the food sailors ate

[Misson]

Mission the surgeon fishing. Can we do it in period kit?

I am a wholly inexperienced and distracted fisherman. This means the last time I went fishing with friends, I caught the most fish. (It was in the Florida keys...hint, hint, Dutch...off Looe Key, I believe.) Yellow fin something or another, mostly (not tuna, though). The guide started the trip by asking who was the least qualified fisherman - naturally it was me. So he announced that I would catch the most fish and, by George...

Those yellow fin somethings or other were really good - we had a local restaurant prepare the third of them that we didn't give to the guide.

Funny, I was just writing about you in my web page for the Hampton event, Dutch. It looks to be about 7 pages long, which surprises even me. There was just so much going on at that event...

[Dutchman]

well of course in period!! now the explorer in florida... would that not be a ball. and by the way why do you think i was so generous with the rowing lessons- we need to get to the fishing grounds somehow next year. can you link me to your web page- i would love to read about your ventures at the fest- or will it be posted here at the pub- the first chapter was great.

I'm going to turn the crab scrape into a shoal seine net and leave the gill net as it is, but cut it back to around 12x50- that will still leave me LOTS o net for other projects. my net will be left on the frame as a continuous work in progress for displays and eventually use it as a cast net.

[Misson]

I am still playing with the Hampton page. (No one gets to see it until it's done.) However, the PiP '07 journal can be found here:

http://www.markck.com/images/Piracy/PiP_20...al_Ch_First.htm

All the page navigation links are at the bottom. It runs 9 pages, so take it in bites.

(Not to get too far OT in Twill, but PiP is an absolute rollicking blast. Everyone should experience it. Like Key West itself, it is much slower paced than Hampton, however.)

[Misson]

So now I'm in the middle of A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, & the West Indies in His Majesty's Ships The Swallow and Weymouth, by Surgeon John Atkins. He also talks about fishing and I thought it might contribute a little to what's come before:

"While our Ships lay to here, we had good Fishing with our Lines; took Breams (or Porgas) Skip-jacks, Grouper, a Rock-fish (thick, short, and of a deep yellow on the Belly, Gills and Mouth) and the Jew-Fish; which has a double Mouth, the uppermost not to swallow Food, but full of Air-pipes and finned like a Cod, all well tasted: and having washed them down with a Bowl, our Friends and we parted..." (Atkins, p. 32)

"We saw also abundance of flying Fish, and their continual Enemies, the Albicore and Dolphin, the latter we strike now and then with a Fizgig, or Harping-iron. It is a glorious-colour'd, strait Fish, four or five Foot long, forked Tail, perpendicular to the Horizon: plays familiarly about Ships; is of dry Taste, but makes good Broth. They are seldom seen out of the Latitudes of a Trade wind; and the flying fish never: These are the bigness of small Herrings; their Wings about two thirds its length; come narrow from the Body, and end broad; they fly by the help of them a Furlong at a time when pursued, turning in their Flight, sometimes dip in the Sea, and so up again,; the Wind making them, but this Expedient, fleeter." (Atkins, p. 33-4)

"There are in the Bays of this River [the Gambia at Sierra Leone], variety of good Fish, that supplies the Scarcity of Flesh; Turtle, Mullet, Skate, Ten-pounders (Ten Pounders are like Mullets, but full of small Bones, like Herring-bones), Old-wives (Old-wives; a scaly, flat Fish, half as thick as long, called so from some Resemblance the face is fancied to have, with that of a Nun's), Cavalloes (Cavalloes; a bright, silver-colour'd Fish, with a pricklyRidge on each side, half its length) Barricudoes (Barricudoes; a well-tasted Fish, one Foot and an half long, not wholesome if the Roof of the Mouth is black), Sucking-Fish (Sucking-Fish; something like the Dog Fish; underneath he has an oval Flat, of three Inches and an half over, granulated like a Nutmeg grater; with this he flicks so fast, as difficulty to be torn from the Deck. He often infests the Shirk, sticks fast, and sucks his Nourishment from him.), Oysters, Cat-Fish (Cat-Fish, so called from four slender Fibres like Whiskers, sprouting from the under part of his Mouth), Bream and Numb-Fish; the most of which we catched in great numbers with our Searn; two or three Hours in a Morning supplying a Belly-full to the whole Ship's Company." (Atkins, p. 46-7)

Ok...is a "Searn" the same thing as a Seine?

