Free Event at Fort Mason

How was food preserved, prepared, and consumed aboard sailing ships of the 19th and early 20th centuries? Find out at a free lecture on Food in the Age of Sail on Thursday, September 10, when the Friends of the San Francisco Maritime Museum Library present historian and author Simon Spalding at the Maritime Research Center in Fort Mason’s Bldg. E, at 6 p.m.

Learn why the ship’s cook was addressed as "Doctor," and how salt beef and salt pork scooped from the ‘harness cask’ were made into lobscouse and other shipboard delicacies. This program also covers conditions aboard immigrant ships, slave ships, and whalers. Accounts of the misadventures of shipboard pigs and poultry add spice to the tale, as do snatches of song from sea chanteys and ballads.

A native San Franciscan, Simon Spalding has pursued careers in music and history and has lectured and performed throughout North America and Europe. He has served on the crew of a barque, a brig, a sloop, and assorted schooners, including transatlantic and Baltic trips aboard the Polish sailing vessel Zawisza Czarny.

Spalding’s lecture is based on his book, Food at Sea: Shipboard Cuisine from Ancient to Modern Times. Ancient Mediterraneans, Vikings, medieval war galleys, Spanish and English explorers, sailing navies and merchant fleets, immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, and East Asia, steamships, ocean liners, submarines and cruise ships are all covered.

To contact the Library, call (415) 561-7030. To contact Spalding, call (252) 636-1256 or see www.musicalhistorian.com.