The prevailing image of food at sea in the age of sail features rotting meat and weevily biscuits, but this highly original book proves beyond doubt that this was never the norm. Building on much recent research Janet Macdonald shows how the sailor's official diet was better than he was likely to enjoy ashore, and of ample calorific value for his highly active shipboard life. When trouble flared and food was a major grievance in the great mutinies of 1797 the usual reason was the abuse of the system. This system was an amazing achievement. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy's administrators fed a fleet of more than 100,000 men, in ships that often spent months on end at sea. Despite the difficulty of preserving food before the advent of refrigeration and meat-canning, the British fleet had largely eradicated scurvy and other dietary disorders by 1800. This was the responsibility of the Victualling Board, a much-maligned but generally efficient bureaucracy that organized the preparing and packing of meat, the brewing of beer, the baking of ship's biscuit, and all the logistics of the Navy and on an industrial scale unparalleled elsewhere. Once aboard ship food and drink was subject to stringent controls to ensure fairness, and this book takes a fresh look at the tarnished reputations of Purser and Cook, before turning to the ways both officers and men were able to supplement their official rations, including the keeping of livestock on board. A chapter compares provisions in the other major navies of the time, and the book concludes with recipes for some of the exotic sounding dishes, like lobscouse, prepared by naval cooks. While Feeding Nelson's Navy contains much of value to the historian, it is written with a popular touch that will enthral anyone with an interest in life at sea in the age of sail.
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About the Author
Janet Macdonald has written a number of books on cookery subjects, and this one is based on her current research into naval victualling for a higher degree at the Greenwich Maritime Institute.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent look into an important but neglected subject,
By Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era (Hardcover)
Cervantes in "Don Quixote" lampoons the writers of chivalric romances for failing to address the mundane realities of life, chief among them being how their heroic knights errant managed to feed themselves. To a lesser degree, perhaps, the modern authors of nautical fiction likewise do not much address the question of how their seaborne heroes (and their crews) were fed, day in and day out. Undoubtedly this is partly because it is far more interesting to write about boarding an enemy frigate than boiling salt beef, but I suspect that it also has to do with the absence of readily available, reliable information about the subject. Now, Janet Macdonald has addressed this want of discussion with "Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era". Coming from a background of writing about cookery, she has tackled the complex and surprisingly mysterious question of how in the world the Royal Navy fed itself during the classic Age of Fighting Sail. Although it might be thought that a matter of such obvious vital importance to maintaining a fighting fleet of tens of thousands of mariners would have been recorded officially in detail, in point of fact Macdonald has had to sift through obscure primary documents such as ships' logs, personal memoirs, and period letters to adequately explore how it was all done: from procuring the foodstuffs (and drink) in the first place, to storing them, getting them to the ships in port and at sea, storing the victuals aboard, preparing meals, and serving them to officer and crews. And even with such diligent research, she must resort to informed speculation to address some questions, such as just how a ship's cook kept separate the rations for the various messes and served them out in an efficient manner. The breadth of coverage is impressive: the Navy's Victualling Board administration, officially mandated rations and substitutes, typical recipes, shipboard organization, disease and vermin, the "hardware" of food preparation and consumption (stoves and dining implements), and surrounding social customs. For anyone interested in the real world of the Royal Navy behind the fiction Horatio Hornblowers and Jack Aubreys, "Feeding Nelson's Navy" is a revelation, dispelling old myths and offering new facts such as the caloric and vitamin content of the men's meals. Macdonald throughout her book illustrates the practicalities of the subject by citing numerous real-life incidents drawn from period documents.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Remarkable Case of Research,
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This review is from: Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era (Paperback)
In "Feeding Nelson's Navy", author Janet MacDonald has put together some remarkable research to lay waste the myths of shipboard feeding in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
The British Navy, in the long struggle against Revolutionary and then Imperial France, kept tens of thousands of men at sea for months on end. Popular myth has them subsisting on rotten salted meat and weevily bread. MacDonald shows the sailor aboard the average British warship ate a sufficient and reasonably nutritious diet. Official rations were based on biscuit (pilot bread for today's readers), salt beef, salt pork, cheese, peas, oatmeal, and beer. These were the foods which kept best in a world without refrigeration or canning. Other foods were provided when available, and the British Navy lead the way in experimenting with dried vegetables, "portable" soups, and lemon juice to stave off nutritional diseases such as scurvy. The British Navy's ability to supply its sailors with a good ration through years of war were thanks to the efforts of the Navy Board and its victualing system. MacDonald's description of its business techniques may be daunting for the reader, but the lesson is that the system was made to work, around the fleet and around the world, in a consistent manner. No other navy of the period enjoyed so much consistent success at sea. Along with the details of the ration cycle and the mechanics of the supply system, MacDonald provides considerable insight into "messing" at sea, a vital and often unremarked portion of naval culture. This book is very highly reccommended to students of the Nelsonian Navy and of the Napoleonic Wars. MacDonald has mined this particular academic niche to its reasonable limits.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard tack, salted beef and split peas; the sailor's meal in Nelson's Navy!,
By Harrison (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era (Paperback)
Author Janet Macdonald writes an informative and in depth book about feeding English sailors in the early 19th century. Macdonald covers everything that made up the sailors diet, from hard tack (ships biscuit) to salted beef. She writes in detail for example how the hard tack was made, who made it, and how it was delivered, stored and dispensed on the ships. She covers the different subjects throughly and supports her writings with facts from many sources such as the Naval historical archives and log books to name a few sources.
This book is an interesting read for those who want to know about such a integral part of the English sailor's life!
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