Food & beverage
guests want to go on a vegan cruise is because they’re looking for inspiration, so we encourage our chefs to be as creative as possible.” At Vegan Travel, many dishes are inspired by the regions through which the ships sail. One of Bocklage’s favourites is the vegan Wiener Schnitzel, offered on cruises that dock in Vienna. It’s made from celery and served with a slightly hot wasabi potato salad. “Often chefs will say they offered the vegan dishes to the crew and they loved them, so why should we offer meat all the time when we can have a nice and healthy vegan version?” Bocklage smiles. Of course, these customers are also a financial boon to cruise lines. HHAS, Pukel says, brings MSC thousands of potential clients who would never have considered cruising otherwise.
Elevated offerings
A Tallink ship that uses liquefied natural gas – sustainable fuel and plant-based menu options are growing priorities for vegan cruisers.
This is borne out by recent statistics. In the US, plant-based food sales rose nearly twice as much as overall retail food sales in 2020, surging 27% to $7bn, according to the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and The Good Food Institute (GFI). Meanwhile, research conducted in the UK showed than around one in five people have eaten more vegetarian or vegan food since the start of the pandemic, with a similar number saying that Covid-19 means it's more likely they'll become fully vegetarian or vegan from now on. Reasons cited included not only animal welfare and environmental impact, but also personal health and concern over the hygiene quality of meat products.
“One of the reasons our guests want to go on a vegan cruise is because they’re looking for inspiration, so we encourage our chefs to be as creative as possible.”
Dirk Bocklage
Veganising menus To satiate this desire for plant-based cuisine, Vegan Travel and HHAS both team up with existing cruise operators to offer their vegan packages. While Bocklage has built partnerships with the likes of Tauck River Cruising, South American Australis and CroisiEurope, HHAS offers its annual Caribbean cruise in collaboration with MSC. A potential partnership with Holland America for a second voyage each year may also be on the cards. In both cases, the vegan tour companies bring their own staff on board to work closely with the ship’s existing chefs to ‘veganise’ their menus, a process that invariably leads to the cruise line introducing more vegan dishes to their programming. “Usually, the chefs we work with are very open- minded and they really enjoy veganising their menus,” Bocklage says. “One of the reasons our
38
Other cruise line chefs, like Anton Egger, Seabourn’s culinary consultant and master chef, have taken the initiative themselves. The line has been serving vegan dishes for many years as part of its daily menu options for all dining venues on its ships. But Egger has recently decided to elevate Seabourn’s vegan offering, partly in response to discussions he has been having with his circle of high-profile chef friends about the growing demand for plant-based options. At Earth & Ocean, a concept that launched on the Seabourn Ovation in 2018, guests can enjoy oven roasted cauliflower with yuzu crema, toasted panko, pomegranate vinaigrette and cauliflower puree, or Ranchero Gordon’s beans and vegetables cassoulet, fingerling potatoes, roasted heirloom tomatoes, dusty vegetable ash and micro arugula. “I believe people, in general, very much underestimate the taste and flavours of vegan cuisine because they are not properly introduced to great- tasting and creative vegan food,” Egger says. “Once they are, then they love it and then this ‘vegan’ subject creates more awareness around the well- being lifestyle and helps reduce the animal products in their daily diet.”
Egger practices what he preaches and has reduced the quantity of meat in his own diet. He’s also used the pause forced by the pandemic to get even more creative with his vegan menus. His slow-braised Vietnamese inspired mushroom bolognese with preserved finger limes, Japanese ramen noodles and fresh grated vegan cheese is a twist on the traditional Italian staple pasta and tastes, while passengers on the line’s Greek sailings can now expect his Greek- style version of the French vegetable dish ratatouille.
What about the environment? Bocklage is often asked how he reconciles the inherent contradiction of a vegan cruise. “Many vegans are environmentally conscious; that’s why they don’t eat meat,” he says. “They wonder how we can operate a vegan cruise as [some] cruise ships [can be] bad for the environment.”
World Cruise Industry Review /
www.worldcruiseindustryreview.com
aquatarkus/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61