Also, just to note, the s's in this book are more like someone said with very short cross=bars than the other books I've read. It makes translating them much easier, if not easy.

[Dutchman]

dear god man- do you ever sleep. i feel.... well..... a bit inadequate in my own thread (Scuffs feet and walks away). amazing work- i'm in the middle of a book and am searching for anything to add but coming up with nothing but i do have a good 16th century description of cpr if you're interested- i can't remember if i shared it with you yet or not.

[Misson]

Inadequate? You don't understand...since I decided to write a book, I have been reading voraciously. Plus, I stopped reading Dampier to pick up Atkins because Atkins is a library book and I can only have it 3 weeks; so it's not like I finished Dampier or anything. (When I am enthusiastic for a topic, I find it's best to exploit that before it dims.)

Being related intimately to medicine (today), diet is one of my chapters, so this information interests me. The way my research for stuff like this goes, I read, highlight and then re-copy relevant info into my notes in Word. (240 pages and counting). That way when I start to write, I will review the notes under a particular topic like Diet and then be fresh and ready to write on the topic - I will also be re-acquainted with which quotes are relevant for inclusion in my text and will already have them typed in for easy manuscript insertion.

So popping stuff up here is just a sideline of what I'm really doing. No worries! Besides, I think websites like this are great repositories of information like this and the next poor soul who comes looking for info on a pirate's diet may stumble across this forum - say in five years - and will have properly cited research. I used to post on another forum and I frequently go back there and look up my old posts when they are relevant and repost parts of them here. (You can't keep all this stuff in your head.)

CPR - we should start a sailor's medical self-care topic. I just read some really fascinating stuff about that in another book. Plus I have a pdf of a early 17th century book called Helps for suddain accidents endangering life by Stephen Bradwell than I really wanted to read. Such a topic might give me incentive to take it up - once I finish Atkins.

[Misson]

Ah, a recipe for Manatee (or, as he calls them, Manatea) from Atkins:

"...they (the people of Signor Joseph, a 'Christian Negro' who lived in Sierra Leone) brought one [a Manatee] ashore in two hours time, and we had stewed, roast, and boiled, with a clean Table-cloth, Knives and Fork, and Variety of Wines and strong Beer, for our Entertainment. The Flesh of this Creature was white, and not fishy; but very tough, and seasoned high (as are all their Dishes) with Ochre, Malaguetta, and Bell-Pepper." (Atkins, p. 55)

[Misson]

Here's one for ya' from Dampier:

"It was well for Captain Swan that we got sight of [land] before our Provision was spent, of which we had but enough for three Days more; for, as I was afterwards informed, the men had contrived, first to kill Captain Swan and eat him when the Victuals was gone, and after him all of us who were accessory to promoting the undertaking this Voyage (from the West Indies to the East Indies). This made Capt. Swan say to me after our arrival at Guam, Ah! Dampier you would have made them but a poor Meal; for I was as lean as the Captain was lusty and fleshy." (Dampier, p. 196)

He shortly after holds forth at some length on the benefits of the Coco-Nut tree. In fact, this is very interesting, but I don't have time to type it all in. Perhaps I will give it it's own topic as he says it was used for all sorts of things in the East Indies.

[Matusalem]

Steak!

In the book, "A General History of Pyrates" by Daniel Defoe (the one edited by Manuel Schonhorn), in the chapter 'Of Captain Burgess', the top of pg 509 reads

"I shall, only take Notice, that Captain Miller, being decoy'd ashore, under Pretence of being shew'd some Trees, fit for masting , Halsey invited him to a Surloin of Beef, and a Bowl of Arrack Punch; he accepted the invitation, with about 20 of the Pyrates. One Emmy, who had been a Waterman on the Thames, did not come to the table, but sat by, muffled in a great Coat, pretending he was attack'd by the Ague, tho' he had to put it on to conceal his Pistols only".

