Naval Traditions
Naval Cookery
Did you know that on today's fashionable restaurant menus you can find dishes
that were once invented by ordinary sailors?
Take, for example, farinata.
According to a legend, it was invented in the 13th century
by Genoese sailors coming back home after their victory over Pisa.
During a storm, several barrels with olive oil and chickpea flour
broke in one of the ships' holds.
Their contents mixed with the sea water and,
as there were no more provisions left on the ship,
the sailors tried to dry the mixture in the sun.
The flatbreads turned out to be so tasty
they were called "the gold of Pisa".
Or this one.
Labskaus is an old-time dish of North European sailors.
Corned beef, herring, potatoes, pickled beetroot,
eggs, onions, and pickled cucumbers
were all thrown into a cauldron and stewed for a long time.
It is believed that "labskaus" means "a dish for sturdy men"
in one of the European dialects.
In ancient Greece, the basis for the seafarers' diet
was constituted by the so-called "Mediterranean triad"—
wheat, olive oil, and wine.
Since it was mostly slaves who were rowers at that time,
no one really cared about the diversity of their menu.
Captains and merchants, on the other hand, are a different matter:
their tables were overflowing with delicacies.
There were quite original solutions, too.
For example, it is known that the ancient Chinese fleet
included ships used for growing rice.
A sort of floating plantation.
The most recognizable attribute of the seafarers' ration—
the biscuit—has survived unchanged to this day.
Oh, how many lives it has saved, this bullet-proof piece of stale bread.
During Columbus' expedition,
every sailor received 50 grams of beans,
half a litre of wine, and 700 grams of biscuits daily.
That's the ration that once helped people discover new lands.
Glory to His Majesty the Biscuit!
The life of a sailor has never been easy.
In the Golden Age of sailing, when Britain ruled the seas,
food supplies on Royal Navy ships became the concern of the State.
From the Crown, sailors received a kilo of corned beef each week,
which could also be used to make buttons.
As for crackers, experienced sailors advised to eat them in the dark
so you wouldn’t see the worms swarming in them,
while the rum provided to sailors on a daily basis
was just a very diluted sweet pop wine.
Surprisingly enough, English sailors never rioted because of bad food.
In the second half of the 19th century, preserves were invented.
The technology for packaging ready-to-use products into tin cans
on an industrial scale revolutionized the ship's food procurement.
Home-made fast-food, though, didn't lose its popularity.
During World War II, British and American sailors could have coffee with a sandwich
while in the action station, attendants on duty on the Japanese Imperial fleet ships
could grab a bite of onigiri— rice balls filled with fish or vegetables.
At the beginning of the 20th century,
the Russian Imperial Navy served pasta with meat to sailors
as a reward for heavy emergency work on the ship,
for example, for the loading of coal.
Today, there's hardly anyone in Russia who doesn't know pasta navy-style.
Naval culinary tradition is a fusion of sailors' centuries-old experience,
cultural traditions of different peoples, and governmental regulations.
It is true, though, that today a sailor's meal doesn't differ much
from that of an ordinary worker's at a factory canteen.
Traditional naval dishes can be sampled at any port city restaurant.