Tonight’s dinner menu honors James Cook, the English sea captain famed for being the first European to set foot on and chart unknown lands in large parts of the Pacific.
Cook’s crews had a much more limited choice. He had provisioned his ships with barrels of sauerkraut before leaving England, which he insisted his crew eat on a regular basis as part of their rations. Not a popular choice.
As a result of diet and strong cleanliness measures, Cook’s crews remained remarkably healthy and free from scurvy over their long voyages, a feat few other sea captains accomplished. A link between scurvy and vitamin C deficiency had been surmised. The Royal Navy adopted dietary standards in 1795, twenty years after Cook first sailed, in a stroke eliminating scurvy from their fleet.
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