Is there any chance Gordon Ramsay level Cooks were doing all this? Based on this menu I would run away from any press-gang. And were limes and lemons a part of the diet to combat scurvy at this point in history?
In the period from 1900 onwards how much control did a Royal Navy rating have over choosing their career. And how easy would it have been to join the niche services such as rating pilots/ aircrew?
I like to imagine Drach later on stumbling down the high street at 3 a.m. loudly singing sea shanties and telling the Police that it was all for educational purposes. And the police are somewhat confused when Drachinfel offers them a pea and bacon sandwich.
Portuguese here: the vinagre would be red wine vinagre, and you would use some to mix with olive oil and eat on top of the sardines (that by the way sardines are considered a top notch food here, so serving sardines to sailors would be a special occasion). The remaining vinagre you mix with water, maybe add some spices and you got Posca, and that's a sour drink that is surprisingly good and refreshing. Posca has the same nutricional qualities of a modern sports drink so sailors (and land workers) would drink this to recuperate during and after a lot of physical work.
Yep. When i was running cross country in high school, i used to make hunigar. Which is a mix of water, vinegar, and honey. Tasty, quenched your thirst, and provided a quick energy boost. This is before gatoraide became a thing. And honestly, gatoraide is better, but only by a little bit.
@@jeromethiel4323 I remember a drink of apple cider vinegar, honey and water, but mom made it hot kinda like tea, to clear my throat when I had a cold, so I wasn't so keen on drinking it iced in the summertime.
If memory serves the beans/peas, meat and fish would have been boiled up in a common caldron to make soups and stews then the hard tack or bread (which would have been a lot denser than a modern loaf and stale after the first few hours) would have been crumbled up into the soups to soften them enough to eat. Not unlike having crackers in your soup today. As for the "beer" it would probably have been what was called short ale or beer. Basically after you made the first batch of beer using the malted grain (which produced a batch like modern beer for alcohol content) a second batch of the short beer would be made using the left over solids or "mash". Because most of the sugars had been used up in the first fermentation the alcohol content for this batch would be closer to a modern wine cooler. So still alcoholic but not likely to get you roaring drunk especially as it would be drunk over the course of the whole day rather than in one binge session in the evening like modern consumption practices.
The English beer ration was almost assuredly small beer so the crew wasn't stumbling around drunk and "Three Sheets to Wind" See the traditional Ploughman's Lunch (Jug of beer, Small Loaf of Bread, Cheese and maybe an onion for flavor) "Small beer (also known as small ale or table beer) is a lager or ale that contains a lower amount of alcohol by volume than most others, usually between 0.5% and 2.8%.[1][2] Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favoured drink in Medieval Europe and colonial North America compared with more expensive beer containing higher levels of alcohol. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and by servants. At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, persons of all ages drank small beer, particularly while eating a meal at the table. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% alcohol by volume (ABV)" "It was common for workers who engaged in laborious tasks to drink more than ten imperial pints (5.7 litres) of small beer a day to quench their thirst. Small beer was also consumed for its nutrition content. It might contain traces of wheat or bread suspended within it." "A ploughman's lunch is an English cold meal based around bread, cheese, and fresh or pickled onions.[1] Additional items can be added such as ham, green salad, hard boiled eggs, and apple, and usual accompaniments are butter and "pickle", which in Britain denotes a chutney-like condiment. As its name suggests, it is most commonly eaten at lunchtime. It is particularly associated with pubs, and often served with beer. Beer, bread, and cheese have been combined in the English diet since antiquity, and have been served together in inns for centuries. Pierce the Ploughman's Crede (c. 1394) mentions the traditional ploughman's meal of bread, cheese, and beer. Bread and cheese formed the basis of the diet of English rural labourers for centuries: skimmed-milk cheese, supplemented with a little lard and butter, was their main source of fats and protein. In the absence of access to expensive seasonings, onions were the "favoured condiment", as well as providing a valuable source of vitamin C. The reliance on cheese rather than meat protein was especially strong in the south of the country.[7] As late as the 1870s, farmworkers in Devon were said to eat "bread and hard cheese at 2d. a pound, with cider very washy and sour" for their midday meal.[While this diet was associated with rural poverty, it also gained associations with more idealised images of rural life. Anthony Trollope in The Duke's Children has a character comment that "A rural labourer who sits on the ditch-side with his bread and cheese and an onion has more enjoyment out of it than any Lucullus". While farm labourers usually carried their food with them to eat in the fields, similar food was for a long time served in public houses as a simple, inexpensive meal. In 1815, William Cobbett recalled how farmers going to market in Farnham, forty years earlier, would often add "2d. worth of bread and cheese" to the pint of beer they drank at the inn stabling their horses.[10] In the 19th century the English fondness for serving cheese and bread with beer was noted, as "the very dryness and saltness heighten thirst, and therefore the relish of the beer".In the early 20th century, bread and cheese was still the only food available in many rural pubs: in 1932 Martin Armstrong described stopping at village inns for a lunch of bread, cheese and beer, noting that "On these occasions in country inns when bread, cheese and beer seem so extraordinarily good, the alternative is generally nothing; and compared with nothing bread, cheese, and beer are beyond compare"
As an Englishman, I have a surpassing love for fresh bread, cheese and ale. If there's some pickles to compliment it I consider myself to have dined better than any mere Prince. Something my Zimbabwean wife has commented on. At length.
