Gold Age Food

[Jib]

I would assume that hard tack and fish would be part of a pirates diet but what else? Any of the historical pirates ever 'dine in period style'?

[Red Maria]

I have made and ate salamungundi. I know turtle, slat beef and pork were on the menu. I have book on food in the navy it's a bit later time wise (mid to late 18th c.) but the diet didn't really change till the advent of canned food in the 19th cnetury.

I have feeding Nelson's Navy:The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era by Janet MacDonald and Mariner's Mealtimes & Other Daily Details: Life on board a sailing Warship by Una A. Robertson. Feeding Nelson's Navy should be easy to find since it was published in 2004.

[Fox]

Dampier of course talks about "doughboys", what we would call dumplings.

Samuel Pepys wrote:

Englishmen, and more especially seamen, love their bellies above anything else, and therefore it must always be remembered in themanagement of the victualling of the Navy that to make any abatement in the quantity or agreeableness of the victuals is to discourage and provoke them in the tenderest point, and will sooner render them disgusted with the King's service than any other hardship that can be put upon them

Unfortunately, the actual supply of food to the men in the Navy was the province of the pursers, who were rarely such honest or efficient men as Pepys.

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In the chapter on sea-cooks in Ned Ward's satirical "Wooden World" he mentions lobscouse, and lots of fats and greases. In the chapter on the seaman Ward speaks of "rusty pork" and gives a wonderful description of the seaman's table manners:

...if he be in his ordinary trim, he begins the attack without ceremony, and neither asks for grace or mustard to his victuals. He proportions his cut of meat to the size of his plate, and both this and that he champs down together. He is as unacquianted with a fork as a stone horse*; and while he has a rag to his arse, he scorns to make use of a napkin; but if his allowance be very short, he is sure to lick his paws well before he wipes them on his breeches.

In the chapter on the Purser Ward mentions rotten peas and musty oatmeal, salt flesh meat, burgoo,

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The 17thC ballad "The Saylor's Complaint, or the true character of the purser of a ship" was clearly written by a seaman and contains some wonderfully descriptive lines about food.

...gives us mutty meat

With Biscuit that’s moldy and hard stinking cheese

And Pork fat in pounds...

His Oat-meal or Grout, known by the name Burgoo

Is fitting for nothing but to make sailors spew

His Brins no better than common kitchen-grease

The sailors are fear’d to eat with those pease

Such beef-fat [illegible] we constantly use

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Woodes Rogers' storeslist for his circumnavigation included (amongst many other things):

four Barrells of Beefe

four Hogsheads of Pork

eighty two ferkins of Butter

six hundred weight of Cheese

Eighteen Butts of Beere

Twelve Barrells of Oatmeale

Three Hogsheads of Vinegar

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A 1761 document entitled "An appeal to the public...to prevent the Navy of England being supplied with pernicious Provisions" is useful because it lists various food stuffs then common on ships, together with exactly what was wrong with them:

Flour ("devoured by weevils")

Bread ("full of black-headed maggots")

Beer ("stunk as abominably as the foul stagnant water which is pumped out of many cellars")

Pork ("when boiled it wasted away to mere rags and crumbs...it was also so nauseous that it made the men sick who did eat of it")

And I had to save this 'til last. Joshua Red, are you reading this? if you are then I hope it makes you laugh as much as it did me...

...seamen in the King's ships have made buttons for their jackets and trowses with the cheese they were served with, having prefered it, by reason of its tough and durable quality, to buttons made of common metal...

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A bit late I know, but the standard ration for a seaman in the RN in Nelson's day was 1 gallon of beer and 1lb of bread per day, 2lbs of beef on Tuesday and Saturday, 1lb of pork Sunday and Thursday, 1/2 pint of peas Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, a pint of oatmeal Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 4oz of cheese and 2oz butter Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Hope it helps

*Forks were banned in the Royal Navy until 1897.

[JoshuaRed]

Let's see. I've made hardtack and a myriad of punches. I haven't eaten as much "authentic" 18th C food as I'd like. I did get some pretty good fare in Williamsburg and at various places in Massachusets, but it was more lubberly and dated to more like the Revolution.

Of course any ocean fish cooked over an open flame is period correct...or stewed in a pot with whatever is at hand.

I'll have to dig out Dampier's books - he talks alot about the various things they scrounged up to eat on their "Expeditions".

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Josh... I like the new bio pic of you with the pipe... Cool!

Sounds like you can make a good authentic meal with oatmeal, peas, and salted meat.

GoF

[JoshuaRed]

Why thankee Greg! Sadly I recently broke that pipe by accident...AND managed to break my spare as well. D'OH!

[Jib]

Any mention of fruit?

I suppose some food was eatten cold. Anything eatten in a fashion we would consider different (cold broth, hot drinks?)

[Fox]

Fruit goes off really quickly, so there's no point taking much of it if any. The lemon juice in grog is to give the seamen a bit of fruit in their diet.

