In the Gulf: a Robust Cuisine

By Mimi Sheraton

"If we run out of Tabasco, this rig shuts down," Faye Cleckler tells a luncheon guest who is being shown through her well-stocked pantry aboard the Key Manhattan. No, Cleckler has not found a way to use the fiery Louisiana hot sauce to keep heavy drilling equipment functioning--only the men who handle the gear. She was just pointing out that for those who work on offshore oil rigs, few things are more important than food-as-they-like-it.

Home to a crew of about 60, the Key Manhattan operates in the blue-gray waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The crew members are latter-day lake dwellers who alternate two-week tours of twelve-hour shifts with two weeks at home. Cleckler, 57, the food manager, finds cooking more rewarding aboard the rig than it is when she prepares meals back home in Brooklyn, Miss., for her grandchildren, who say McDonald's food is better. Says Cleckler, one of the eight women aboard who do the housekeeping and cooking: "Out here our work is really appreciated. Let's see what a big-city food critic thinks of it."

The offer to sample the cuisine on an offshore rig was the sort of thing no self-respecting food buff could refuse. "We hear you're interested in good food," ran the letter from executives of Keydril, the Houston-based company that contracts, staffs and operates ten exploration drilling rigs for oil companies around the world. "Come and have lunch with us. We think you'll be surprised." To an intrepid eater who had tried to get aboard a rig for years, the invitation was irresistible, because food on offshore rigs is legendary for both quantity and quality. Meals have long been considered the prime entertainment for men who are marooned for weeks at a time away from land and family, doing work that is potentially hazardous. Even with television, mail and the possibility of phone calls to shore, tensions inevitably build with men who sleep four bunks to a small, unadorned cabin.

"Lunch is ready now," Cleckler announced with motherly firmness. After a dreamlike helicopter trip through the hot haze of sea and sky, followed by a landing on what looked like a tiny round tray suspended over an endless expanse of water, the big-city food critic was more than ready for a restorative meal. What she was not ready for was the dazzling variety of Cajun and Southern specialties, impeccably garnished and laid out cafeteria-style in a cheerful yellow-and-spring-green dining room. That bright lime green is the Keydril trademark. The company rigs are painted in that color to give them a clean look from shore and thus not offend environmentalists. Lime green is also the shade for uniforms that all personnel must wear after coming off the drilling floor. No one in work clothes is permitted in the living quarters; that is not a standard drilling-rig custom but rather a Keydril requirement --one that, like having women aboard, is considered a civilizing and softening touch.

"Women are mothering and caring, and they do a better job on food," says Mike Riordan, a motorman from Florida. Alvin Moreau, a Cajun who is the safety-and-cleanliness officer, agrees. "The men appreciate being able to chat with women and hear female voices, and the atmosphere is more relaxed and so safer," he says. What the women appreciate is earning up to $19,000 for six months' work, which permits them to hold other jobs at home, to spend solid time with families or simply to vacation.

In the true spirit of mothering, meal preparation started well before dawn. Irene Hancock, 43, another food manager then on the night shift, began her justifiably renowned black-eyed-pea jambalaya at about 4:30, blending garlic, green onions, sweet peppers, hot sauce and salt so that they would spark the basic mix of peas, rice, ham and smoked beef sausage. Gumbo enriched with a coffee-colored roux (a thickening of flour and fat) and adrift with seafood was set to simmer at about 6 a.m. As the morning wore on, breakfasts were served and doughnuts and muffins were sent to the men who could not leave the drilling floor.

With lunch nearing, the three women in the small but efficient kitchen fried chicken, shrimp, oysters, catfish and cornmeal hush puppies to crisp and peppery masterpieces. Tomato broth scented with bay leaves was the base for catfish court bouillon. Red beans stewed away, later to be fleshed out with sausage and snowy mounds of steamed rice. Okra mellowed in a gentle tomato sauce, and a little way off from the steam table was a chilled, leafy bower of a salad bar with fruits, vegetables, Southern-style potato salad gilded with mustard, and cottage cheese and tuna fish for those who preferred to eat light. "Light," of course, is a relative term; aboard the Key Manhattan it seemed to mean taking only half of what was offered and going back for seconds but not thirds.

The dessert table suggested a church-supper cake sale with the centerpiece being red velvet cake, a bizarre Southern favorite: chocolate cake dyed crimson with food coloring, then layered with a soft, sugary white frosting. It is a taste that could take at least one Northerner a lifetime to acquire. No liquor is permitted aboard rigs for obvious reasons, nor are soft drinks because of disposal problems with cans and bottles.

It was a meal that would have been remarkable even on shore and, in a place where weekly supplies must be replenished by boat, was absolutely astonishing. All in all, it was a lunch that might well turn New Orleans' Paul Prudhomme Keydril-green with envy. Yet to crew members it was standard Friday fare.

Because most of the crew hails from Southern states (90% of all Gulf of Mexico oilworkers come from Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi), the menu features potatoes for Mississippians and Texans, rice for Louisianians and so on, with plenty of steak for all.

Regional preferences, are not the only determining factors in the menu makeup. Influenced by new findings on diet and nutrition, Bob Raulston, Keydril's hotel manager, works with company cooks to reduce saturated fats in all recipes, to bake with whole-grain flour, to substitute egg whites for yolks as much as possible and to cut salt. A graduate of the University of Houston's Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, the well-padded Raulston, nicknamed Fat Cook by the rigs' crews, makes these changes subtly and slowly, so that the men will not balk or feel they are being tricked or deprived. "We think we get more efficient, healthier workers that way, and we even see evidence of fewer accidents," reports Raulston.

The plan works better for some than for others. "I gain 10 lbs. on every two-week hitch," reports Mike Riordan, who says he eats less well at home and so loses weight there. But others report that they lose weight on board, because there are so many good, nonfattening choices, and put on weight at home, where they eat junk food.

If lunch was a treat, so was what followed: a confection from Mother Nature. Called up on deck, the big-city food critic was told to look to the horizon. There performing were four waterspouts--small tornadoes on the horizon, gray spiraling cones sending forceful tails from the sky to the water level. It was a floor show worthy of the meal that had preceded it, and just as memorable.