"Their butter and cheese
were corrupted." Bradford mentions that their lunch on the exploration
expedition of November 15, on Cape Cod, included "Hollands cheese,"
which receives also other mention. There is a single mention, in the
literature of the day, of eggs preserved in salt, for use on shipboard.
"Haberdyne" (or dried salt cod) seems to have been a favorite and staple
article of diet aboard ship. Captain Beecher minutes "600 haberdyne for
the ship ARBELLA." Wood says: "Their fish was rotten." Smoked
"red-herring" were familiar food to all the MAY-FLOWER company. No
house or ship of England or Holland in that day but made great
dependence upon them. Bacon was, of course, a main staple at sea. In
its half-cooked state as it came from the smoke-house it was much
relished with their biscuit by seamen and others wishing strong food,
and when fried it became a desirable article of food to all except the
sick. Mention is made of it by several of the early Pilgrim writers.
Carlyle, as quoted, speaks of it as a diet-staple on the MAY-FLOWER.
Salt ("corned") beef has always been a main article of food with seamen
everywhere. Wood' states that the "beef" of the Pilgrims was "tainted."
In some way it was made the basis of a reputedly palatable preparation
called "spiced beef," mentioned as prepared by one of the sailors for a
shipmate dying on the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth harbor. It must have been a
very different article from that we now find so acceptable under that
name in England. Winthrop' gives the price of his beef at "19 shillings
per cwt." Winslow advises his friend Morton, in the letter so often
quoted, not to have his beef "dry-salted," saying, "none can do it
better than the sailors," which is a suggestion not readily understood.
"Smoked" beef was practically the same as that known as "jerked,"
"smoked," or "dried" beef in America. A "dried neat's-tongue" is named
as a contribution of the Pilgrims to the dinner for Captain Jones and
his men on February 21, 1621, when they had helped to draw up and mount
the cannon upon the platform on the hill at Plymouth. Winthrop paid
"14d. a piece" for his "neats' tongues." The pork of the Pilgrims is
also said by Wood' to have been "tainted." Winthrop states that his
pork cost "20 pence the stone" (14 lbs.).
Hams seem to have been then, as now, a highly-prized article of diet.
Goodwin mentions that the salt used by the Pilgrims was (evaporated)
"sea-salt" and very "impure." Winthrop mentions among his supplies,
"White, Spanish, and Bay salt."
The beans of the Pilgrims were probably of the variety then known as
"Spanish beans." The cabbages were apparently boiled with meat, as
nowadays, and also used considerably for "sour-krout" and for pickling,
with which the Leyden people had doubtless become familiar during their
residence among the Dutch.
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