Nelson & His World

It's well known that officers in Nelson's navy supplemented the limited diet available at sea with foodstuffs that were fairly durable such as cheeses and hams, as well as wine.

I was interested to see that an 18th century cookery book, Hannah Glasse's 'Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy' has a chapter of recipes 'For Captains at Sea'. It contains instructions for making such delights as 'catchap to keep twenty years', 'a fish sauce to keep a whole year - you may take it to the Indies'. Both of these require vast quantities of stale beer,'the staler and flatter the better', anchovies 'washed of the pickle' and spices such as mace and ginger. There are also recipes to 'pickle mushrooms for the sea' and instructions on how to make 'sea venison' - a sort of spiced pork.

I haven't a copy of 'Feeding Nelson's Navy' so I don't know whether Hannah Glasse's decision to include recipes for use at sea was mentioned.

I hope this is not a stupid question (dangerous opening...)

Did seamen ever catch and eat fish while at sea?

The only mention of fish as food that I recall is the turbot that Nelson sent to Sir Hyde Parker before Copenhagen. It seems strange, when the sea was heaving with a fresh source of protein that they took supplies of unpalatable salt beef and live animals aboard.

I've just read more of the Naval Chaplain's Memoir that Tony gave a link to on the Nelson's slice thread. If you haven't read the whole, do. It is most amusing, despite, or because of, its rather orotund language. In it, he describes a meal ashore in which officers were served pork in a succession of courses, resulting in knives and swords being brandished in dissatisfaction.

Guava jelly was a delicacy that another officer had brought for his own pleasure. On discovering the ship's barber in the act of dipping his fingers into it, he told him, untruthfully, he'd laced it with arsenic to catch rats, resulting in paroxysms of agony, doctor's enemas etc. until he was reassured that the arsenic wasn't it that jar, but another.

Tony, is there any way you can post this extract from the memoir on 'First Hand Accounts' on the Information Forum? It makes very good reading.

I hope this is not a stupid question (dangerous opening...)

Did seamen ever catch and eat fish while at sea?

Yes, they did. the 1745 edition of Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions includes the passage -

"All ships of war furnished with fishing tackle, being in such places as fish is to be had, the Captain is to employ some of the company in fishing and the fish which shall be caught shall be distributed daily to such persons as are sick or upon recovery, and if there be any surplus the same shall be distributed by turns amongst the messes of the officers and seamen without favour or partiality and gratis, without any deduction of their allowance of provisions on that account"

The revised 1806 edition merely has "When fish are caught for the Ships Company, he (the surgeon that is) is to give the Captain a list of the men that stand most in need of refreshment, that they may be the first attended to"

Yes seamen caught fish if they had the time. There is a very detailed description in The life of a sea-officer by Jeffrey Raigersfeld of how the seamen caught sharks, brought them up on deck and all sat one behind the other hacking off bits of flesh. He also describes catching flying fish. That was possibly a bit easier!

Many thanks for those informative replies. It really was a stupid question.... I did wonder though whether seamen might be suspicious of eating unfamiliar fish, or ugly ones, like the gurnard, which can be very off-putting.

Hannah Glasse's recipe for 'fish sauce' contains anchovies; as well as being made of fish, maybe it was also served with fish at sea.

I have never eaten shark but I ate whalebeef in Norway (this was years ago, before 'save the whale'), though I never cooked it myself. Norwegians have acquired the skill of cooking it so that it tastes like beefsteak with none of the heavy, oily flavour that can be so unpleasant when whale is prepared by inexperienced hands.

Just caught up with this - yes, Feeding Nelson's Navy does mention Hannah Glasse. In fact, on p.135 she says that Glasse's book consists of recipes that she plagiarised from other writers, so presumably this fish sauce was mentioned in an earlier cookbook - it sounds a little like the Roman fish sauce of garum.

As for catching fish, we mention instances of this in Jack Tar (out in paperback this week with a new subtitle, if I can slip in an advert...). As we say on pp.86-7, fish weren't caught as much as expected, but there is an evocative story of when they were stranded at the Newfoundland Banks in thick fog, and caught so many fish that they began to stink out the ship, much to the displeasure of the captain. Turtles are what the seamen really appreciated catching, the best place then being Ascension Island (see pp.85-6).

Lesley

www.adkinshistory.com

Thanks for the info: Lesley. To my shame, I have to admit that I've not yet read 'Jack Tar'. It is sitting on my bookshelf, waiting until I can get a long, uniterrupted spell to enjoy its 400 or so pages, which will be soon, I hope. I have just completed a marathon read of 326 short stories for our local literary festival - I weed out the really hopeless ones before they are passed to the judging committee.

I promise a book report on Jack Tar before the end of the month!

IRT fishing,

In "Feeding Nelson's Navy" the point is made that fishing gear was part of the equipment issued to men o' war and while it is rarely mentioned in log books the reason for that is that it was such a common activity and is mentioned with great regularity is sailors' memoirs.