Did not know Pyrex had a challenge for ,’ how much can one spill from our “spill-proof spout” challenge . Bot our honored historiographer took that challenge and ran with it . Please take no offense ,but as a chef/slash cook for many years ,to see that amount of spillage made me laugh for minutes on end,especially with the concerted concentrated look OHHD,( our honored historiographer Drachinifel ) had while doing so . Again thank you as always for providing ,and doing any and all naval historical things before 1950 . You’re a class act sir !
I honestly think that their quality control on the pouring spouts is slipping or something - I bought a new Pyrex jug recently and it's amazingly difficult to pour from it without spilling. Meanwhile the ones from my grandmother and my mom's house both pour with no trouble at all. I need to get them all together sometime to compare the shape and see if the difference is noticeable by eye.
After seeing a photo labeled Bismarck, on Facebook, when 8n fact it was California after her pearl harbor rebuild, I am so blessed to see naval sanity return in one of your videos, thank you!!!!
I get they had a shorter supply chain, but the English seem to account for nearly 2000 more calories per sailor per day, which would probably have a knock on effect for performance for the individual sailor.
@@arkhaan7066 The English rations are designed for people to live on for a pretty much permanent basis and still have useful sailors, while the Spanish ones are likely built around a campaign of a couple of months max before they returned to base. It reminds me of WW2 where the American field rations are the only ones that were close to being sufficient for a soldier in a campaign without scavenging.
@@warhawk4494 I'm sure this community and SteveMRE1989's have a lot of overlap. Id say deffinetly Forgotten weapons too. Military History with a top notch relaxing vibe is a very specific niche with many connoisseurs such as ourselves.
Very fascinating and educational presentation, Drach! When I first reported to college our mandatory freshmen health class gave us the assignment of calculating our caloric intake for an average pre-college day. Mine came to 5000-5500 depending on what was for breakfast. Being a farmer and working all day at the time, I was very lean in spite of the amount I ate. Nowadays it is a different story...
When my brother was working in home construction he would have a normal breakfast in the morning, eat about half of his packed lunch on his first break mid-morning, lunch was $20-30 at the catering truck, the rest of his packed lunch was his afternoon snack, he might pick up a burger or two on the way home, then after a hour of resting, would have a double-sized dinner, and maybe even a late night snack. And if he didn't eat like that, he would start to dangerously lose weight. - It was quite an adjustment when he changed to a CAD job at a desk!
In terms of calories, I started out in '74 with the "Meal, Combat, Individual" - each box of which was 1200 calories. So 3600 if you were actually issued three meals/day and ate everything. About what the Spaniards were eating
As a point of reference: I live in the Seattle area. It is reputed that the loggers of the 1800's got something like 7,000 to 9,000 calories a day. When I hiked the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail I ate about 5,000 calories a day once I finally managed to stabilize my weight. So yeah, those guys getting 3 to nearly 5k a day makes sense to me. Great episode as always.
I've always been impressed by how navys managed the logistics of food and other supplies, for that many men in such "small" ships -- and the trade and infrastructure that existed to support it.
