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]