I read the book of recipes and food based on the Aubrey novels. Can't recall the authoress (???) and I can't say how accurate it was. One item mentioned was "Boiled Shit" which I have NOT tried. Evidently the water was so polluted with excrement that it was boiled to either kill the taste or ???

Lesley,
Just came across your mention of Garum in this thread which was traded throughout the Roman world as gold, manufactured mainly in North Africa and was Anchovie based. Always interested in the fact that given the wonders of Italian cooking, how it faded out with the fall of Rome.
The nearest product that comes close to Garum in todays world is none other than Gentlemans Relish !

More from William Hickey's Memoirs: in 1775, he is aboard the merchantman 'New Shoreham' (Captain Surman) bound for Jamaica, and records the following about the food they ate on board:

'The salt provisions were excellent of their kind, and Mr Scott, the chief mate, being a capital fisherman, the table was almost daily furnished with an albacore, bonito, or dolphin, and not infrequently, with all three, which he struck with a gig*. Either of these fish, especially the dolphin, when dressed in the American manner, that is, cut in slices with layers of pork and vegetables, and well stewed, is admirably good, and might meet the approbation of a fat Common Council man of the City of London'.

From 'Memoirs of a Georgian Rake' by William Hickey, (Folio Society edition 1996.)

A 'gig', according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, was 'a fishspear'.

The puzzlement remains: why did seamen in Royal Navy ships persist in eating foul meat when fresh fish was available, and the catching of fish encouraged?

Anna,

My answer to your question would be:

a) the RN wasn't primarily in the business of fishing, although as Billcrews pointed out fishing was encouraged, when they had the time and inclination (I guess this might have included the incident with Nelson and Hyde Parker's turbot, before Copenhagen!).

b) As I think any deep sea fisherman would tell you, there is rather more to fishing than just dropping a line into the water and hoping a fish will bite. If you are intent on catching fish in large numbers, you have to know where the fish are, which changes depending on the circumstances (of the fish, such as a food source) and the season. This knowledge takes the skipper of a fishing vessel years to acquire and I think the captain of a warship has other things on his mind. I would imagine too, that the Admiralty wouldn't be too pleased if he was waiting for a school of fish in one part of the ocean – and missed an enemy fleet in another!

c) As Lesley mentioned, can you imagine the smell - probably guaranteed to make any captain wilt, and the first lieutenant furious!

I am a bit puzzled by your question, Anna, because I have never seen any suggestion that seamen did not eat fresh fish when it was available. The impression I have is that they did.

However, as Kester says, it would be a tall order to catch enough fish to feed everyone, given that there were six or seven hundred men aboard a 74-gun ship for example. Fishing was allowed when it did not interfere with the ship's duties or the seamen's duties. Dropping a few lines over the side when sailing at six or seven knots or more in the Atlantic was not likely to achieve much!

Also, as PhiloN highlighted in the 1745 regulations, the purser would not be allowed to withhold the seamen's allowance of meat. Fish caught from the sea (as opposed to purchased by the purser) would be distributed (as far as it would go) in addition to the normal food allowance.

I think 'foul meat' (as in putrid) was a fairly rare occurrence. While it may not have matched up too well to your home cooked beef stew, the usual complaint seems to be that it was very tough and pretty tasteless. It was in a purser's interest to have any bad meat officially 'condemned' so that he did not risk paying for meat that couldn't be used. The same applied to live bullocks. Any that looked diseased or were found to be dead when hoisted aboard would be condemned so that they could be replaced without cost to the purser.

If you meant 'foul' as in 'unappetising', I also wonder how good the fish was by the time it got to the mess table? I don't think grilling or frying was an option, and I can vouch for what institutional cooking can do to fish!

Scratch the surface and we come upon with another imponderable!

Drawing on what has been said already, and on references to fishing in various officer's journals, the following seems to be of relevance:

1. The average ship was at sea (as opposed to being at anchor in roadsteads etc) for only between half and one third of the time.

2. The chances of any fishing being possible or permitted when the ship was sailing and the men busy are remote. (though flying fish are regularly reported as leaping on board in the tropics - presumably kept by the first man to pick them up)

3. However, there is evidence of fishing, but probably when the ship was at anchor. I have seen references to hooks being distributed, and of the mainyard being lowered to provide a better platform for fishing.

4. The chances of fishing being done, and ordered, 'officially' in order to supplement rations is, as has been pointed out, remote. Too many men and the process of fishing was too slow since it was by line - I have never seen a reference to trawls or nets being on warships.

5. How could fish have been cooked en mass, when the Brody stove was designed for boiling with limited facilities for grilling? And, if fish cooking was done on a large scale it is difficult to see how smell could be easily removed from both the utentials and the galley!

The conclusion seems to be that fishing was permitted, but when at anchor, and on an individual, voluntary basis solely by keen anglers and/or to supplement the rations of individual messes.

Is there any evidence of pursers buying large stocks of fish from passing fishing boats a la Hornblower?

Brian