Surloin...if one reads the chart one sees in the grocery store with the dotted lines on the steer, you know where it comes from. Except in those days, I'm sure the meat was fresh slaughter.

[Misson]

Buccaneers were noted for their appetite for meat. I have come across several period accounts of sailors poaching local beef when they spotted it. (Particularly Spanish beef.)

However, I am very curious what "surloin" meant during period. Barlow repeatedly speaks very disparagingly of it in his journal. For example, one entry on the sailor's Christmas fare (Barlow has complained four or five times about the fare at Christmas during various years so far):

"[1668, Yarmouth Frigate] So it being December, we kept our Christmas Day there [‘Ligorne’ Road], but we wanted such Christmas cheer as many a one had in England, for we had nothing to our Christmas dinner but a bit of old rusty salt beef, which had lain in pickle eighteen or twenty months, and a piece of it for three men, about three-quarters of a pound, which was picked out of all the rest, for the officers having the first choice always, nothing was left for the poor men but the surloin next to the horns [Emphasis mine], and they have Hobson’s choice [‘that or noe’]; and if they do but speak against it, then they are in danger of being drubbed or beaten with twenty or thirty blows on the back, and a poor man dare not speak for that which is his right, for the captain and purser and other officers, having the best of all things, a poor man is not to be heard amongst them, but he must be content to take what they will give him, they many times putting that into their pockets which is a poor man’s due.” (Barlow, p. 161-2)

I asked a friend who raises beef cattle about this and she said she had never heard anything like that before. According to her, sirloin is one of the better cuts of meat and it is nowhere near the horns. So I remain puzzled about this one as he uses the term several times in this way. It may be that the whole cow was referred to as surloin. Or it may be that Barlow just referred to it that way. Or maybe none of those things. Color me curious.

[Coastie04]

An interesting painting I ran across recently that depicts some men-o-war becalmed, and a small boat fishing in the foreground. The scene was painted by Peter Monamy in 1728.

Coastie

[Dutchman]

WOW!! so much to look at. where to start. after the fishing and limp sails, the first thing i noticed were the guns run out. coincides with another topic. its flat, i can understand the hatches open for ventilation, but why run them all out? how about the smoke off the port side on the left ship. looks like fire smoke, not cannon. wonder what was going on.

[Dorian Lasseter]

An interesting painting I ran across recently that depicts some men-o-war becalmed, and a small boat fishing in the foreground. The scene was painted by Peter Monamy in 1728.

Coastie

The far ship, starboard broadside on, is the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, indicated by the Union flag flying from the mainmast. The other two ships are, respectively, those of his vice-admiral and rear-admiral of the red squadron. In the mid-17th century the fleet had been organized into three squadrons, the red being the central or commander-in-chief's and hence the senior one, the white being the vanguard and the blue the rear. This arrangement ceased to have operational significance around 1700 but remained the basis of organizational seniority among squadrons and flag officers. (Thus, a vice-admiral of the red was senior to one of the white, and the latter to one of the blue, for example, but all were junior to an admiral of the blue). The ship on the left flies the red ensign and is firing a salute. The stern has some ornate carving, with female figures down the sides. Two men are depicted in a small boat in the foreground, the man on the left attending to nets in the water while the other remains seated and holds the oars.

[Dutchman]

Dorian, thank you for chiming in with your knowledge. i'd have never given the flag order a second look, much less known what they meant.

the smoke still intrigues me. I find it odd that they would be peeling paint off the hull with canvas set- mighty dangerous i think- even if there is no wind. and why test the guns if there is a boat in front of you- not safe.

the port ship has men in the rigging working the canvas.

arrrggggg! born 200 years too late, darned the luck!

[Dorian Lasseter]

You humble me...

My knowledge only comes from this wonderful site;

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/...er=T&ID=BHC1008

Another posted a link to it in another thread...

Excellent... I could browse this site for days...

