Biscuit fot the Navy Fleet II

“Wheat biscuits are the best, because rye and barley are more humid and colder, and their bread takes on more mould and spoils sooner” (F. Oliveira). Prepared with yeast, salt, and a little less water than everyday bread, and kneaded in large quantities with hand- and feet-power, often by slaves, it was rolled out like huge round cookies, with varying diameters, on a measured plate. Before being placed in the oven, it was pricked with a kind of fork or a larger instrument with spikes, to help release gases during cooking. Cooking was repeated to remove as much moisture as possible (one or more times).

The amount to be distributed daily to each sailor would be around half a kilo, the amount with which the loading for the ships was calculated, multiplied by the number of sailors and days foreseen for the trip. Great care was taken with storage in barrels to avoid rodents and insects that could destroy them, and the different diameters adjusted to the curves of the inner shape of the barrels, from the bottom to the top. The word biscuit (biscoito), at the time of the Iberian expansion, in the 15th and 16th centuries, appears attributed to two very different objects: (1) a type of dry food for consumption during sea voyages, and (2) a type of land and stone present in the volcanic islands of the Azores, similar to the slag of forges, and which even today gives names to parishes and places.

Clay mold to mark the size of the armadas biscuits

It is possible to visit the archaeological remains of the biscuit ovens in Vale do Zebro (Palhais, Barreiro), today located inside the Escola de Fuzileiros do Vale do Zebro (Fuzileiro Museum), on the banks of the Coina river. Construction of the Lisbon fleets started and was completed there, with the loading of stones (Seixal), cannons, and other pieces for life on board such as plates, bowls and lamps or moulds for sugar and biscuits, produced in the pottery of Mata da Machada (Barreiro), where wood was cut for construction and for the ovens, as well as a tide mill to manufacture flour. The river here was for centuries a large and sheltered port where the preparation of the ships of the 1497 Indian fleet was completed; Paulo da Gama, brother of Vasco da Gama, accompanied the last preparations from his nearby Quinta in Arrentela (Seixal).

Today, small “biscuits” (some are even called “marinheiras”—the “little sailors”), in unrestricted quantity and rarely kept in barrels, are a landlubber’s treat, especially accompanied with jelly or jams. [José Madruga Carvalho]

Biscuit for the Navy Fleet I

An earthquake and a devastating mudslide engulfed Vila Franca do Campo, the “capital” of the Island of São Miguel, from 21st to 22nd October 1522. Nine days later, some men were still found alive among the rubble who told of how they survived by eating “biscuit they had made for the sea voyage” and drinking “water that dripped from the mud and collected in a pan, which they mixed with a little wine they had in a barrel, almost already turned into vinegar” (G. Frutuoso).

This episode brings to our attention a well-known recipe associated with long sea voyages since antiquity. Biscoito (English biscuit, with variants in Portuguese: bizcoito, bizcoyto, biscouto), is a word of Latin origin - bis + coctus - which simply means "twice baked" - like the "sailor's bread" that Pliny already speaks of (Historia Naturalis); there is an example found in the city of Pompeii, also devastated by an earthquake and lava in 79 AD.

More than 700 years ago, the contract signed between King Dom Dinis and Admiral Manuel Pessanha, who established the Portuguese navy, already provided for the supply of “bread, biscuits and water” (Santarém, 1.2.1317). Its use as dry food for the fleets is mentioned in the time of King Fernando (Chronicle) when the Portuguese galleys blocked the exit to the sea of the Castilian fleet anchored in Seville, closing the mouth of the Guadalquivir River opposite Barrameda (in 1370) and were supplied by ships sent by the king with “biscuits that were made in the Algarve and Lisbon.”

Its manufacture could be carried out by private millers, as ordered by King Dom João I to the millers of Porto, but supplying the fleet quickly became an activity under the authority of the king, who was able to have his own ovens, “the first modern industry in the kingdom” (O. Marques). In 1408 the king ordered a biscuit oven in Tavira for three lifetimes (confirmed by king Dom Duarte) and created a biscuit warehouse with a warehouse for its safekeeping. By the end of the 15th century, there were already at least two royal biscuit manufacturers, each with its own storekeeper and warehouses: one in Vale do Zebro (Barreiro) and one in Porta da Cruz, in Lisbon. In Lisbon, in 1482, we find Jácome Dias, squire of the queen Dona Leonor de Lencastre, confirmed by the bailiff of the biscuit ovens. But this story goes on, so stay tuned for more on (nautical) biscuits in our next post! [José Madruga Carvalho]

Wind Patterns in the Indian Ocean

Winds are one of the most basic elements for navigation practice. The right time for a particular voyage to take place, or the right rhumb to follow at a particular time of the day would often depend on the winds that would be blowing at that time. Such was the case in 16th-century navigation practice all around the world.

In the case of the Indian Ocean, winds were perceived to follow a constant pattern every year, dividing the year into two long seasons. The northwest monsoon would take place from November to March and would be a favourable period to travel from southwest Asia to East Africa. Soon after it, between March and May, would start the southwest monsoon, giving rise to heavy precipitations. As Eric Staples put it in his Maritime Lexicon, this period is often considered “closed” for navigation, especially in the southwest and southeast Asia.

The type of winds within each monsoon varies also depending on the region and the time. The Arabic nautical rutters of the 16th century often offer alternatives depending on the kind wind that is blowing – “if the strong winds hit you,” they would say, “follow this direction, but if the wind is light, then, follow that.”

With the winds having such a strong influence on navigation, it is only natural that pilots themselves wondered at the origin and causes of such a geographical phenomenon. One of the famous pilots of the Indian Ocean, Sulaymān al-Mahrī (d. ca. 1550), dealt with this question in a small treatise called Tuḥfat al-Fuḥul (The Worthy Men’s Gift), written sometime between 1511 and 1554.

“Know” – he said – “that winds originate from air, for when the air moves there is an agitation.” One of the origins of such an agitation was coldness, and for that, al-Mahrī argued, there were many indications. One of them was that “if we are – for example – moving with a strong western wind, then rainy clous would originate from a direction other than west, and if the clouds come close to us and its cold reaches us, the first wind becomes calm – that is, the western wind – and a [second] wind comes from them (the clouds).”

Another indication, according to al-Mahrī, was that the land wind would only come at night, while the sea wind would come during the day. “And this is because of the coldness of the land at night and the heat of the sea in that time; and the oposite during the day, that is, the coldness of the sea and the heat of the land.”

Such was the theory of winds of al-Mahrī, full of echoes from and engaging in conversation with antiquity and medieval natural sciences. [Inês Bénard]