Actually easier for navies than armies - The problem in a nutshell is that anything available to these armies prior to the advent of the railroad that can carry food, also eats food... We may call this problem the ‘tyranny of the wagon equation.’ A man in the army, for example, a Roman soldier, cannot carry three months worth of food - he must be supplied by some home base. If he carries a maximum of ten days of food, and walks at a speed of 20 miles per day, his effective range limit is 200 miles, hard stop. Supply trains are therefore necessary, and donkeys are much better at carrying food than humans are. However, donkeys also eat food. So how much do they extend the effective range of an army? This point is discussed in Devereaux’s blog post (so please read it for details), but the essence is found in this quote concerning wagons drawn by animals: Assuming two-horse 1400 lb wagons… for a group of thirty infantryman the [addition of] the first wagon [to the supply train] doubles their range from 120 to 240 miles… Doubling again to around 400 (accounting for horse rest time) requires not two but six wagons for thirty men. To double the range again would require more wagons than men.
@@patricknakasone9376 it did work best when army was on the move, but armies "taxed" the local population even if garrisoned on their land. i.e. armies took a part of the food, and it's not like the civilians had much choice but to cooperate. (unless they were ready to rebel)
During the age of sail one of the major incentives for joining the Royal Navy was the promise of regular food. Sure you risked all sorts of horrible deaths, harsh working conditions, and strict discipline but you where going to get fed a good diet.
This video shows the human side of life in a European navy in the age of sail and is very. well received. Please extend to Mrs. Drachinifel my most sincere thanks for her tolerance and patience in the production of this video. This work by your husband has answered a number of questions for me as an historian.
Construction workers drink that and even more and still manage to function normally. It's for the entire day. Those guys must have had a high calory spend to keep functioning, so I'm not surprised. Plus you know, it can get boring at sea. What else is to do other than get drunk?
@@bjorntrollgesicht1144 The fluids (and solids) you take in has to leave somehow. If you're sick, it can be a revolving door, or an expressway. If you're working hard the fluid leaves you primarily through your pores and your breathing.
@@bjorntrollgesicht1144 Given the potential lengths they could be at sea and the state water can quickly get into, it absolutely would have if only because it would still be safe to drink. The beer the English would have had would be far far weaker than what we'd drink today, even the cheap beer Drach offered up, and was more mildly hoppy tasting water I'd imagine with just enough alcohol content to kill bacteria and the like. So far as purely nutritional value is concerned? It's probably a bit of a toss-up, though it all would've been pretty watered down regardless (even the Spaniards wine would've been mixed with water)
@@5ilent5hift makes sense. Actually on that, all Mediterranean folks drink their wine diluted with water, it's a thing done since ancient times. I tried it myself (with cold sparkling water) and ever since it became my favorite way of consuming wine. It works like a charm for heat waves and depending on the mixture, it's pretty light on the head!
In Czechia we put vinegar into a lentil soup...its usually eaten at least with fried onion, (I personally also put in a bunch of garlick and olives) but id imagine that you could make a soup with the chick peas in the same way (tho it would be a bit bland)
18th & 19th century navvies, constructing the canals and railways were on about 8000 calories daily, but for that were shifting around 18-20 tons of dirt… each…
Just a few thoughts from someone who cooks with dried/preserved -but not particularly modern- foods a lot: - Chickpeas/peas/rice and beans were probably measured dry, uncooked. A lot of the water ration may have gone into cooking them. - Vinegar was probably not the powerful white vinegar you might use for cleaning, but a wine, cider, or balsamic vinegar. This more pleasant acidity may have benefited the cooking water for the beans/chickpeas. - The oil may have been used to cook the fish or it may have been used to dip bread into, like a Mediterranean version of bread and butter. - Whether and how the fish was cooked probably depended on how the fish was preserved. While the English may have been fighting off their own doorstep, fish just doesn't last more than a day without preservation, so I don't imagine you'd get fresh fish. I find the rice surprising, since you're already getting so much bread, but it does store really well so it makes sense from one perspective. What else surprises me is the complete lack of even pickled vegetables.
