Let me introduce myself: I am Emilian France born in 1986.
Ride through the kitchens of yachts, restaurants and hotels since 2004, in fact I started very early, taken by the vocation given by my dear uncle France Alfredo: owner and chef of important restaurants in my area, when I was a child.
I began to experience restaurants on my coast “golfo dei poeti” trying to gain experience to realize my dream.
Even as a child, accompanied by my dear Grandfather, I became passionate about fishing and the love for the sea year by year grew more and more.
One evening watching from the terrace of the restaurant where I worked in Portovenere, tired of the monotony of the restaurant, I understood my way and decided to try to be a cook on board: it was immediately love.
As announced by my colleagues, I understood that it is not an easy environment: to live in confined spaces with multi-ethnic crews, to please and organize a small motorcycle kitchen with often requests on a par with large restaurants, to “provision” in the most disparate or isolated places in the world and knowing how to arrange to always create a good menu for crew (crew) and guest or VIP (guests) always very demanding and finally able to overcome the “seasickness” that along with smells, sudden movements of the boat has been and is currently very hard.
I am currently on a “Sailing Yacht” that is a modern Sailing Ship, but as you can imagine sailing boats do not enjoy the stability of “Motor Yachts”.
I did not make an easy itinerary, sailing the Atlantic sailing ocean is not a walk. We also found mare boat 6 completely at 45 °, winds with gusts that exceeded even 45 knots (90kmh).
Getting used to such a movement is not easy, smells, jolts, the physicist does not immediately adapt to these conditions, but because of this the daily caloric requirement is very high because the seafarer moves continuously to compensate for the rolling or pitching of the boat.
Cooking in these conditions is very complicated and dangerous, it requires great experience and preventive organization that can only be acquired through practice over the years.
But even this one crossed is gone, the crew has been satisfied without ever being deprived of any kind of food giving always priority to a genuine food, devoid of fat and predominantly solid to avoid illness.
I am satisfied with the experience and even if it was hard I would do it again, the challenge with oneself is never over, I love my job and I am proud to do it, in fact I am at 3 Atlantic crossings.
I thank the IYCA – ITALIAN YACHT CHEF ASSOCIATION association that has given me the opportunity to share my experience with you and that enables us to support each other and grow among us “cooks on board”.