Incidentally, that reminds me of something else I was going to write earlier. Grog is a later drink: although people had probably been watering rum down before it was official the name "grog" didnt take until the 1740s when Admiral Vernon ("Old Grogram") issued orders for watering the rum. Also, until the mid-18thC rum was not the standard mariners' drink it later became, but was only one of several spirits - the preferred one of which seems to have been brandy.

Instead of grog the common sailors' drink of the GAoP was called "flip", which was basically a mix of beer, spirits, and sugar. The exact mix and the nature of the spirits depended on availability.

[Red Maria]

Snelgrave mentions punch several times in his captivity narrative. Also mentioned are chicken and other livestock.

BTW in The Sea Rovers Practice: Pirate Tactis & Techniques, 1630-1730 by Benerson Little there is an appendix titled Spirits & Belly Timber: Some Culinary History and Recipes for the Adventureous. If you have a copy you might want to check it out.

[Jib]

How about spices?

[John Maddox Roberts]

Vessels often took livestock along for fresh provisions, so presumably pirates would, too. Pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, even cattle. Of course, you might have to put a guard on those sheep.

[Tall Paul]

Pirates would've been subject to the same problems of keeping food fresh as any other mariner during the age of sail. foods that would stay fresh for months on end had to be chosen. this usually meant either dried or salted.

The following is the bill of fare during the late 18th and early 19th century, for a sailor in the Royal Navy. But the components are typical of the foods that would have been useable and available to sailors for centuries before.

Monday: 1 pint of oatmeal, 2 oz of butter.

Tuesday: 2 pounds of salt beef.

Wednesday: ½ pint of peas, 1 pint oatmeal, 2 oz of butter, 4 oz of cheese

Thursday: 1 pound of salt pork, ½ pint of peas

Friday: 1 pint of oatmeal, 2 oz of butter

Saturday: 2 pounds of salt beef.

Sunday: 1 pound of salt pork, ½ pint of peas

In addition to this each man would receive 1 Gallon of beer, and 1 pound of ships biscuit (or bread if in port) every day.

The bread/biscuit probably represented an important source of complex carbohydrates, and the quantities, in addition to the oatmeal and the peas, was probably a good indicator of the energy requirements of a person working as crew on a sailing ship.

Pirates, operating outside the law, would probably not have had the same access to merchants able or willing to provide cereal products such as grain or bread, as legitimate seamen. I would be interested if anyone has an insight as to how they would supplement this shortfall of carbohydrate in their diet. (If indeed they did, nutritional deficiencies seem to have been an occupational hazard of life at sea.

The salt meat would have been soaked in water during the previous night, and then boiled. the ration for each mess, (group of men,) was marked by a number stamped onto a lead tag which was attached to the portion before it was cooked. (Very healthy)

One of the perks of the cooks job was to collect the fat that rose to the top of the boiling pots. This residue was called slush, hence the cooks nickname of "Slushy". He would supplement his income by selling this slush to sailors for them to spread on their biscuit, (His slush fund?)

I have prepared several pieces of salted pork, that my enactment group are still using after five years. Between shows, they live in a bag in my garage, and they still shows no sign of decay.

It was said that a seaman eating whilst ashore could be recognised By the large amount of salt that he added to his food on account of fresh meat tasting bland to him.

In the book Buccaneers of America, Exquemelin goes into some detail about how buccaneers provisioned for a venture. I do not have my copy handy, but as far as I can remember, for the most part it consisted of kidnapping a local turtle fisherman, and holding him captive until he caught enough turtles to meet their needs. some of these were kept fresh by turning them onto their backs. the rest were salted.

Elsewhere in the book, Exquemelin goes into some detail about which species of turtle are best to eat.

There is also an account of a band of buccaneers, who when an adventure went wrong, where forced to slaughter their horses, and salt the meat in order to provision themselves.

Remember that Buccaneer, loosely translated means bacon maker, they started out as hunters, killing and preparing meat by smoking and drying it. So in the early days at least, they would have had an insight into preparing meat by this method.

In the Galapagos Islands there is a cave containing the skeletons of many giant tortoises, each with a neat square removed from its shell. The story goes that this is where pirates butchered the animals for their meat.

[Red Maria]

As to how pirates got vitualed, there were many merchants in ports that were more than willing to do business with pirates ( see Pirate Wars by Peter Earle chapter 8 War Against the Pirates ) as the war gainst pirates heated up, and made it ifficult to deal with merchants on land, pirates often plundered ships stores of prizes for provisions (Seee Snelgrave A New Account of Guiena)

By hook or by crook they'd get thier carbs!

[Jib]

Anyone ever tried turtle? I would guess sea turtles are endangered and not recomend eatting them but what about another type of turtle?

[Tall Paul]

Something that I forgot to put in my previous post, that has been worrying me, is that so far, I have found no reference to sailors setting lines or nets in order to catch fish. it seems unlikely that such an obvious source of protein would be left un-tapped.

