Gold Age Food

[Pirate Petee]

[paying homage to Neptune when crossing the equator (got any GAoP era evidence of that btw?)]

It's pretty much an immortal ritual. It's still performed today, and not as a quaint revival either. It's always been done, and always will be.

I heared some where that the sailors would dress the newbies as women hang them from a seat on a yard and dunk them in the ocean. I can't remember where I heared that or read it or how accurate that is.

[Fox]

The trouble with traditions is that they have to start sometime - they have not been going on for ever. Some perhaps start in the time before time, and might as well have been going on forever. Others started more recently. The difficulty from our stand point in time is that to us they all feel "traditional".

Crossing the equator has certainly been celebrated for aeons, but the manner of celebration may have, probably has, changed. I have a handful of references to crossing the equator celebrations from the GAoP, but none that I recall mentioning Neptune, and given that honouring Neptune would have been a heretical act (thus subjecting you to the Inquisition) at the time I sincerely doubt the early Spanish and Portuguese explorers did either.

Thus, the Neptune thing must have started some time, but was it before or after the GAoP, and amongst whom was it first practised? :)

[Fox]

And some more interesting bits.

From Nathaniel Knott's "Advice of a Seaman", 1634.

...

The brewers have gotten the art to sophisticate beer with broom instead of hops, and ashes instead of malt, and (to make it look the more lively) to pickle it with salt water, so that whilst it is new, it shall seemingly be worthy of praise, but in one month wax worse than stinking water.

...

As much care as is to be had of this I would have taken for salting of the flesh which they shall eat: the heat of the South seas will search whether it be well salted or no: if not, it soon turns to carrion, and lumps of putrefaction. There is a common proverb that nothing will poison a sailor. Perhaps they have poisoned many that use it; God grant they may poison no more.

Knott praised the Dutch victuallers for their healthy sailors (which he ascribed in part to their providing good water instead of beer), and he was not alone. Nathaniel Butler, writing at about the same time also pointed out the better health of Dutch seamen in his Dialogues, though he put the cause down to their eating less salt meat.

[Fox]

And some more:

When Henry Teonge left Plymouth aboard HMS Assistance in 1675 he composed a short verse:

Our stay, though short, got provender good store,

Beef, pork, shepp, ducks, geese, hens, chickens, galore.

Cider, beer, brandy, bread - and something more

I could have told you had I gone on shore.

Later, he describes dining at the Captain's table as they passed Lisbon. Bear in mind that this was a special occasion, not a standard dinner in the great cabin.

This day our noble captain feasted the officers of his small squadron with four dishes of meat, viz. four excellent hens and a piece of pork boiled in a dish; a gigget of excellent mutton and turnips; a piece of beef of eight ribs, well seasoned and roasted; and a coupleof very fat green geese; last of all a great Cheshire cheese: a rare feast at shore. His liquors were answerable, viz. Canary, sherry, Rhenish, claret, white wine, cider, ale, beer, all of the best sort; and punch [as plentiful as] ditch-water.

[Jib]

How abou tea?

[Fox]

From Johnson's General History:

"...for it may be noted that Roberts drank his Tea constantly...". Not common though, I can't think of any other references to it off the top of my head.

On the subject of fishing I found this today (God, it was good to get back amongst the boring old tomes and documents...). From the Journal of Francis Rogers (kinsman to the better known Woodes):

January 31, 1702

We have a large hook for that purpose [catching shark] called a shark-hook, about the thickness of our fingers, which is fastened to an iron chain about a yard long to prevent his biting it in pieces, all which is made fast to some rope in the ship, and being baited with a piece of beef or pork, about 3 or 4 pounds, is thrown over the ship's stern. As soon as he hears the noise in the water he makes up to it, and if the ship has any way through the water or he be anything hungry, he is not very ceremonious about it, but turns himself on his back and swallows hook and all. As soon as we see him take it, we strive to jerk it through his jaw to secure him.

I also came across some supply documents reckoning the amount of victuals required to supply a warship for a 168 day cruise, giving the different amounts for each different rate of ship. A sixth rate ship with 85 crew would equate to a medium sort of sized pirate ship:

Bread - 14,280 lb

Beer - 59 1/2 tons

Beef - 2,040 pieces

Pork - 2,040 pieces

Pease - 63 bushells

Fish - 765

Butter - 765 lb

Cheese - 765 lb

Total cost - £510

[Dorian Lasseter]

That's alot o' beer....

Hmmm...

How many gallons would that be?

[Fox]

It's one gallon per man per day, so 85 X 168 = 14,280 gallons

[Dorian Lasseter]

Right you are....

I must be off today, I didn't read th' 168 days and 85 men...

