Comments by "Be Kind To Birds" (@BeKindToBirds) on "18th Century Naval Food - Time to get salty!" video.

  1.  @floydvaughn836  Not really actually. Not only because of different local food sources and national interests but also different colonial food sources, preservation methods, and voyage lengths. Salt meat and hard tack is a bit of the common denominator, true. But when you are a swedish or russian sailor you have cold to preserve things yeah? And then there are different methods of getting the nutrition themselves. Russian sailors working in california were said to eat mainly beef tallow for example. Something that the american and british sailors seemed to think was pure lunacy. Scandinavian sailors had more fish, sailors of south america had a lot more fruit and a lot less beef as well. It's actually something that is a bit difficult to research in English but you can find some information in other languages. Irish sailors adopted use of the potato long before the english thought it worthy of a ships company, wine was a staple on french ships and extremely unlikely on a British ship. Rice was an absolute luxury reserved for captains in american sailing ships but it was the common food in chinese ships. And many nations didn't have nearly the need for long voyage as england did and so their rations didn't need to be preserved the same way. Or they did, like the french, but used different methods. The french used vinegar and boiling to keep water but the british didn't seem to adopt this as regularly. Ships beer was a better option for british sailors but for the french it would be wine. For English sailors fresh beef was a luxury but for american sailors in california it was so common it was nearly all they ate for months at a time, the flour for ships bread being the extreme luxury at times. So there is actually a very great deal of variety and difference in diet among the different nations and their ships throughout history as well as variety based on where the ship was going and for how long.
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  2. What a disturbing comment chain. Thank God it's mostly new pysops accounts.
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  3. I have read many contemporary accounts of them smashing it with something to turn it into crumbs before eating.
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  4. In "two years before the mast" of american sailing merchant fame the writer mentions that cows are eaten before pigs because "pigs are sailors." He goes on to mention that a sow had made two trips around the cape of good hope and had made a trip around cape horn. Is this something that is widely observed or held as true in the Royal Navy as well or is it an isolated observation of the man and the crews working the california trade at the time? We're pigs commonly held to be better able to survive the conditions at sea?
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