Aboard a Dutch East India Company ship, meals are not served in courses but as rations distributed by watch and ship's bell. The table is hierarchical: the crew makes do with the hold's staples (biscuit, salt pork, dried peas, beer cut with water), while the commander's table enjoys wine, spices, and sweets. At every fortunate landfall, preserved provisions give way to fresh food—fruit, fresh water, roots—which save men from scurvy.

The VOC built its fortune on the fine spices of the Moluccas. Nutmeg and its husk, mace, were worth their weight in silver; a captain always kept them under lock and key. Grated into mulled wine, slipped into the peas, it perfumes both the officer's table and the ship's medicine chest. It is the true reason for my voyages.