can take anything that is cooked (sauces, whole roasts, etc) from cooking temperature to 41*F (internal temperature) or less in 6 hours or less. When I was at USPH training, even the crew from some smaller, luxury cruise ships had no idea what blast chillers were, as they prepared things in smaller pans that could be cooled quicker without the blast chiller.

[Gimmiethebeach]

This is a really interesting documentary that was posted on a different thread regarding food. It is specific to RCL but I imagine all of the big ships operate much the same way.

 

https://youtu.be/FaAtUYi-pg4

[zqvol]

Like most restaurants and pizza joints, the dough comes in frozen, pre-portioned and the restaurant merely bakes it in a convection oven. It's very rare to find a place that makes bread from scratch because it's too labor intensive and too hard to keep bakers that know what they are doing employed.

 

 

That would be incorrect on a ship.

[klr6773]

This is a really interesting documentary that was posted on a different thread regarding food. It is specific to RCL but I imagine all of the big ships operate much the same way.

 

https://youtu.be/FaAtUYi-pg4

 

 

Thanks for the link! I just watched it...I love stuff like this. LOL...the dreaded "Lobster night"- I'm the one looking for a steak ;)

[Laszlo]

Like most restaurants and pizza joints, the dough comes in frozen, pre-portioned and the restaurant merely bakes it in a convection oven. It's very rare to find a place that makes bread from scratch because it's too labor intensive and too hard to keep bakers that know what they are doing employed.

 

 

I don't know where you live but that is very far from the case where I live. All pizza places around me (don't know about chains) make their dough fresh everyday. In fact most of them sell dough by the pound. We also have 3 bread bakeries close by, they start baking at 2am, fresh everyday

[LakeWobegon]

I don't know about pizza dough but I know when it comes to most chain restaurants - and many Mom and Pop restaurants - they order frozen bread and dinner roll dough from wholesalers like Pillsbury. I know because I toured a huge factory where all they do is make such dough for these restaurants and ship it all over the world. Again, I don't know what Norwegian or other cruise ships do specifically, but it certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility for them to make a smart business decision like this. It's cheaper and it tastes good.

[hawkeyetlse]

Pizza dough is not hard to make, and I'm sure it's a lot cheaper to bring sacks of flour on the ship and use the ship's water to make the dough, than pay to purchase, transport, and store heavy and voluminous quantities of ready-made frozen dough.

 

Puff pastry and croissant dough, on the other hand, I would not be surprised if that came on the ship frozen. Really time consuming to make, and the quality is not as reliable as the industrial stuff.

[cage keeper]

Thanks for the link! I just watched it...I love stuff like this. LOL...the dreaded "Lobster night"- I'm the one looking for a steak ;)

 

 

Always cracked me up when everyone got excited about lobster night. Living in New England it better be alive just before dinner. :D

[cage keeper]

While hanging out in Vancouver waiting to get back on the ship for our B to B Alaska cruise my 2 then almost 12 YO grand sons were mesmerized watching the loading of the food onto the ship. I think we were there watching for more than half an hour. Lots of fresh stuff going on board.

[chengkp75]

Pizza dough is not hard to make, and I'm sure it's a lot cheaper to bring sacks of flour on the ship and use the ship's water to make the dough, than pay to purchase, transport, and store heavy and voluminous quantities of ready-made frozen dough.

 

Puff pastry and croissant dough, on the other hand, I would not be surprised if that came on the ship frozen. Really time consuming to make, and the quality is not as reliable as the industrial stuff.

 

On the ships I worked, there was a "dough sheeter" machine that makes puff pastry. Once again, with the space and manpower available, it is quite easy for the ship to make this dough.

 

You are quite right that dry stores storage for flour and yeast is more efficient than utilizing (relatively) limited freezer space for dough.

[Nola26]

Last year I was on a disney cruise and one day at breakfast I see the guy behind the counter open a large box of eggo waffles and run them through a toaster. well that got me asking myself asking how much of the food is made fresh on the ship and how much is premade and just opened up on the ship.

 

On our Dawn Christmas cruise I went to a meet & greet the hotel manager Allain indicated that just about everything is made fresh onboard. He indicated that hot dog and hamburger buns were purchased. Of course many beverages, cereal and condiments are purchased as well.

 

lots of fresh food on ncl. with the exception of some fish in the mdr

What do you mean fish isn't freshly prepared? Are you simply suggesting it is frozen or something else?

[BirdTravels]

That might be the case for places like Dominos and Pizza Hut, and perhaps for other pizzerias where you live, but it certainly isn't true in New York City and its nearby suburbs.

 

 

Once upon a time, back in the dark ages, I worked at Pizza Hut while in college. I mixed and portioned pizza dough every morning and set it aside to rise.

[Lido_Deck]

That might be the case for places like Dominos and Pizza Hut, and perhaps for other pizzerias where you live, but it certainly isn't true in New York City and its nearby suburbs.

 

More pizzerias than restaurants mix their own dough because pizza dough is much easier, but the vast majority use frozen dough. I'll bet some of the shops that make you think they make their dough from scratch, don't.