How a Cruise Ship Feeds 4,000

Photo by Wendy Littlefield

Three decades after their first trans-Atlantic voyage together, Wendy Littlefield and her husband set sail on the Queen Mary 2. She's reporting on the people, places, and--of course--food they encounter along the way.

I write this midway on our crossing from the beautiful library where there are roughly 10,000 volumes--not that many fewer than there are bottles of wine on board (11,000). People are working at computer stations, reading, a few snoozing. Frieda, the librarian sort of like Miss Moneypenny in her all-knowingness.

The crew is wonderful: amiable, patient, professional, and genuinely happy. A real United Nations at sea. They come from 52 countries, with the Philippines taking the lead at 682 crew members; Eastern European countries, Asia, India, and the Balkans are also well represented. Both the executive chef and the food and beverage manager recommend that anyone interested in hospitality do a stint on board a cruise ship: if you can handle this, you can handle anything on land. Positions on the Queen Mary are highly coveted. People can wait up to two years to get posted to the ship.

Hardly anyone expects to stay for long. Many do. Romance is in the air. This past month several crew couples married.

The only grumps we have run into are passengers. In this crossing the passengers represent 30 nations, about 4,000 people all told. Luminaries on board include John Maxtone Graham, one of the world's leading nautical historians, who gives a talk everyday, and Amy Bloom, the author and Yale professor.

Yesterday with the help of Gun, the social director for the ship, I obtained an interview with executive chef, Karl Winkler, a 30-year-plus vet of Cunard who was already a chef on the QE2 when Don and I sailed in the summer of 1979, and the food and beverage director, Stefan Engel. Both are from Austria--though Stefan calls Thailand home and Karl lives in England.

Here are some of the things I learned while talking to Stefan and Karl:

    • The QM 2 uses 400 lbs of veal & beef bones per day to make stock.

    • There are 230 employees in the galley under Karl's direction.

    • Stefan has 680 people reporting to him in F&B. This includes the wait staff, bar crew, maitre d's, and Karl's team in the kitchen.

    • The crew alone goes through 400 pounds of rice per day.

    • On a given day 1,300 might dine in the Brittania restaurant at one seating at dinner alone. The standard of the food is excellent, especially when you consider the size of the crowd.

    • Between 14,000 and 16,000 meals are served per day. Whereas the predecessor Queen Elizabeth 2 had three dining venues, on the Queen Mary 2, there are 10. More than 30 different menus are printed per day.

    • The Queen Mary 2 is known as the "green ship." It has its own desalination plant; all glass is recycled and cans crushed; food waste is dehydrated and burned aboard ship. The ash is brought on shore for disposal. This is a far cry from the old days when trash was thrown overboard.

NEXT: How much food the Queen Mary 2's passengers consume in a year--and more.

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To read the first post in this series, click here.