I figured it out with;

60 tons (rounded up for ease) = 120000 lbs / 8 (1 gal of water weighs roughly 8lbs) to get 15000 gallons...

Now... what was the amount of fresh water that would be carried?

Or was beer the substitute?

[dasNdanger]

As I understand it, the beer went off pretty fast, so it was usually consumed first. Water, if possible, could be replenished...but oft it was smelly and tasted foul.

Correct me, please, if I'm wrong. But make sure to use the designer cat, and furry manacles...

das

[Fox]

Water was drunk, but its quality could never be assured. There was no official provision made for water so far as I am aware until quite late (though the order for watering down the spirits came in 1740). Beer may well have gone bad quickly (see Nathaniel Knott's comments above), but water often started out bad.

Interestingly, I used to live in the old pump-house for the first ever sweet-water resevoir built in Britain. It was built to supply ships during the Colonial Scuffle, so that may well be the origin of the regulated water supply.

Also, seamen didn't much like drinking water - beer was often replaced with spirits or wine, but I don't imagine water would have been too popular. Maybe as an addition, but probably rarely as an alternative, except in the direst circumstances. Henry Teonge frequently notes the consumption of lemonade when the booze ran out.

[dasNdanger]

In all seriousness, Foxe, how on earth did these men keep from dehydrating? Today they tell us to drink 8 glasses of water a day, and alcohol should be avoided because it tends to be a diuretic, which exacerbates dehydration. So, if they were working like dogs and only drinking small amounts of water, and the rest of their diet consisted of alcohol - shouldn't they have had kidney failure within a few months??

das

[JoshuaRed]

I've wondered that too. Maybe the booze was lighter in alcohol % back then?

[Captain Bob]

In all seriousness, Foxe, how on earth did these men keep from dehydrating?  Today they tell us to drink 8 glasses of water a day, and alcohol should be avoided because it tends to be a diuretic, which exacerbates dehydration.  So, if they were working like dogs and only drinking small amounts of water, and the rest of their diet consisted of alcohol - shouldn't they have had kidney failure within a few months??

das

I recall reading an article in a science magazine where they debunked the notion that drinking diuretics (caffeine, alcohol, etc.) would mummify you unless you drank plenty of water besides. If I recall correctly, the article pointed out that:

1. Most caffeine-laden and alcohol-laced beverges do contain quite a bit of water,
   
2. Many foods we consume produce some water as a digestive byproduct, and
   
3. Otherwise healthy people become acclimated to diuretic beverages over time, and their bodies adjust to compensate.
   

Thus, unless your seamen have been abstaining for some time, their bodies very likely have already adjusted to compensate for both physical exertion and sub-optimal beverage. On the plus side, adding rum to water would very likely kill microbes that could cause even more dehydation. Ever hear of amoebic dysentery?

--Cap'n Bob

[Fox]

unless your seamen have been abstaining for some time

...And how likely is that?!?

Yes, beer was largely weaker then that it is now. Hey, even I can remember when most beer was weaker than it is now!

[Caraccioli]

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

I have. We were on an extended canoe trip and someone caught one and killed it. (Not a sea turtle - this was freshwater.) The trip guides instructed us on preparation - in which I had no part so I can't tell you much about that.

As I recall, it reminded me stongly of tough chicken, a notion corraborated by some of my trip-mates. (It tastes like chicken! What did you expect?) Of course, we hadn't had any fresh meat for a week at that point, so who knows?

[Fox]

In late 1680 a prosecution was brought before the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Mass., by one Henry Lilly, and English emigrant, against George Penny, master of the ship Unity which had carried him and his wife to America along with several other pasengers. As well as allegedly forcing the passengers to pick oakum, and witholding their rations if they did not, and brutalising passengers with a rope's end, Penny also skimped on the rations which he did eventually mete out.

Two of Lilly's fellow passengers deposed that:

There was only about one pound of beef for six passengers, and only three times a week, and the drink was either very salt or as thick as pudding, and only about a pint a day to a passenger.

Three other passengers deposed further that:

...the fish they had to eat was rotten, the beer as thick as puddle water or else salt.

However, the gunner, cooper, and surgeon of the Unity all stated that:

...the allowance on board was no less for five men, women and children, than one piece of beef a day, mess pieces cut at London, 2 1/2 pounds of flour, with peas, 11 pints a day for the ship's company and passengers, four pounds of bread a piece every week, and as for fish, they heard no complaint of want. Every mess had a pound and a half of butter every week, and as for beer and water, the least allowance was three pints a day for men, women, and children, until the last week of the voyage when each person had a quart a day.

The court found in favour of Lilly and the other passengers.