Perhaps it was so common that no-one thought that it was worth mentioning at the time, or perhaps modern authors don't think that caught fish is relevant to an essay about Naval provisions. or maybe I just haven't read the right book yet. But the closest I can remember seeing is an account of pirates robbing a fishing boat and taking the catch as part of their bounty.

Can anyone think of an account of mariners supplementing their diet with fish?

[Red Maria]

I had turlte soup once. Didn't much like it too fishy for me.

[Red Maria]

I've seen reference to this in Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food in the Georgian Era / by Janet MacDonald.

[Red Maria]

Feeding Nelson's Navy... page 38:

" ...all ships were supplied with fishing tackle which they were meant to use when oppertunity permitted and when 'in a place fish fish could be had'. The resultant catcth was first offered to the sickbay and the remainder shared out among the crew , on a rota system if necessary. The fish was considered to be a free extra item not a substitute for anything else"

Edited January 24, 2006 by Red Maria

[Tall Paul]

Feeding Nelson's Navy... page 38:

" ...all ships were supplied with fishing tackle which they were meant to use when oppertunity permitted and when 'in a place fish fish could be had'. The resultant catcth was first offered to the sickbay and the remainder shared out among the crew , on a rota system if necessary. The fish was considered to be a free extra item not a substitute for anything else"

Thanks for that Red, Funny enough, I was considering buying a copy of feeding Nelsons Navy only yesterday.

Reading your quote has rung a bell, I think that I recall the reference to fish going to the sickbay whilst reserching shipboard medicine.

On the subject of Turtle soup, I used to live across the road from a family were closly related to the Lusty family (No jokes please) who made their fortune manufacturing canned Turtle soup.

From what I remember, the soup was not unlike a slightly fishy consome soup and came with a small rectangle of turtle flesh which i think was a very pail colour with a slightly rubbery texture. But that was many years ago.

You can still buy lusty's soups, but I am fairly sure that their turtle soup is now of the "Mock"variety

[Red Maria]

Feeding Nelson's Navy is good book. One of the advantages as a Library Assistant is I get first crack at every book that comes in. This one I requested it to be cataloged ASAP and charged out to me. It's been a good reference.

Oh come on! How can one see a name like Lusty and not want to make jokes!

[Syera]

I went to Project Gutenberg and searched for "cook." As I hoped, they have some very, very, very old cookbookish-type books online.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10072 - a cookbook from 1764 (I think)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10520/10520.txt - no date given, but the writing style suggests it's a few grizbillion years old.

And here's their home economics category...

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/loccs/tx

Hopefully, that'll net you a few recipes. :)

[Tall Paul]

I went to Project Gutenberg and searched for "cook." As I hoped, they have some very, very, very old cookbookish-type books online.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10072 - a cookbook from 1764 (I think)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10520/10520.txt - no date given, but the writing style suggests it's a few grizbillion years old.

And here's their home economics category...

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/loccs/tx

Hopefully, that'll net you a few recipes. :)

The second book listed,

"http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10520/10520.txt - no date given, but the writing style suggests it's a few grizbillion years old."

is one of three chapters from a book called "The Queens closet Opened"

This section , "The compleat cook", Consists of recipies.

The other two sections, "The Pearl of Practice", And "A Queens delight" cover Medical Remadies and confections respectivly.

The Book was published in 1655 (During Cromwells rule), and claims to be a collection of the recepies used in the Royal Kitchens if King Charles I.

[Syera]

Hmm... a bit early for the Golden Age. By... about seventy-odd years.

Probably all the cookbooks back then got plundered to death.

[Tall Paul]

How about a cookbook from 1705?

It took some finding because my origional link no longer worked due to the website changing its system since 2002 when I first came across this volume.

but here is a website facsimile containing a multitude of recipes. You will need to study the index carefully as it appears to contain food recipies and medicines listed alternately. This is because the book is written with Recipies from the front, and medicines from the back.

Er......

The easy thing to do is to cut-and-paste the summery from the website.

Summary: Recipe book containing medical and cooking recipes. Recipes for cooking are written from front to back; medical recipes comprise the larger section and are written from back to front with book reversed.

Contains a table of contents for each section.

A number of recipes are attributed to named individuals.

here is the link.

http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/codex...orkID=43&Page=1

I have tried to attach a link to the information page for this manuscript, but because the entire website is search generated, each url is unique and attempting to post ut causes it to revert to a search engine.

So the best I can do is give you a link to the homepage, and a fwe keywords that may help.

http://www.library.upenn.edu/

Author = Petre, D.

Subject(s) = Cookery, English--Early works to 1800.

Traditional medicine--Formulae

receipts

prescriptions--Early works to 1800.

Form/Genre = Cookbooks.

Recipes.

Codices.

Manuscripts

I hope that this helps.

Tall Paul

[Syera]

I don't suppose they also have a text version of that available. Waiting on JPGs is a little tiresome on a dial-up connection.

Nifty anyway.