[Matusalem]

I saw that site too! A lot of the pirate books cretit the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in the bibliography section in back. I also believe David Cordingly works there as well.

Oh, well....next time i'm in the UK, that's where I'm going!

[Matusalem]

Merchant vessel = Food

I just got a copy of Pirates of the new England Coast, which is a great book of a slightly re-edited version of the 1922 George Francis Dow book. It has most of the famous names you know. Without getting into passages & excerpts from the book (mainly because the book is not with me at this second) , I can explain in a nutshell, that Pirates primarily fed off the ships they plundered for the main reason they did not want to be spotted on land. Making port any where could prove fatal once the locals witnesses alert the authorities of who's in town. They'd find merchant ships loaded with flour, livestock, veggies, sugar, wine...and of course, rum, take it for their own consumption, then sink the merchant vessels so there is no trace. It's so much safer to hide out at sea and wait for a vessel to plunder than land somewhere to procure victuals & subsistence, and get spotted.

[Misson]

While grabbing food from merchants was certainly one way pirates got their foodstuffs, merchant vessels didn't always show up just when the food supplies were running low. Pirates had places they could land that weren't populated to obtain food. Read any privateering account and you'll find that this is exactly what they did. There are absolute gobs of different foodstuffs they procured that way (with recurrence of 'bananoes', 'cocoanuts', and plantains.) Pirates would also plunder local fishing vessels and trade with local natives and fishermen. They'd also steal other peoples beeves when they could sneak on shore and get them. (I just love the word 'beeves'.)

Although Barlow was not a pirate, he has accounts of Indians coming out in canoes to trade along with several accounts of making deals with small native tribes for food. Dampier and Woodes Rogers have accounts of making deals with native Indians at various places. What works for sailors and privateers would almost certainly work for pirates. (I doubt the Indians cared which white man's ship brought them trade.) Sea travelers would also slaughter wild goats, manatee, sea lions, seals, penguins, various birds and of course fish. (See above for period fishing. I have a dozen references more from Barlow and Dampier. Note that according to Dampier, penguins, seals and sea lions were not preferred food, but were resorted to when necessary.)

Pirates also made deals with local governments who basically looked the other way. Blackbeard is one obvious example, but I was also reading an account of some pirates off Mexico who did the same thing. In their case, they would steal coffee from merchant ships and then sell it to the local Spanish residents as bribes or for cash other necessaries. Sometimes everyone just ignored the government entirely and traded with pirates as they could. Because pirates supplied very good trade items for local citizens, such people aided them. Some English and Scottish coastal towns practically relied upon pirates to bring goods in trade for foodstuffs and drink. Check out Eric Graham's Seawolves: Pirates & the Scots and W.R. Thrower's Life at Sea in the Age of Sail and The Pirate Picture for a little detail on that. Thrower implies that the trade with the Caribbean often worked like this - Merchants would bring stuff to Caribbean, Pirates would take them, Pirates would trade the stolen merchant's stuff with Caribbean citizens. I don't know if it was quite that pat (why the heck would the merchants continue sending stuff to the Caribbean then?), but that's how I recall him portraying it. (Edward Barlow made several trading voyages to the Carribean and was never molested by pirates there.)

[Misson]

For your consideration:

"They had another Dish made of a short of Locusts, whose Bodies were about an Inch and a half long, and as thick as the top of one's little finger; with large thin Wings, and long and small Legs. At this time of the Year these Creatures came in great Swarms to devour their Potato-leaves, and other Herbs; and the Natives would go out with small Nets, and take a Quart at one sweep. When they had enough, they would carry them home, and parch them over the Fire in an earthen Pan; and then their Wings and Legs would fall off, and their Heads and Backs would turn red like boil'd Shrimps, being before brownish. Their Bodies being full, would eat very moist, their Heads would crackle in one's Teeth. I did once eat of this Dish, and liked it well enough; but their other Dish my Stomach would not take." (Dampier, p. 291)

Yum-my! He even gives you the recipe. We should definitely do this one at Hampton next year. Tell Cookie.

