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Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era

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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.

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.

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!

This is a subject that has always fascinated me, and also a subject of great misinformation. Many naval fiction books tell of the horrible food served to the British navy during the Age of sail, yet we know it couldn't have been that bad.

This book contains the truth- with and without weevils. One surprising conclusion is that the daily diet was nigh on 5000 calories! yes, it might have been boring and surely some of the tales of rock hard "salt horse" are true, but by and large it wasn't that bad.

The well researched book also contains looks into the diet and rations of the other sailing navies of the time.

One nice addition is a number of recipes at the back, where you can try your one hand at eating like a "jolly tar". Make yourself some lobscouse and imagine you're supping with Cap't Hornblower or Aubrey.

Fun, interesting and informative.

She missed one small item from the nutritional chart on page 180- dried peas. FYI, they contain about 13 IU of Vit A, and less than a mg of Vit C. Plenty of fiber, however.

This book tells the reader all he or she needs to know, and even some things they might not want to know about the food in the Georgian Royal Navy. In this highly detailed book, Ms. Macdonald traces the supply of food from sources to purchasing to consumption from the lower to the Captain. Included are charts of calories, vitamin content, recipes, conversion charts, etc., etc. The book is very readable and of use to the casual reader as well as the scholar. This is a permanent edition to my bookshelf.

I've read a lot of nautical history and fiction from this era but I put off buying this book because I thought "How interesting can a book about salted meat and biscuits be?" I was wrong. This book proved to be very interesting and well-written. While I am not an expert, it appeared to me to be well-researched as well. Most, but not all, the documents referenced were generated during the Napoleonic Wars. I highly recommend it to anyone fascinated by "tall ships" and "hearts of oak".