Tiramisu Cake

In July, we took an extended Viking River Cruise to the Balkan countries. Called “Capitals of Eastern Europe,” this trip took us to six countries on our longship, the Viking Kadlin. Upon returning, I experienced an unusual and uncharacteristic craving for sugar. Let me explain.

I don’t usually eat much sugar and therefore almost never have a craving for it. While I’m as susceptible to an ice cream cone or a walnut brownie as the next person, sugar does not appear much in my regular diet. That’s the way I like it.

Meals on Viking Longships

Ice Cream

Meals on Viking River Cruises are different, however. The longship’s kitchen crew feeds us three wonderful meals a day and two of them come with dessert. The portions of starters, main course, and dessert are reasonable, so you can eat all three without feeling stuffed. And the food is SO good.

Most of Viking’s supplies come from the European Union or countries that are EU compliant, so they are local, fresh and lack the kinds of preservatives, chemical dyes, stabilizers, “natural flavors,” gums, artificial sugars, and emulsifiers so common to American food. I eat well but don’t come home heavier than when I left.

Craving Sugar in America

Now that we have been back a week, though, I find myself craving sugar. This results directly from having eaten all or part of two desserts a day for three weeks. Now the best way to avoid this would have been to not eat dessert on the Viking Kadlin. I actually thought I could do that. Really, I did. But faced with the pastry chef’s best creations, I weakened.

Let me show you two typical menus.

Lunch and Dinner Menus

As you can see, the lunch menu is modest, not flashy. It always includes the cheeseburger and hot dog for American tastes. But it comes with several choices of dessert.

The dinner menu offers a larger range of selections, three of which are regional specialties for diners open to something new. In addition to the regular dinner menu below that, the opposite page offers what I call the “safe American menu” for people who are not adventurous eaters. Although it’s not challenging, the offerings of steak, salmon and chicken are still excellent.

Resisting Sweet Temptations

Lemon Meringue Tart

But who can resist chocolate mousse, cranberry layer cake, tiramisu cake, peach melba ice cream, apple tarte tatin, cassis bavarois, speculoos mascarpone cream, Austrian almond layer cake, or many other wonderful treats.

I often ordered something yummy with the intention of eating just half and sometimes I actually succeeded. But not often.

(I meant to take more pictures of our meals but had usually eaten half the plate before I remembered.)

My Pampered Sugar Craving

So I didn’t really feel deprived when we returned home. Instead, I felt indulged and pampered. When I got on the scale, I weighed two pounds less than when we had left. Hiking around cities, fortresses, castles, museums, and churches might have had something to do with that.

So why the craving for sugar?  Well, I just got accustomed to eating something sweet twice a day. It became part of the daily routine. I felt cosseted on our vacation and I liked that. But the sweet treats can’t continue now that we’re home.

Different Food, Better Ingredients

The food in America differs significantly from the food in Europe. And even though my husband and I read labels here to ensure what we buy lacks as many of those faux ingredients as possible, some of them sneak in. If I’m not careful, the numbers on the scale will creep up to unacceptable levels.

Chocolate Cake

The cure, of course, would be to go back and take another Viking River Cruise. We will surely do that—we’re evaluating options for Number Eight right now—but it won’t happen right away.

In the meantime, I must get tough and exert my willpower. None of the desserts listed above will appear on my table any time soon. Local versions don’t come close to that quality. And sugar, as we all know, is addictive.