Ship Food

The sea biscuit, salted beef and pork, peas, and beans of shipboard food are popularly known and are often equated with hardship. Throughout most of American maritime history, though, what any seafarer ate aboard a vessel also had a great deal to do with who owned the vessel, what branch of maritime activity it was engaged in, and where in the shipboard hierarchy the seafarer stood.

Most of the rationing schemes employed by American private or naval vessels were based on British example. Once the voyages of discovery were largely past and regular patterns of transatlantic and coastwise trading, travel, and fishing had been established, sufficient experience informed vessel provisioning. Barring bad weather or a navigator’s grave misjudgment, the length of a voyage was relatively predictable. Further, as certain places became established ports, a ship’s captain knew where he would be able to restock provisions and take on water. Bakers making ship’s biscuits and butchers engaged in barreling salt meat established businesses even in the early 1600s in port towns and cities.