If ships ’ logs and sailors ' diaries are to be believed , the gastronomic situation duringearly voyagesacross the Atlantic was fearsome .
“ Lady Sea will not digest or conserve meat or fish that is not dressed in her salt , ” wrote Spanish explorer Eugenio de Salazar in his complaint - fill up 1573 missive that ’s now dubbed “ The Landlubber ’s Lament . ” He holler that water system is ration “ by the apothecaries' ounce , as in a pharmacy , ” and he describe wooden plates “ filled with stringy beef spliff , dressed with some partly cooked tendons . ” Other intellectual nourishment , Salazar suppose , is so “ stinky and stink ” that you ’d be expert off lose your sense of sense of taste and smell just to get it all down .
Most chefs would be happy to leave this dreary slice offood historybehind . But a chemical group of archaeologists in Texas has just begin an strange experiment to faithfully renovate the menu onboard a distinctive transatlantic sailing ship . By doing so , they desire to take more about navy man nourishment .
“ We use modern standard to extrapolate healthfrom the past , ” projection drawing card Grace Tsai , a doctoral pupil in Texas A&M University ’s nautical archaeology program , tells Mental Floss . “ But you wo n’t know [ the food ’s ] nutritional time value until you really make it with a historical recipe and get that try out in a laboratory . ”
Over the last few months , Tsai and her colleague have been hone 17th - century recipe for proviso likeship ’s biscuit(a long - lasting dry banger ) and salted nitty-gritty . On August 19 , they loaded their canvass sack and heavy barrels into the grip of a 19th - century tall ship namedElissathat ’s moor in Galveston . They ’ll do nutritionary and microbial depth psychology on the food for thought every 10 days over the next three months .
Without canning or infrigidation , salting was indeed the most popular way to preserve nutrient for long journeys . And when Panama hat would reach new lands , they preserved whatever animals they could run . Richard Wilk , an anthropologist at Indiana University who is not associate with the project , said there are some account of hungry sailors in the Southern Hemisphere stuffing casks with salted penguins . “ Basically , if it was meat and they could salt it and dry it , then they could hold it around with them , ” Wilk tells Mental Floss .
almost every score from European vessels between the 16th and eighteenth centuries lists salted beef , which is similar to corned beef cattle , among the provisions , Tsai said . So her team butchered a tip and a hogget to make brine-cured gripe and salt porc . They based their cut of meat on the bones that were found at the shipwreck of theWarwick , an English galleon carry supplies to Jamestown , Virginia , that dip in 1619 off the sea-coast of Bermuda during a hurricane . They followed a recipe from a 1682 Englishtexton salting intellectual nourishment , ordered salt from France , and consulted local environmental officials in Texas to observe the purest river water to make their seawater .
Though it was belike warm and bland , beer could make or break a ocean trip , too . Useful as a societal lubricant , beer was also often uninfected than booze urine , and it supply some Calorie , food , and probiotics , Tsai mark . One routine of American lore that suds enthusiast love to cite is that beer might have played a role in the lostMayflowerpilgrims ’ decision to settle down at Plymouth , Massachusetts . “ We could not now take prison term for further search or retainer , our provender being much drop , especially our Beere , ” Governor William Bradford explained in his journal .
Changes in temperature and humidity , and the rocking of the waves , could have touch the solid food on other transatlantic voyages , too . That ’s why the researchers are storing their supplies in theElissainstead of a lab . They expect to find not just dependency of microbes , but insects , too . “ The ship ’s biscuit would almost always grow weevils , ” Tsai said . And English navy man , sticklers for custom , did n’t apply an airtight container for the firecracker , but a canvass bag . Exposed to sea line and humidity , the biscuits often became musty and mushy over prison term .
In some mode , the undertaking in Texas is n’t a entirely fresh estimate . In recent eld , brewers have attempted to resurrect Egyptian ales and Iron Age Margaret Mead . data-based archaeologists have try out to recreate Stone Age barbecues and slaughter techniques . Food historian Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific pointed out that sites like Hampton Court Palace in London , Colonial Williamsburg , and Plimoth Plantation serve diachronic meals regularly , though those initiation tend to be less adventuresome about preserving and curing . “ Modern hoi polloi are indeed very frightened about food poisoning , so matter like this that can go wrong are usually beyond their comfort zone , ” Albala , who is not involved in the Texas project , order Mental Floss .
Tsai saw those limitations firsthand while doing research at Colonial Williamsburg . clothe like a compound son ( the adult clothes were too big for her ) , she work behind the scenes at the living history museum for two weeks to teach more about plow the watertight oak barrels she ’ll be using for the labor . She note that the cooks at Colonial Williamsburg were using a seawater recipe for salt-cured squawk that call in for 35 pounds of saltiness to 8 gallon of water , but her 17th - 100 recipes say the seawater is ready when it float an egg . “ That ’s in reality a lot less salt , ” Tsai said . While historical reenactors may alter recipes for public safety reasons , the Texas team is take for authenticity .
When the squad get to the barrels , they ’ll look for thermal content , weewee contentedness , atomic number 11 , vitamins , and minerals . Tsai is particularly interested in what kinds of bacterium she ’ll detect grow on the nutrient — not just the disease - causing bug , but probiotics , too .
“ We barely ever feed anything that has probiotic microflora anymore , and even when we do it ’s a strict musical style , ” Tsai said . She suspects that sailor ingested a more divers group of microbes than we do today , and investigating these organisms could shed light on change in the human bowel microbiome as modern diets have become bound to better hygiene standard .
“ If they do it correctly , the food for thought should still be palatable , but whether it ’s going to stand up up to modern scientific standards of ' ok to use up , ' I ca n’t really guess , ” Albala said . “ Of of course , on many ships in the past , the food did indeed go spoilt . Sometimes they ate it anyway because they had no choice . It would have been a luxuriousness to toss it . ”
Because of condom concerns ( and institutional review panel restriction ) , Tsai and her fellow worker wo n’t get to consume the meat they ’re storing on circuit board theElissa . But she has an estimate of how the brine-cured beef might taste after ready some she got from Colonial Williamsburg . “ You know that metal taste you get when you have a bloody nose ? It smack like that . ”
