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Mission

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Posts posted by Mission

  1. It is sort of both, sort of neither. Because of the dressing, It would have been considered a type of salad during the period featured in The General History of the Pyrates. Since the earliest appearance of the word referring to a stew (actually a ragout) is 1759, well after the end of the golden age of piracy, that is not likely to be what the GHoP is talking about. The Smollet Roderick Random recipe I cite above (1748), further tying it to life at sea, lends strength to this. Although I would say this would have been officer's food rather than general mess. Keep in mind it was Roberts and his guest who were enjoying their savory dish, not the crew.

    Something worth noting, which I learned after this discussion ended - cookbooks did not represent the food of sailors or even the regular populace/middling classes; they represented the food of the elite. They were written for the cooks of the people who could afford to pay cooks. So they are not necessarily a very reliable source. Then again, they could be appropriate for a large ship's officers (particularly English Navy or East India Company), some of whom actually did hire cooks to serve them on their ships.

    In fact, the inclusion of this detail in the Roberts account (something not found in the trial documents) may have been intended to show what an elite person Roberts was. Consider other unverified details in that account like his fancy clothing and unusual behaviors. Parts of the GHoP may have been made up by its mysterious author.

    See this website for more information:

    https://www.etymonline.com/word/salmagundi

    (I notice that the online information regarding salmagundi has improved quite a bit since this discussion began in 2010.)

  2. The Delorean was sold in 2003 or 2004 to put the down-payment on my art project. However, the kitchen is Delorean themed... I even have a DMC grill mounted above the stainless (of course) microwave. 
     

    Quote

    Another question for you Mission ol' boy, did you ever do that Jaxxon cosplay?


    Sort of... I did a Darth Terrabicus cosplay which is basically Jaxxon in Sith robes. (I didn't have a red flightsuit and I didn't want to get one.) For a while, I was doing a lot of cosplay with the twins, but that kind of died off. You can see my cosplays here (the early ones are not really cosplay and they are kind of dopey, but there you are): https://markck.com/pages/costumes/cosplay_costumes.html

     

    dt_force_push_Robbins_Studio_Photography_and_Fine_Art.jpg

  3. Eight guys took down four aliens? C'mon, son. 

    I am researching and writing about day-in-the-life pirate stuff (with a medical bent, 'natch), cycling (1600 miles last year) and working on my art project (my house). For the house, I am currently doing the office (theme: engineering and probably cats, because that's where the litter box goes) and the spare bedroom (theme: art deco and trains). It's 110 years old, so right now I am mostly fixing plaster cracks and refinishing the (formerly) gorgeous wood trim. Oh, and I'm heading up a Rotary project to do a series of pollinator gardens in the local community, so I spent a bunch of time researching that in order to do presentations to sell it. (Turns out, you really don't need to sell it. There are all kinds of grants out there.)

  4. Ah, Wisconsin... I haven't got to it yet, so I am only partially versed in the uses of cheese at sea. (Meaning I have a bunch of references I vaguely recall, but have not looked into them to see how everything is tied together, where it goes, from whence it comes and who it goes with.) However, I can tell you that cheese was a staple in the navy diet. It was served three times a week, beginning before the GAoP and ending well after it. The 1731 Regulations (which were created using orders which had mostly been issued during the GAoP) stated that a pint of olive oil could be substituted for "two Pounds of Suffolk Cheese; and Two Thirds of a Pound of Cheshire Cheese, [and] is equal to one Pound of Suffolk." (Regulations and instructions relating to His Majesty's service at sea,1st ed, 1731, p. 60) So that tells you what types of cheese the navy was doling out. The cheese often went bad though. I recall reading somewhere that the men sometimes carved buttons out of it, it got so hard.

    680226411_SailorsMealPlanRegulationsandInstructionsrelatingtoHisMajestysservice1731.jpg.7ab510053043d4731292278c532766b6.jpg

  5. Added. Just to be clear, as long as there is a link to their site (FB, etsy, website, etc.), I will add them. But if you want to make it as easy as possible for me to add, here is an example. (And, for the record, I can't believe this one isn't already in there):

    Weapons - Hand
    Baltimore Knife and Sword Co. - Hand-forged knives and swords made by our own 1stMateMatt.

    I always hotlink them, so if you do that for me I can just copy it, which is awesome. I only provide a list of what they carry to clarify this for people because I want to save them a trip if they don't carry what they want. However, I don't want to provide any bias... with the minor exception of noting if they are are linked to a forum member.

