Hundreds of passengers on the cruise ship Diamond Princess are finally being released from their gruelling Coronavirus quarantine in Yokohama Harbour. But they’ll take away a fond memory of a group of famous chefs who landed on the scene a week ago to prepare exciting new meals…
World-renowned Chef José Andrés (centre) arrives in Japan last week to help
provide ‘relief’ meals to those quarantines on the Diamond Princess…
The Diamond Princess was branded the most serious infection hot spot outside of China a week ago today, after 542 cases of the virus had been identified among the 3,711 quarantined passengers and crew. In fact, it was a floating hospital and treatment centre as well. After 14 days of quarantine drudgery, you can imagine how tired those folks must have been of the cruise line’s idea of emergency rations.
But then, a group called World Central Kitchen (WCK) – run by a consortium of famous chefs – set up a field kitchen right on the dock to prepare different, less monotonous meals for the locked-down masses.
What is it?
WKC is a global non-profit emergency response organization that goes wherever its talents and resources are needed to help feed disaster victims.
As just one example of the group’s recent deployments, WKC teams went to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of hurricane Maria and served starving residents more than 3.7 meals. Right now, other WCK teams are in South Australia, helping to feed victims of the worst bush fires that country has ever seen.
What’s happening?
A team led by James Beard Award-winning Chef José Andrés, who founded WCK in 2010 after the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, arrived in Japan 10 days ago and was ready to start preparing food for the 3,711 quarantine passengers and crew by lunchtime last Tuesday.
Andrés Tweeted: “Just doing our small part to assist during this difficult time. @WCKitchen will be there working side by side with everyone on the ground as long as we are needed,” creating the hashtag #HanginthereDiamondPrincess.
WCK Operations Manager Sam Bloch explained that the organization’s goal is not only to feed the quarantinees, but to help alleviate the workload and stress on the Diamond Princess’ crew, who have been working non-stop to keep the ship ‘running’ for the past two weeks. “[They will] just have to distribute the food – they don’t have to make the food.” Meanwhile, Princess Cruise Lines brought in fresh crews to relieve their weary staff.
A Princess Cruise Lines spokesperson said the WCK meals were integrated with the ship’s existing menu to provide variety to those on board. All special dietary requirements continued to be met.
“Definitely a different situation here,” Bloch noted. “We’ve really just been in support of the cruise line and the different agencies that have the really hard job and decisions ahead of them. It’s definitely a different situation for us. But then again, every disaster, every immigration crisis, every situation that we address is a unique and different situation. Every one has its own challenges that we are able to quickly adapt [to] and figure out.”
How can you help?
WCK is always looking for volunteers and donations to further its work. Get the big picture on WCK at its official website.
~ Maggie J.