[Dutchman]

roaches- yummy. how about we whip some up at beaufort?

[Dutchman]

well i'm going to resurect this one.... from the Executive Journals of the Colony of Virginia. April 27th 1710....

..."on the petition of William Waters setting forth he and his partner had been at great charge and expense fitting out boats and other tackle for carrying on a whale fishery upon the coast of this Her Majestys colony and in the the bay of chesapeak. Leave is accordingly granted unto the sd William Waters and his partners to sett up and carry on the whale fishing aforesaid within the limits abovementioned they paying the Governor of this her Majestys Colony for the time being a small aknowledgement for her Majestys Right to the said fishing."

I had no idea whaling occured at a marketable level anywhere near the bay.

[Dutchman]

From the Chesapeake Journal via barnaby wilde.......

Let's go back millions of years 10, maybe 14 million years, to the Miocene and Eocene epochs. What ultimately became the Chesapeake was then a shallow, subtropical sea, stretching along a sandy coast with barrier islands and embayments, perhaps like the Baja California today.

This nameless sea in the distant past was a calving ground for several species of cetaceans: baleen or filter-feeding whales, fish-capturing toothed whales, porpoise and even manatees. Their relatively defenseless young were easy prey for many species of sharks. Some sharks, like the giant Charcaradon megalodon, were 35 feet long with phalanxes of teeth, the largest of which reached 7 inches.

Shift scenes to the present where the eroding cliffs and shorelines of the modern Chesapeake still relinquish millions of fossil shark's teeth-and the ribs, vertebrae and other bones of those long extinct cetaceans. They've been the delight of children and of serious fossil collectors since the 19th century. But to early colonists, who had no concept of geologic time, these fossils, and the shells embedded in the cliffs were a great puzzlement.

"Within the shoares of our rivers, whole bancks of oysters and scallopps, which lye unopened and thick together, as if there had bene their natural bedd before the sea left them."

- George Percy

"Discourse of Virginia ," 1606

Whales were an important resource in a world before oil wells and cheap petroleum supplies. Whale hunters took the rich, fatty insulating tissues surrounding the whales' bodies and "tryed" -melted in cauldrons-them to extract fine oils to be used for lubrication or to burn in lamps.

Apart from the occasional natural strandings, these marine mammals had to be hunted. However angrily we view whaling today, in the 16th and 17th centuries this fishery provided valuable products and was a true contest between species. It required great courage and respect to conquer these massive creatures in a small boat with simple, hand-thrown harpoon and lance.

John Smith's first sentence on marine living resources in the Chesapeake reads: "Of fish we were best acquainted with sturgeon, grampus (a small toothed whale -perhaps the pilot whale) porpoise, seals (and) stingrays whose tails are very dangerous."

The Virginia colonists were poor fishermen early on and had slim luck even feeding themselves, let alone whaling. After leaving Virginia, our resourceful explorer John Smith spent time in England but returned to the New World where he failed as a whaler in Latitude 43 degrees 39 minutes North, lamenting: "Had the fishing for whale proved as we expected, I (would have) stayed in the country..."

Later, some Chesapeake colonists began to take stranded whales successfully around the Bay mouth, trying out the blubber from whales towed into the bay and "flensed" or "cut out" in Virginia 's creeks.

In 1692, Governor Copley of Maryland commissioned one Edward Green of Somerset County as a whaling officer to secure these "drift whales" and defend Maryland's interests against those of neighboring colonies. One whale that came ashore on Smith's Isle at Cape Charles in 1747 yielded 30 barrels of oil.

Cutting out a whale is dirty business and releases into the water immense amounts of blood and organic materials that consume life-giving oxygen and produce a terrible stench. Proceedings of the Middlesex Court in Virginia in 1698 forbade the killing of whales in Chesapeake Bay because the fishery wastes "caused great quantities of fish to poysoned and destroyed and the rivers made also noisome and Offensive." This was one of the Colonial government's first legal actions against water pollution in the Bay.