I see you corrected ‘the’ to ‘that’ in the last 20 min… Drac! I love your programming and I hope you’re appointed a scholar chair some time in the future. You kick ass!
We need to know - what fascinating receipe did you come up with to use up all that food after filming? How much did the dog benefit from the enterprise and how's the hangover coming along?
When looking at the calorie discrepancy between the two sides, I wouldn’t be surprised if the English actually just issued more calories as default. Being used to cold weather operations might have affected what they saw as necessary. That being said, that’s probably not where a full thousand calorie discrepancy comes from
Great stuff Drach! I had been wondering about this exact question recently. I also loved your old video about hardtack and salted meat. Both very educational.
Just for a quick multi-cultural exchange: the Bavarian conversion rate equates about 3 pints of beer (1.5 Liters) for a full meal (Steak with sides and Sald). So the English seem to be more or less close, substituting one Lbs of bread for a liquid ration. That is if you start the conversion after drinking the other 4 pints of beer.
Great presentation, and thank you for introducing me to the book, Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance in 1588. Shortly after watching your video I ordered a copy of the book, and it is excellent!
I was curious about the vinegar and they used it two ways. Mixed with water it becomes a 'thirst quenching drink' and you could also use it as a body wash. Working on ships from the era im pretty sure that a body wash would've been a necessity!
In some parts of Mozambique the locals dip dry bread into a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sometimes with peri peri , maybe the Spanish were dipping their bread into a mixture of vinegar and olive oil?
The logistics side of the day to day military on land or on sea is seldom understood by most. Inevitably when discussing force composition someone asks why so many supporting units. Providing food to the line (along with ammunition) takes more than a one for one staffing to run efficiently.
For the two world wars that likely is close to true. Mechanization and automation has cut that number down to more like 4 to 1. It of course depends on force composition and location of action, but few really can comprehend what it takes to support the military thousands of miles away from home.@@earlcollinsworth
Dunno. Scot here. We squirrelled around France, with French, on motorbikes in the 80s, and every stop we'd drink 3 times as much liquid as they did. Nor did they take more at beginning or end of the day. Were our kidneys better flushed? Indubitably. Were they impaired? Didn't seem so.
The calorie discrepancy might be part of why the English came off somewhat better. Given the highly physical nature of sailing, it’s entirely possible that both sides were being underfed, but the Spanish were being much more severely underfed, so their sailors could well have been weaker, more tired, and more lethargic, resulting in worse performance in battle at tasks such as running guns in and out quickly or handling sails effectively.
I think tasting history has a video on Poscata, the ancient Roman drink which was vinegar and wine, that's probably what the Spanish were going for with the vinegar ration. Other than that, I can't speak to the calorie count but I know bread was a LOT different back in the day. Also people need to remember that this was the average ration per man that was drawn by the cook, you weren't simply handing the sailors two pounds of beef at the start of the day it was up to the cook and their assistants to prepare everything.
Drach you are AWESOME! LOVE this video! All that beer reminds me of the Elizabethan episode of The Supersizers Eat... where in the evening they're REELING (even small beer adds up). And... THANK YOU for leaving in the spills, etc. Your knowledge is sometimes a bit intimidating, so seeing a spill or hearing you having to count days on your fingers makes you even MORE wonderful. OH! Hej... if you get to Cleveland to see the USS Cod 1) HOPE to meet you and 2) Don't miss The Great Lakes Brewing Co's pub - have them draw you a pint of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter & admire the bullet holes from a raid by Eliot Ness during Prohibition...
When I was in US Army Basic Training we were eating 2k-3k calories per meal and I was still hungry. I enlisted 4 pounds under my minimum weight for my height, and one Drill Sergeant would put me on double rations anytime he saw me in the chow line. So, I'd get sent to the front of the line, get my food and eat it then report back to him and he'd send me through again right to the front of the line. The days when he was doing the check-in for the chow line were the only days when I was completely not hungry. Even with all of that, I still never put on weight.
I suppose it's pretty common knowledge, but just in case: the ale in the 16th century was a lot lower in alcohol content (probably around 2%) and contained more solids. So less buzz and more nourishment.
I read somewhere that in 17th (and probably through the whole of middle age) century Poland they used to make a beer and cheese soup. Also, in the winter they would warm their beer by sticking into it hot red poker.
