The Caribbean pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy of 1650-1730 already in the 19th century underwent a powerful literary romanticization, similar to what happened with medieval knights. The main reason was the rise in popularity of adventure novels - one of the most important ways to entertain people before the advent of cinema, radio and the Internet. As a result, ordinary people who are not deeply interested in the issue most often have a set of stereotypes and clichés in their heads. Including about such a thing as the diet of sailors of that distant era.
The life of a sailor in the 17th-18th centuries was astronomically far from any gloss or romance. What in the royal fleets, what in private fleets, what in pirate bands, most of the people of the sea industry - these are dark, uneducated citizens, which is why they are very tough, simple in the worst sense and extremely superstitious. Of course, each of them in the course of the service comprehended the sea craft. However, with the exception of rare highly qualified specialists such as a cook, a carpenter, a doctor and others like that, a sailor XVIII century - this is not the kind of person with whom a modern person would want to be in the same room even for 5 minutes.
However, what did all these wonderful people who transported spices, made great geographical discoveries and participated in fierce sea battles eat? In fact, the sailors ate extremely poorly. Moreover, for obvious reasons, starvation on a ship is, although an emergency, but still a phenomenon not so rare. In this respect, pirates, private sailors, and sailors of the royal navies were not much different from each other in the 17th century.
The basis of the marine diet at that time was bread and dried meat. Both of these are absolutely delicious. All bakery products in the fleet in that era were represented by crackers. Moreover, this bread was without any culinary delights. Most often it was made only from flour and water. At the same time, there was no way to store bread for a long time, since on any ship there was always a risk of damage to its stocks by weevils - pest beetles. As for the jerky, it looked more like pieces of rubber. In addition, one should not think that the sailors ate themselves to the stomach. Most often, sailor portions were very small.
On larger ships, sailors could even keep some livestock. As a rule, these were goats and chickens. The latter laid eggs. Goats were used for milk and cheese production. True, such a luxury relied mainly on specialist sailors and officers. When the main food supplies ran out, the livestock immediately went under the knife for meat for the whole team. Very rarely, but sometimes the sailors were engaged in fishing. True, it was almost impossible to do it on the high seas in those days, and when fishing near the islands there was always a risk of catching some poisonous and then still unknown fish.
When the situation allowed, the teams could replenish their supplies with fresh fruit, stopping at an island. Most often it was bananas and citrus fruits. During such halts, the teams also went hunting. Everything from small birds to big game went into stocks. Lobsters were especially popular. Sailors even caught turtles. When during the hunt it was possible to stock up more meat than required, the team could show off for some time, preparing fruit vinaigrette or stew from various meats.
>>>>Ideas for life | NOVATE.RU<<<<
A large place in the diet of sailors was occupied by alcohol: beer, grog, rum. Alcoholic products for sailors were most often heavily diluted with water. The addition of alcohol was believed to help keep the team healthy and help protect against epidemics. In the XVIII century, before the issuance of a portion of rum or grog, sailors were required to use "lemon syrup" - a thick mixture of evaporated lemon juice. It was given out every few days in the amount of one spoon per person as a remedy for gout. The sailors did not like this business very much, because the evaporated lemon tastes simply disgusting.
Of course, senior officers ate much better in most situations and could even have a separate kitchen on large ships. There were even separate supplies on the ship for them. The diet of junior officers, even in the royal navies, very often did not differ from the sailors. This approach was considered, among other things, an element of the "educational process", since in some UK XVII-XVIII centuries, future admirals began to serve as cabin boys from childhood and went without discount all the way from a simple sailor to a senior officer. True, sailors from commoners, due to class restrictions, were deprived of the opportunities for such an outstanding career growth and, at best, only the position of a specialist sailor shone for them.
In continuation of the topic, read about Why are Vikings supposed to wear horned helmets?although in reality this was not the case.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/201121/61329/