Rules notwithstanding, whales occasionally entered the Bay and nosed up into her tributaries. In 1746, a 54-footer was spied from a Scottish vessel lying off Jamestown . Pursuing it in their ship's boat, the mariners drove the poor beast ashore and killed it.

In 1751, the sloop "Experiment" was fitted out at Norfolk and in May the Virginia Gazette reported that she'd taken a valuable whale which was expected to "give Encouragement to the further Prosceution of the Design" and "will tend very much to the Advantage of the Colony."

The "Experiment" took another profitable six whales during the ensuing year, but historian Pierce Middleton indicates neither Maryland nor Virginia subsequently pursued any whale fishery.

While the ancient fossil manatees were gone millions of years before the colonists arrived, in 1676, Thomas Glover reported "a most prodigious Creature, much resembling a man" in the Rappahannock . It was most likely a manatee.

More recently, a manatee was sighted in August 1980 off the Georgetown Canoe Club in the District of Columbia . Caught in the Chesapeake by falling autumn temperatures, the poor creature was found two months later dead of "starvation and pneumonia" near Hampton City . In the past few years, "Chessie," a Florida manatee, has repeatedly visited the Bay and created much excitement during his cruises up-and down-the coast.

Sea turtles, mostly the loggerheads, but also Kemp's Ridley, and the occasional big leatherback have frequented the Bay for millennia, occasionally straying as far North as Hooper Straits or Calvert Cliffs. John White painted one of those, beautifully, in 1585-and he also painted both the diamondback terrapin and our familiar box turtle, calling it: "A land Tort(ise) w'ch the Sauages esteeme aboue all other Torts"

Though this is far north in their current range, loggerheads enter the Chesapeake in spring as the Bay's water warms. Even today, on Virginia 's much-developed beaches, perhaps nine a year still dig nests and lay their eggs.

Sea turtles were popular quarry for sailing ship mariners long at sea without fresh meat and, turned on their backs, could be carried alive, if miserable, on deck quite some time, if occasionally sluiced down with seawater.

Archaeological excavations at the recently discovered original site of Jamestown 's fortifications turned up the remains of a sea turtle feast by those recently arrived colonists.

Our attitudes toward all the cetacean-marine mammals-and at least the sea-going turtles have changed from perceiving them as quarry to asking how we can help them prosper. This is an attitude we would do well to offer to other species, and other parts of the Bay's natural infrastructure, which we have abused or ignored these nearly 400 years.

Dr. Kent Mountford is an environmental historian and estuarine ecologist.

[Dutchman]

from virginia vice admiralty report of a seized vessel from 1756- newport bound for jamaica. a little late but still good. I'm only listing the food stuff which was listed as crew staples- not cargo.

8 barrels fish oil

5 casks beer quantity 61 dzn. 1 bottles (note- 1 seems to stand for quart in the ledgers, not positive though)

6 boxes soap (sorry could not help myself, sorry M.A.D. D'dogge we gotta bathe now)

2 pipes wine

17 hhds Claret

7 barrels syder

11 casks ships bread

17 barrels beef

13 barrels pork

50 barrels flour

1 box cheese

11 ferkens butter

9 hogsheads dryed fish

93 barrels mackrael

108 barrels menhaden

onions

[Raphael Misson]

Very interesting. I thought whaling took place more in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Joan Druett's book Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea Under Sail focuses a great deal on medicine and the whaling industry. On top of all the normal dangers associated with sea travel during the age of sail, whaling itself added an extra layer of danger as you suggest.

I wonder what they thought of the noisome whaling shipboard environment in:re health? "Bad air" (or mal-air) was widely believed to be the cause of many fevers and sicknesses at this time. Being on a stinky old whaling ship must surely have been regarded as an unhealthy business on top of everything else associated with such a voyage.

[Raphael Misson]

More yummy descriptions:

“[Oct. 5, 1675] Here [Cyprus] is plenty of locust and wild honey, which the inhabitants will carry about in a wooden platter, or tray, and proffer you a piece on a knife as you walk the streets, not asking anything for it: it looks almost like resin, but do but touch it and it melts.” (Teonge, p. 87)