Pirate Meals

[Lady Alyx]

I was just thinking does anyone here make any Pirate themed meals..I mean not just for a party...but everyday eatin'?

[Hester]

Umm... I ordered a Sushi Boat and a rum cocktail at a Japanese restaurant recently.

Does that count?

[Blackbead]

Here's a couple:

1. Salmagundy - check the web, there's a host of recipes out there and this makes a great full meal on a hot summer day. Think of it as a salad with roast meats, perhaps some tuna fish, and lots of olives and boiled eggs.

2. Do a mixed grill of pork, chicken and beef and have it with baked sweet potatoes. "Buccaneers" comes from a style of roasting/smoking meat that 'somewhat' preserved it over a "boucan" or "barbacoa." This is also supposed to be the origin of the term "barbecue." Swwet potatoes are indigenous to the Caribbean and are great with butter and brown sugar!

3. You can serve hardtack, salted beef, and "green" water but I don't recommend it!

Bon appetit'! Blackbead

[Rumba Rue]

Dare I ask what is 'green water'?

[Red Sea Trade]

I cook 17th and 18th century recipes all the time (used to teach open-hearth cooking at an 18th century tavern), but only do a full "piratical" menu for special occasions.

I did a special dinner for last year's "Talk Like A Pirate Day":

Fish House Punch

Chesapeake Crab Stew

Buccaneer's Rack O' Pork

Corn Custard

Indian Pudding

I don't know if any actual sea-rovers ever enjoyed that particular menu, but it is all period correct (and delicious)!

[Hester]

Do a mixed grill of pork, chicken and beef and have it with baked sweet potatoes. "Buccaneers" comes from a style of roasting/smoking meat that 'somewhat' preserved it over a "boucan" or "barbacoa." This is also supposed to be the origin of the term "barbecue." Swwet potatoes are indigenous to the Caribbean and are great with butter and brown sugar!

I was at the Pirate Festival at Fort York in Toronto last year, and I was really disappointed by the food on offer. Basically, there were hot dogs, hamburgers, and a really ill-conceived "soup in a bread bowl". (Hot soup outdoors in the heat and humidity of August? Blech!)

I remember thinking at the time that recreating a bucanneer's meat-roasting fire really wouldn't have been that difficult for the organizers, and it would have provided much better flavour and period atmosphere.

I always think of cold meat pie, cheese and apples as being a very piratey picnic meal -- one that Ben Gunn & Jim Hawkins would enjoy!

[Lady Alyx]

I am glad that this topic has opened some doors into the discussion of waht is offered at faires.

I am also interested in what Blackbead said about this...

"Buccaneers" comes from a style of roasting/smoking meat that 'somewhat' preserved it over a "boucan" or "barbacoa." This is also supposed to be the origin of the term "barbecue."

I have been doing a lot of in-oven barbeque and I have to tell you it is so simple and comes out marvelous. Would like to know more about the origins of 'barbacoa'. Could you tell me if there is something on the web about this subject?

[Blackbead]

m'Lady:

"Green" water is water that has stayed in the barrels TOO long and has gone stagnant. It's the result of too many tiny organisms floating around in the water and can result in an unhealthy situation. "Small beer" actually stays drinkable in kegs longer than water and so you would see provisioning lists aboard ship with more kegs of small beer than there would be water because the kegs of water wouuld have to be refreshed more often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buccaneer is a great place to start for more information on this form of cooking. See also http://dictionary.die.net/buccan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbacoa definitely indicates that this method is more Mexican in origin but I believe that the method grew out of the same ideas.

Hope this helps!

Blackbead

[Lady Alyx]

...Also found this in wiki under Barbeque....

There is ample evidence that both the word and cooking technique migrated out of the Caribbean and into other cultures and languages, with the word moving from Caribbean dialects into Spanish, then French and English. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the word as having been introduced into the English language by British buccaneer William Dampier

[Graydog]

For what its worth from:

The Crackling Pig

Cooking meat over a fire isn't a new idea, but the practice of gathering for a barbeque of cooked meat found its roots in the south of colonial America. and the earliest recorded entry of the word in The Dictionary of American English was in 1733.

While the origins of the term barbeque are much debated, the most plausible root of the word is a West Indian term barbacoa which describes a method of making a grating of thin green sticks to place over a fire. Thin strips of meat were then layed on this grating and cooked over the hot coals. Records of colonial settlers in america adopting the practice of cooking on a barbacoa predate the year 1600.

Makes good ol'BBQ sound piratey to me when you add in where they were sailing around and hence would be going ashore during the GAOP.

[Lady Alyx]

Hmmmm what a great idea for a new BBQ shack..."Pyrate Barb-B Que"....mmmm gives all kinds of ideas of what a patron could face once walking inside an establishment with that name...Cracklin Pig would be a good one on the menu.....reminds of when Jack Sparrow was dangling over that pit with the natives...he he