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FOOD and travel have always been the Yin and Yang of human evolution. Before mankind developed into its modern variant with snazzy tech around them, humans had to relentlessly travel to sustain themselves. From the prehistoric Stone Age, Neanderthals were known to rely on the constant state of flux to protect the group or individuals from any predator attack or natural calamities. Once farming was introduced to the social canvas, colonies were built only after meticulous recces for fecund land.
Even after the social order called for settlements and scheduled living, a constant need to explore still burnt strong within a few, since it has always been an innate instinct among people. And thus new continents, peoples and cultures were discovered after extensive sea voyages commissioned by royal armies across the world. A huge part of human exploration has been dependent on maritime transport. The primary mode of long-distance travel for centuries, ships have been a crucial melting pot of many-a traditions. A major among them were the culinary customs that shaped how explorers ate, what new practices they encountered while discovering new lands and the recipes and ingredients they adapted into their own lands back home.
North American sailors have always been notoriously infamous for their months-long voyages that ended up lasting for years. The pioneering batch of sailors notwithstanding, even a period as late as the 1700s and 1800s saw dire situations across the globe in terms of food health on ships. The need to provide nutritious food to the crew was an added concern. As a result, hard foods that needed minimum maintenance were items worth carrying. The list would generally include things like salt meats (mostly pork or beef), hard cheeses, hardtack (a tough cookie of sorts), and salted fish along with grog or ale instead of water (owing to the latter’s propensity to rot).
In fact, after the French Revolution in 1794, Congress officially declared a sailor’s daily rations in a listed format. It read as follows:
Sunday: 1 lb. bread, 1 ½ lb. beef, ½ pt. rice
Monday: 1 lb. bread, 1 lb. pork, ½ pt. pease [sic], 4 oz. cheese
Tuesday: 1 lb. bread, 1 ½ lb. beef, 1 lb. potatoes or turnips and pudding
Wednesday: 1 lb. bread, 2 oz. butter or, in lieu thereof, 6 oz. molasses, 4 oz. cheese, and ½ pt. rice
Thursday: 1 lb. bread, 1 lb. pork, ½-pint pease, ½ pt. pease or beans
Friday: 1 lb. bread, 1 lb. salt fish, 2 oz. butter or 1-gill oil and 1 lb. potatoes
Saturday: 1 lb. bread, 1 lb. pork, ½-pint pease or beans, 4 oz. cheese
[oz stands for ounce; lb stands for pound; and gill equals a quarter of a pint]
Interestingly, however, there was a division between these rationings as well. Depending upon your rank, you were allowed access to dried spices, butter and herbs (items sparse and rare on naval journeys).
The quality of ingredients used would also vary as per official designation. Author and food historian Sandy Oliver remarks about such food traditions by saying “What the men ate on vessels was not just a matter of food preservation and rations. What really makes a difference in what you eat, is who you are.” According to Oliver, the dish’s appearance was a telltale sign of who its recipient would be. While most sailors survived on hardtack (biscuit composed from a dough of flour, salt and water) and stews which were bulked up with water, officers and ranking officials would be provided with fresh cuts like a lamb chop, pork chunks or even chicken legs, and freshly toasted bread. Not only that, they would also have the privilege of feasting on canned milk, alcohol, sugar, butter, spices and flour. Fares like lobscouse (a salt meat stew) and duff (steamed pudding using dry fruits as garnish) would be prepared for both classes. But the ingredients used while making the officers’ dessert would consist of fruit, rum and sugar while the sailors’ recipes included artificial sweeteners or molasses.
When excavating the remains of the 1614 English galleon Warwick in 2010, a team found glass shards containing wine and beer. They also found cow bones in the pantry. This gave them a clear idea about the cuts that sailors preferred for their beef that had longer preservation periods. For example, numerous bags of dried peas would be carried onboard. The vegetable’s long shelf life along with its versatile use made it a common element on ship menus. While peas could easily be boiled, mashed and made into soup, they could also be served as a side to a salt meat chunk, or even a sweet accompaniment with the hardstack.
Since overseas voyage also has a strong African connection, their culinary customs were bound to have a long-lasting impact on how foods were consumed onboard. Thus came into existence the widespread use of “jerky” meat or pemmican. In this process, the available meat was pulverised and mixed with the tallow. Along with beef jerky, spruce tea was also a must on a nautical menu as a way to prevent scurvy.
Overland journeys, on the other hand, were somewhat harder. The food items needed to be boxed into smaller units since they would be carried either on the back or atop animals.
Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark’s military expedition into the Pacific Northwest and Louisiana Purchase proved to be one of America’s most successful voyages ever. Dated 1804-06, the journey is documented in minute detail with numerous pages dedicated to their daily food intake. The two fellow army men concocted what they termed "portable soup" and carried 193 pounds of it. The broth was essentially a concentrated paste made of boiled venison, buffalo meat and beef, mixed with eggs and vegetables. This could easily be mixed with some hot water and eaten as a whole meal when supply was scarce. The other fascinating ‘hack food’ invention was ‘parchmeal’, a corn-based protein powder. Parchmeal was made by heating up corn kernels till they swell up like corn nuts, and ground into a powder. Lewis and Clarke carried 1220 pounds of parchmeal, along with 3705 pounds of pork, 3400 pounds of flour, and 560 pounds of hardstack on their 1804 expedition. Along with this were 600 pounds of tallow (grease) and 70 pounds of lard.
From days of storing pork chunks in brine water inside large barrels to the modern six-course in-flight menus, food has come a long way, both generationally and aesthetically. However chic travel food may have become, the old-world charm of slicing into a cheese wheel and munching on hard slices of bread always has a special, rustic wholesomeness to it…simply the Moby Dick way.
