Cruise Food

Cruise ships are big business in the vacation world, so how could I write a travel book and not include a story that happened on one? I’ve actually had many memorable experiences aboard a cruise liner, but some are too private to relate. (And I need to keep my PG-13 rating.) I do, however, have a whopper of a food story.

When you travel by cruise boat, all your meals are included in the price. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and often, a midnight snack. All free. You can have dessert after every meal. Twice. You can literally eat as much as you want. And more. Not everyone can handle that kind of freedom.

I was lucky. A high fever kept me in bed for the final day, where I sweated out the weight I’d gained. By the time I disembarked, my body weight had returned to normal. Sometimes, it takes the Hand of God to help us restrain ourselves at the Buffet Line of Life.

But before all that happened, I gorged myself along with the rest of the passengers.

I had a fun table. That’s the thing about cruises. You’re seated at a table with six to eight strangers. The cruise director hopes you all get along, and most of the time you do. Or you switch with someone else. It happens.

One night, during one of the formal meals, where everyone has to dress up, the menu called for some exotic, foreign specialties. At the table, we joked and laughed and mispronounced everything on purpose. Phony grass. Escaped cargo. Even the waiter, a stoic Pole, had to smile.

After the main course, we requested our menus again, to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Of course we had. There, at the bottom of the appetizer list, were the words “Frog’s legs.” Frog’s legs. None of us had ever tried them before. Like the old joke, they were said to taste something like chicken.

We decided to all split an order. After all, it was free. When would any of us ever get another chance to try something so exotic for free? It was now or never.

While we waited for the chef to prepare our delicacy, we teased each other mercilessly. “The poor frog will have to get around by wheelchair.” “We’ll see him begging outside the dining room as we leave.” “He’ll be holding a sign that says, ‘Will croak for fruit flies’.”

In hindsight, I’m not entirely sure what we expected. But what we got definitely didn’t meet those expectations. After all the waiting and the torment, our waiter delivered an unappetizing pair of frog’s legs on a white dish. It should have come in a plain brown envelope.

None of us could bring ourselves to take a bite. We poked it with a fork a few times. One of our tablemates might have even picked it up in his fingers to smell it. But eat it? No way. This was supposed to be a meal, not an autopsy.

To this day, I’ve yet to try frog’s legs. I hear it tastes like chicken.