The food available (= disponibile) during a voyage was a bit (a little = un po’) scarce and a bit rotten (= marcio). Pirates could steal from other ships or land on islands to barbecue pigs and oxen. Also utensils were not properly used and most of the times pirates, seamen in general, used their “dirty” fingers. Food supplies (= rifornimenti di cibo) consisted in meat, cheese, fresh vegetables, eggs and biscuits, biscuits never failed (= non mancavano mai) to be on a seaman table. But unfortunately, as you can imagine, the food slowly got rotten and diminished. For this reason they preferred taking dry (=secchi) beans, marinate food or salted food like salted meat. Chickens and cows were kept for eggs and milk until they were eaten or died. Famous among pirates were recipes with sea turtles (= tartarughe) and bone (=ossa) soup. Cooks were known to use a lot of herbs and spices to cover up the taste of spoiled (ruined = andati a male)ingredients.
A recipe – Salmagundi
Mix together :
1 part salted, pickled beef or pork.
1 part fresh goat, dog, rat, cat or seabird.
1 part pickled vegetables, eggs, anchovies.
1 part grapes, crab-apples, fresh fish, breadfruit, “spaghetti” and black banana.
Add tons of garlic, sugar, honey, salt, vinegar, oil, wine, cinnamon to taste.
Serve hot from the cauldron (= calderone) .
Garnish with stuffy (= ammuffiti) croutons (=crostini) and flaccid vegetables .
