A study shows that Georgian-Era British Sailors Lived on Ample Meat and Beer. History.com offers this interesting article:
Records show that 18th- and 19th-century British sailors enjoyed a high-calorie, protein-packed diet superior to that of most working-class landlubbers, who typically tasted meat, beer, cheese and bread just once a week...
The results were consistent with the Victualing Board’s records, suggesting that British sailors ate more food—and especially more protein—than their working-class civilian contemporaries, the researchers reported recently in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology...
Historical sources show that sailors sometimes supplemented their standardized fare with local produce while in port, the study notes. Corn and sugarcane were both staple foods on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, where sailors from Plymouth, England, are known to have served.To read the article, click here.
2 comments:
Fascinating. I always thought sailors had the worst situation food wise.
Hugs,
Terri
If ever any of you go to Portsmouth the historic naval dockyards is a must on your itinerary.
You can visit three ships of great historical importance. The oldest is The Mary Rose, the Tudor Warship that sank in the Solent during a battle against the French. The Mary Rose Museum has an incredible amount of artefacts on display from the excavation of The Mary Rose.Over half of the hull has been preserved. You can get a real sense of what it was like. Then there is HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship from the Georgian period. You can learn about life on board and actually scramble about the decks and see where that meat dish was prepared. You can really imagine what life would have been like on a Georgian man of war. Then there is, The Warrior, from 1860 the British navies first iron clad monster and see how life had developed from Georgian times.
But for all Jane Austen fans Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, is the one.
All the best,
Tony
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