Not Another Food Blog

What did pirates eat?

September 19th is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It started as a joke by two friends, John Baur and Mark Summers, in 1995 and since then has taken over the world. Today you should speak in ‘Arrrs!’ and drink lots of rum.  Naturally, I started thinking about other things that pirates drank and ate.

First two things that come to my mind when thinking about pirate gastronomy are rum and pineapples, probably because I have a romanticised idea that all pirates sailed in the Caribbean. That’s of course not the case and the food and drink habits of the rebels at sea varied through centuries and locations.

Those lucky enough to have a pirate haven near by could always make trips back for fresh supplies of fruit, cheese, vegetables and meat. However, on longer voyages pirates had to rely on not so nice dry biscuits, pickled vegetables and salted meats. They would often keep caged chickens and cows for fresh eggs and milk, which they would kill once there was nothing left to feed them. Sailors would often get sick from eating foods that were spoilt. The cooks used lots of herbs and spices to disguise the taste of a rotten ingredient.

In some cases, the food options were so scarce pirates would kill and eat their slaves and captives, and even chew on leather which they would tenderise by beating and rubbing it with stones. I think as long as they had enough rum and pirates would have been happy. Here is a list of foods, dishes and drinks that might have been found on board of a pirate ship (I didn’t look into Asian, Arabic and Indian pirates so this pretty much goes for European pirates)

• Bombo/bumboo – mixture of rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg.
• Rumfustian drink - blended raw eggs with sugar, sherry, gin, and beer.
• Beer, sherry, brandy, and port.
• Dried foods and beans
• Sour Krout and other pickled vegetables
• Turtle soup and turtle eggs which were considered a delicacy
• Pirates bones soup – made with whatever bones they could find such as those of rotten animals and chickens, fish, birds and dead men.
• Salmagundi -  basically a stew of whatever cook had on hand , chopped meat, anchovies, onions, eggs, with vinegar, oil and spices.  Recipe
• Hard Tack sea biscuits – kind of like our modern days crackers
• Honey cake (Swedish, early 17th century) Recipe
• O’Hanlons stew (Irish 16th century style) Recipe
• Stuffed hen (late 16th century) Recipe
• Meat pie (16th century) Recipe

Above info is from the interwebs so it’s like my grandmother’s war stories - interesting and not necessarily fictitious. For some reason not many sources mentioned fish or seafood which would have been my first choice being on the ship and all. What would you eat as a pirate? I still see pineapples and coconuts in my head…and Mojitos…and Johnny Depp…arrr!

Have a great Talk Like a Pirate Day!