    Again, you don't have to do all that, I just need a link and I can do the legwork. If you've worked with them, feel free to add your experience in your post, explain why you like them, whatever you feel like adding. I just don't want to put that in the list because I don't think it's my place to promote anyone. 🙂 

  6. :P I have all sorts of Excel spreadsheets that I've assembled over the years.... pirate ship data, medicine data, where water was found, alcohols sorted by sailor type, pirate nationalities, all manner of food spreadsheets. And you know what's great about them? The data overlaps so I can search them to quickly find dates, current locations and ships when I'm building a new spreadsheet. So it sort of is a database, but not really.

  7. That's a markedly different flag. The elements are there, but the designs are very different. Plus, based on the reference, it's apparently a design for French corsairs, not English pirates. I'll bet it was coopted by one of those 20th century authors and assigned to Moody. (I'd look, but all the reference books I'm not using for my current article are in boxes while I work on refinishing the wood and painting my office. And there are four bookshelves worth of boxes so it would take forever to find.) 

  8. Boy, you leave for a decade and everything changes. All of the websites below appear to be gone. I have removed them from the list and put them here for reference. However, a few of the links are very suspicious, so I do not recommend clicking on them. I list them here because some of them may have moved to Facebook: 

    General

    Old Sutler John's - Clothing, Furniture, Accessories

    Weeping Heart Trading Company - Clothing, Books, Accessories

    Bradley - Company of the Fox - Mid-late 1700s Items

    Flying Canoe Traders - Clothing, Hats, Gear & Accessories

    The Painted Lady Crew - Clothing & Accessories

    Clothing - Period (or Periodish)

    Barkertown Sutlers

    Center Stage

    Footwear

    Caboots

    KM Garlick - UK Period Footwear Maker

    Rawganique - Hemp Sandals

    Raystown Forge

    Sarah Juniper

    SCA Boots

    Hats

    Hat Crafters

    Leather Goods

    Blackbeard's Landing - leather accessories

    Excaliber Leather - hats and accessories

    MInute Man Armoury - Graye Fox's wallets, snapsacks, cartridge pouches and leather bottles

    MInute Man Armoury - Graye Fox's wallets, snapsacks, cartridge pouches and leather bottels

    Jewelry

    Pirates of the Coast - By our own Diosa

    Exotic Offerings - Ethnic Jewerly/ Belly-Dancing

    Pirate Jewelry.com

    Miscellanea

    The Dirk and Arrow - Custom Flags, Smuggler's Boxes, Signs, and Other Miscellaneous Sundries

    Lamplight Feathers

    Preservation Virginia Store

    Dragon Marsh

    Pyrate Trading Company - Hats, drums, flasks, mugs and other leatherwork

    Brands on Sale - Gibbet Cage

    Quro Art Shop - Pirate Artwork

    Miscellanea - Barrels

    Gibbs Brothers Cooperage

    Swish Barrel - Barrels and Beermaking Items

     

    Tents

    Redhawk Trading

    Tentsmiths

    Weapons - Hand

    Ivan Henry Trading Company - by our own Ivan Henry aka. Mooseworth

    Aurora History Pirate Store

    Replica Weaponry

    Weapons - Cannon

    Bircher Inc., Beaufort Naval Armorers

    The Canadian Cannon Company

    Cannon Mania, LLC

    Cannon Mikes

    Cannons Online

    Clover Machine Limited

    Dutch Island Cannon Works, LLC

    Fire & Iron

    Grey Star Cannon Technologies

    Hern Iron Works

    Kansas Cannon Works

    Landfall

    Neff Cannons

    South Bend Replicas

    Steen Cannons

    Other Web Pages Indexes

    No Quarter Given

  9. I am currently working on a variety of articles on food during the golden age of piracy. It was originally going to be one article, then three, then five and now it's completely spiraled out of control and will probably end up being 25 articles.  I have been working on it for over two years now. It will probably take another two to finish it at this rate. Most of the articles look at the five basic types of long-haul sailor types I have identified - navy, merchant, privateer, buccaneer and pirate. Some of them add sixth category - explorer. Nearly all of them are data-driven, presenting all sorts of statistics on what I have discovered. (I have this unbelievably complex assortment of Excel spreadsheets.... but enough of that.) 

