MDMD(5): Cookworthy?

[Michel Ryckx]

John Bailey wrote:

> Dixon favours a portable soup by a Mr Cookworthy, whose name would lead one
> to assume that he is the ship's cook. But is he? The portable soup makes it
> sound like a ration possibly brought from home, or picked up in Tenerife.
> There was a famous William Cookworthy living at this time in Cornwall, who
> soon after discovered and patented china clay, and hence founded a ceramic
> industry. He was a chemist, however. Maybe Dixon reads the label wrongly.
> Maybe he's drinking potter's grease.

Some quick thoughts, John.

In mr. Richler's novel 'Solomon Gursky was here', there's the story of an
expedition to the North in the 19th century (first half).  The Royal Navy
ordered thousands of cans; they chose the cheapest offer.  When on their way,
it turned out they were of bad quality.  Winter came and the only solution was
cannibalism.  They all died in the end.

When you have, at sea,  no refrigerator --and the Seahorse crosses the
Equator-- there are only a few ways to have food preserved.  The easiest thing
would be meat, brought alive, which must have costed major logistic problems.
But it can be very easily smoked or dried (mmm, smoked ham) and then preserved
for weeks, even months.  Then there is cheese, at least the hard variation, but
cheese cannot stand higher temperatures very well, say above 18 degrees (this
is Celsius) : it begins to 'sweat' and its quality is deteriorating very
quickly.

Very difficult would be the preservation of fruit and vegetables.  Lack of
certain vitamines causes scurvy.  The only vegetables and fruit I can think of
to preserve for a longer time are carrots, onions, beans and apples --potatoes
not yet widely used in kitchens at the time.  There are also fruits that can be
dried, like apricots (then hardly available, one of my favourite desserts as a
kid) or prunes.  Problem: they need a lot of drinkable water before being
prepared, and water was another major logistic problem.

What was fairly easy if the circumstances were hygienic enough --they never
were--, was the preservation of flower.  And they had biscuits (from 'bis'
--twice of course-- and the French 'cuit' (baked in this case): a cookie, on a
ship only consisting of flower, yeast --which had to be kept alive, another
problem when temperatures were rising--, salt and water, baked twice).

Tenerife, from the time of the Portuguese king Henry 'the Seafarer' on -- he
was the one, I think, who financed Diaz' expedition who in his turn discovered
the Cape, proved to be a solution.  But there was another problem in the 18th
century: the sugar plantations.  From the 14th-15th century on, sugar plants
were coming westward from Asia, reaching the Mediterranean, then moving to
Tenerife and later to the Americas albeit not on their own I presume.  The
woods of Tenerife were very quickly replaced with sugar plantations.  The
quantity of fruits available there (lemons, oranges, . . .) was hardly enough
for ships passing by. (this I have from F. Braudel again)

It is no wonder different countries were looking for ways to preserve food.
I've been looking for 'portable soup' but I've nowhere found a thing on it.  I
imagine it was one of the early experiments on preserving food.  And the name
'Cookworthy' sounds to me like a brand.  Or maybe there was a way of preserving
food in clay?

The best way to have alle vitamines out of vegetables is to boil them (I very
seldom cook vegetables, much better to steam them and when making soup, fry
very slowly on a small fire your vegetables for about 20 minutes, add boiling
water, add some spices, cook for one minute and your soup is ready, having
preserved all the healthy stuff).

Now, one of the specific things of the British kitchen (which is according to a
lot of people over here in Belgium, an oxymoron) is to boil everything that can
be boiled; even meat, and boil this for quite a long time; though this has been
changing over the last decades. But the habits in the Kitchen change very
slowly.  A study I read some years ago on the origins of the differences
between French and British cuisine said that from the 14th century on food
became a way of French aristocrats in differentiating themselves from the
common people;  this went on for about 4 centuries.  There were experiments
with all kinds of bouillons, sauces, fonds, and so on.  Very often a sauce had
his name for the nobleman who paid the cook: mayonaise is a sauce dedicated to
the Duke, or Baron or whatever, of Mayon; béarnaise of Béarn, etc. . . . and
the French bourgeoisie adopted this in the 19th century in a more or less
altered way, culminating in Escoffier.  This did not take place in Britain,
where noblemen and common people were eating the same things, generally, the
differences minor.

Now, a ship sailing from the North Sea to the Cape was not taking a direct
line: having left Portsmouth, passing along the very dangerous Gulf of Biskay
(heavy storms; very deep there; having witnessed a storm near Biarritz many
years ago it really scared me off), they set sail for Tenerife.  But then, they
almost had to cross the ocean to the Brasilian coasts.  There they had to wait
for the right winds to cross the Equator, turned and sailed to the Cape.
Imagine a rough parabola from Tenerife to the Cape, with point zero of the
curve near Brasil: that was the route they were using.  No wonder the common
sailor after a few years had his teeth fallen out and was frequently suffering
from a kind of herpes-like disease.  A dentist was not needed on those ships.

Michel.