James Cook at the table

On board a His Majesty's ship in the 18th century, meals were not served as "starter-main-dessert" but according to the rhythm of watches and standard rations. Men were divided into "messes" of six to eight who shared a mess-kid; ship's biscuit (hardtack), salted beef and pork in barrels, dried peas, cheese, and oatmeal formed the basis, washed down with beer then grog. The officers' table was better supplied, but Cook, a rare case, ate the same fare as his sailors. His revolution lay in an addition: anti-scorbutic foods (sauerkraut, malt wort, portable soup, spruce beer) enforced by discipline to bring crews home alive.

Cook's emblematic gesture: preserving cabbage by salt fermentation to keep, for months on end, a source of "freshness" that keeps scurvy at bay. He took dozens of barrels on the Endeavour and had sauerkraut served at his own table so that the sailors, suspicious at first, would eventually demand it.