They did have their share of high alcohol beers but they'd use the leftover "mash" (malted grains) from the first brewing to make a second batch of low alcohol short or small ale. This had the solids and would be drunk during the day while the strong or table beer would be saved for the evening drinking session.
Vinegar sprinkled over bread, is a possible use. It adds a bit of zing to the taste, moisturises it and makes your mouth water as you devour it. Olive oil gives some zang.
This was really enjoyable, thanks drach. Alas, I have a craving for beer and bacon, and the rest of the day at work to go, but I really found this informative and fun
The LST 325 is in Evansville Indiana. Fun fact: the curators stole it from the Greek Navy. The ship was scheduled to be scrapped. Sailed it all the way to US. Fully functional ship.
Growing up at Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the '60s, ALL the kids knew how to tap/pour beer. I quickly learned to pour the liquid onto the side of the glass, until I wanted to create a head. Failure to keep up with the uncles, cousins, etc was not tolerated! 😁
Re calorue intakes.... whsn i worked at a frozen food warehouse, lifting and shifting pallets of food in sub zero temps! I would happily go through 4 fully cooked breakfasts on duty? Doubke sausage, double bacon, triple eggs ,beans, mushrooms, fried slices, and treble lorne, and still be starving at wirks end, took me 3 months after i stopoed working there to adjust, now one meal a day? So yes work and temperature makes a big difference!
Working on container barges, we have a lot of mechanical help these days, dock cranes, powered winches, generators etc. but even so, we burn through a lot of calories. Probably less than an average construction worker, but not *much* less. The amount of effort and thus calories involved in a normal working day on an Elizabethan warship is probably beyond my imagination.
Interesting. I researched the diet of Hanseatic sailors in the 15th and 16th centuries and of course stumbled upon the colossal quantities of beer - or rather ale - that were taken on board. It was "small beer" of course. The alcohol content of a "Schifferbier" ("Sailors Ale") brewed in Hamburg was less than 2% vol. with a gravity of approx. 5%. The often-read assertion that ale was drunk instead of water because the drinking water was contaminated is not true. The massive problems with faeces-contaminated waters in big cities were mainly in the early industrial age, the biggest cholera and paratyphoid epidemics were in the 19th century. It is also not possible to brew potable beer with bad, dirty water. What is true, however, is that ale keeps better at sea than plain water. This is due to the fact that the mash was boiled during brewing, and ale and beer therefore containing fewer germs than even good drinking water. In addition, water from barrels tastes stale after a short time, and beer from the barrel tastes fresher because of the carbonation.
Great topic. Going to watch it while dining on an Alaskan staple of Pilot Bread, with canned tuna and soy sauce (the well known Royal Navy standard). Thanks for this grand series!
Having done construction and warehousing work in California and Texas, that is nowhere near enough water or equivalents, especially the Spanish ration.
I'm enjoying the discussion of how far the fishermen went along the Americas to gain cod for war. It seems there are some logic deductions that can be made from the contractual agreements.
I think you could mash the sardines and beans into the olive oil with some vinegar to make a paste (cooked), then eat that with pieces of bread. I think there is an Italian dish that is similar: bana couda? little pot. Something like that.
I thaught it pointless to pour all that beer but as the video went on it became clear to me that you were right to do so. Thats a lot of beer for a work day.
looking forward to seeing what they did with it. I've been reading the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'brien and picked the diet book, Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, as well. Pretty interesting stuff in there.
Great, great video. Much fun to watch. Maybe the extra pints of beer were to compensate for having less bread than the Spaniards had? Beer has always been not just a very enjoyable alcoholic drink but also kind of liquid food (liquid bread it was called) a source of important nutrients. About the wine, very likely it was meant to be mixed with water, as in Roman times, and as it was common until better wines were developed in the 19th Century that didn't need to be mixed with water to be drinkable (and thanks very much to British capital and markets, by the way). So no water drinking for the Spanish sailors either I'm afraid 😊
Depending on the dates you’ll be here in Washington state, the “B Reactor” at Hanford, in Eastern Washington State. You also might be able to see the dozens of submarine cores that Hanford plays host to. While on a map we might LOOK landlocked, we have cruise ships that regularly visit, via a system of locks on the Columbia River.
