Food & Drink - Page 1 of 5

Historical accounts suggest that the diet on ships of the period included salt meat, salt fish and the infamous ship's biscuit: a hard baked mixture of flour and water. This historical evidence has been fleshed out by the study of sediments and bones recovered during the excavation. The archaeological evidence studied so far (only a small percentage of the environmental samples have been processed) has provided important dietary information.

>Nine of the excavated barrels contained cattle bones. The cattle were nearly full grown animals and the carcasses were halved and joints produced in standard sizes. Offal and marrow bones were excluded as these would decay rapidly and sour the barrel. One barrel of pig bones was found, as well as the remains of several dozen pig bones on the orlop deck, just forward of the galley or "Kychen".

These may have been hung, then halved or butchered into large pieces: fresh, salted or smoked. Headless fish, mainly North Sea cod, were found in baskets in the stern, many measured over a metre in length, and may have been dried or salted.

There were additional finds of mutton, venison, and fresh fruit, in the form of a basket of plum stones. One of the interesting finds was that of peppercorns, complete with one whole and one broken peppermill, similar in appearance to those in use today. There were several hundred plum stones in the basket, of five different varieties. The evidence favours the use of fresh rather than dried fruit. Of the five varieties represented, all could have been harvested before the Mary Rose set sail on 19 July. As they were fresh, it is more than likely that they were grown in England - making all five the earliest surviving record of these varieties in England.

Andrew Boorde (A Compandyous Regyment or a dyetary of Helth, 1542) speaks of the virtue of certain fruits.
"Prunes be not greatly praysed but in the way of medysyne for thet be cold and nastye. And damysens be of sayd nature; for the one is old and dryed and the other be taken from the tre. VI or VII damysens eaten before dyner be good to provoke a mans appetyde; they doth mollify the bely, and be abstersyus; and the skin and stones must be ablatyd and caste away and not used:"

Crews of this period were generally well fed, regulations in 1565 stipulated that each sailor receive seven pounds of biscuit, seven gallons of beer, eight pounds of salt beef, three quarters of a pound of stock fish, three eighths of a pound of butter and three fifths of a pound of cheese a week. It is unlikely that there were many vegetarians on a Tudor warship. There were occasions when the victualling system broke down.

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