On board the frigates La Recherche and L'Espérance, meals were not served in courses as on land: they were eaten by rank and necessity. The sailors shared the 'mess' in groups of seven men around a single cauldron: ship's biscuit, a soup of dried legumes, salt pork or beef from the brine, all timed by the watch bell. The officers — including the admiral — had a separate, better-stocked table: a little French wine, cheese, preserves, and, at landfalls (the aiguade), whatever fresh produce the land offered against scurvy. The ship's cuisine was therefore first and foremost a cuisine of preservation, extended by the ephemeral feasts of the port of call.

Before any refrigerator, it was salt (brine for meats), drying (twice-baked biscuit), and the barrel that made a two-year voyage around the world possible. All the expedition's cooking revolved around this science of preservation — and the constant fight against scurvy when these provisions depleted men's bodies.