Dear mr. Drach Vader, I remember reading Al. Dumas "Twenty Years After" with some action set in the mid 1600s England during the civil war and several comments made by the french protagonists (wine drinkers by preference) about the english preference for beer 🙂
@@georgea.567a little later on for long voyages to india the brits would add extra hops to perserve freshness of their beer hence the india pale ale was born. Not sure about the abv of it though
I am now very happy with the food the Air Force was feeding me back in the 1980s. 🤣 Interesting variations could be noticed towards the end of the fiscal year as the chow hall staff would make adjustments to what was offered, and the budgeted funds would need to be spent or stretched. Sometimes rumors of rabbit were spread when the budget was apparently spent too rapidly. The one year when it wasn't spent fast enough, we experienced the amazing event of one single serving of King Crab Legs per person at a dinner meal, as the base was in Alaska. 😮🥰😋 The only time I experienced water as a required part of my every meal was during Basic Training in Texas. We were made to drink two glasses of water during the 3 daily mealtimes - whether we were hungry or not. This was to prevent dehydration in the occasional Texas heat. Nothing was mentioned to counter this policy during the wintertime when I trained in Basic from November to January. One of these days got down to 1 degree Celsius. Basic was 6 weeks at the time, but the non-training days for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years holidays were not counted. I had multiple weeks of being confined to barracks with no training scheduled.
17:32 Why vinegar? Vinegar was considered nutritious in its own right at the time (some even thought it a means to deflect scurvy) and added the rather under-represented flavor of Sour to a very repetitive diet built on baked starch. Even today, bread soaked in oil and vinegar is a popular treat for people all over the place. While people in the past were a LOT more tolerant of repetitive diet than we are, as they literally had no choice most of the time, they would still seek some variety. They'd even add what we'd consider unpleasant flavors just for the sake of something different, hence some bitter herbs and such being fixtures of old recipes. When you eat 95% plain bread every day, even a nasty taste can be a welcome change! Getting back to vinegar, it was one of the rare ways to introduce acid (or sourness) to diets. Most durable foods are not acidic by nature, and so vinegar, being a byproduct of fermentation of alcohols and other popular products, was a welcome way to liven up diets at very low cost. It also helped that the stuff tended to have very long shelf-lives. For what you'd do with vinegar as a sailor in the 16th century? Just dunk your bread in the stuff! Take a small sip between crackers. Mix it with the oil to make oil-and-vinegar dressing. Not everything has to be complicated or involved!
@@obsidianjane4413 You would be correct that vinegar was widely, and indeed mostly, used in preservation, especially for pickling. However, when it comes to someone be handed a ladle of vinegar as part of their weekly rations on a ship at sea or a soldier on the march, especially together with edible oil, then its main purpose would be as a condiment and/or nutritional supplement, depending on the issuing authority's perspective. Sailors didn't have lots of room to keep personal larders of pickling jars and such for their small rations of meat and such. A few ounces of vinegar, for example, would not go far to keeping a whole kilogram of fresh beef, even if someone had a container and space to keep it! So vinegar as preservative really doesn't work for the individual sailor. What you are talking about would be more what people did as part of preparing for the lean times between harvests on land, the annual cycle of food preparation. There, one would have the space, time, and quantities of material to make preservation a practical and even desirable affair. Navies would certainly buy products preserved in vinegar, but they'd be mostly dealing in the bulk product, rather than handing each sailor his own vinegar to make his own little preserves.
@@genericpersonx333 Ah.... no. Or yes. I wasn't saying individual sailors were sprinkling vinegar on their mush. It was added by the cooks, and used for cleaning the galley.
@@obsidianjane4413 For sure, the cooks and ship had a lot of uses for vinegar, but my original post really only addresses the specific ration of vinegar to the individual sailors. I can see how I may have not been clear on that point, so I apologize for any confusion and misunderstanding on my part!
@@genericpersonx333 They were not given discrete "servings" of it. What would a sailor do with a half pint of vinegar?!?! Sailors did not do their own cooking. The quantities listed by Drach was just the rule-of-thumb used by provisioners to calculate the daily quantities needed for a ship's company of men of a voyage of a given time.
