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Solving the Nutritional Mystery of Historical Food at Sea | Atlas Obscura

 It's easy to take salt for granted. Cheap and plentiful, it’s not the sort of the thing you expect to find mixed with the dregs of human existence, especially when you're seasoning a nice cut of meat. But salt in earlier centuries was not the same as the salt we have today. According to one…

 It's easy to take salt for granted. Cheap and plentiful, it’s not the sort of the thing you expect to find mixed with the dregs of human existence, especially when you're seasoning a nice cut of meat. But salt in earlier centuries was not the same as the salt we have today. According to one account of French bay salt in 1746, it was “always mixed with dirt and nastiness which makes up a full seventh part.”

“The filth arises from putrefied human bodies, dead fish and the carcasses of animals,” the writer continued, “and from most immense quantities of different kinds of rotten weeds together with innumerable other unwholesome mixtures brought into the salines by the tide.”

via www.atlasobscura.com

Recreating a ship's ration from the 17th century is surprisingly difficult.

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Responses to “Solving the Nutritional Mystery of Historical Food at Sea | Atlas Obscura”

  1. Quartermaster

    Their diet was pretty revolting. It’s a wonder the Royal Navy, and the others at the time weren’t constantly riven by mutiny over the food quality alone.

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  2. George V

    The article says the food will be casked and stored for 3 months before they test it. Some readings I recall of the Royal Navy in the days of sail indicate that those casks of salt beef might be taken off one ship, put in storage, then issued to another ship. It might be 2 or 3 years before the cask is opened. Bleah….

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