    Anyhow, there are still going to be 5 basic articles. Think of them as the overarching articles. Three are finished, one is partially finished (actually, it has been split into about 20 articles, but there is a top page for them). The last one hasn't been started. The underlined words are hotlinked to articles. (Because they are complete. Sort of. I keep finding new material as I research new articles and will eventually go back and add the new material to the old articles. I digress...) The five overarching articles include:

    1. Food and Health - Food was intimately tied into health and humor theory, with each food having humoral properties. This article will eventually be tied into the series of articles I am currently working on which is about the individual food found in sailors' account during the the GAoP. These are organized by food type, including: Fruits - Vegetables - Grains - Non-Meat Proteins - Meat Proteins - Fish.  (I am presently working on Non-Meat Proteins.)

    2. Food Procurement - Looks at how each of the five types of sailors got food, some of it legitimate, some of it not,  including - gifts (of food), sharing, purchasing, taking, hunting, fishing, catching turtle and live animals (animal pens). Each section provides statistics on the percentage of sailors I've found who used each method.

    3. Food Organization - The first third of this article is primarily about the complex structure of navy food procurement and dissemination. Since nearly all sailors were in the navy at one time or another, parts of this structure were disseminated to the other types. These  are treated separately and include the East India Company (which was a thing unto itself), non-EIC merchant ships, privateers, buccaneers and pirates. It talks about food-related officers including pursers, masters/supercargos, stewards, quartermasters on legal and illegal voyages (their roles were different) and cooks. You get a generous dollop of info on the cookroom at then end of the article.

    4. Provisioning Locations - I decided to talk about two categories: English navy provisioning stations and the pirate locations. To be fair, any port city could be a provisioning location, so I focused on those places frequented by pirates mentioned in accounts from around the golden age of piracy. This includes three areas - the Western Hemisphere (Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados and Juan Fernandez Islands), the Eastern Coast of Africa (Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome, Principe & Annabon, St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Western Coast of Africa (Comoros, Mauritius & Reunion and  Madagascar. ) You will notice only a handful of them are hotlinked and that is because only the navy and Western Hemisphere locations are complete. These will probably be the last articles I write.

    5. Sailors and Food -  This is the article the average person wants to read. What did each type of sailor eat? How and where did they eat it? I quit the Provisioning Locations article to write this and as I got into it, realized it would be much easier to finish if I wrote a complete account of the individual foods found in the sailors accounts. (Remember, back at #1?) I was NOT going to write those article because I knew they would be a giant PITA, but... here I am writing it now. Been writing just these for over a year. At least I've learned a lot. (I mean A LOT.) So you must wait for this one until I finish that one.

  10. I have used links to the forum in many places - on my website, in social media, here in the Pub itself. They used to be in this form:

    https://pyracy.com/index.php?showtopic=10480

    They are now in this form:

    https:// pyracy.com/topic/11787-bale-seals-company-emblems-makers-marks-trade-symbols/page/2/#comments

    When the mods were trying to sort topics out of the huge pile a few months ago in preparation for restarting the Pub, the old form worked. (I checked a couple at the time.) It no longer works.

    Can we adjust it so the old form still works? It must be able to be done because it was working before forum was restored by someone else. Otherwise, there are a shload of links here and elsewhere that no longer work even though they have the correct ID number. 

  11. It's been a minute for this topic, hasn't it just?

    This question comes up so often in social media that at some point after the last comment up there, I decided to create a list of sources I think are good essential. Note that the vast majority of them are primary sources from the period. I believe if you really want to read about pirates, you should go to the source first. Then you will have a firm basis if you want to delve into the modern authors comments on the original material. The best modern authors explain the context of the source material IMO. The majority just recite the facts, hopefully putting them in better order and included period sources of information not found in most other books.  The worst try to 'interpret' it for you or, far worse, reinterpret it in a way that fits what actually happened so that it fits into their personal view.

    Anyhow, here's my list. There are a few modern sources, but the majority are from period pirates and sailors. (The non-pirate sailor's books give insight into life at sea during this time period.)

    http://www.piratesurgeon.com/pages/surgeon_pages/pirate_bibliography.html

  12. OK, it looks neat with all the nice banners, but it makes for a slog if you want to find forums past the first couple. Scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll...

    The Outline format wasn't exactly pretty, but it was simple and the forum layout was clear. Just MHO.

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