Depiction showing dock workers, slaves, and mariners handling sacks of grains, possibly even ship’s biscuit.

“Tasting the Ship’s Biscuit”

Not Just a Stale Piece: Tasting the Ship’s Biscuit in the Early Modern Mediterranean

by Gabriel Farrugia

The hard tack biscuit or ship’s biscuit formed part of the Mediterranean diet and was always consumed with other ingredients. It reminded people of the lack of bread in times of crisis and its staleness of the passing of time. The stories that surround its consumption, especially at sea, make it far more than a stale piece of food for historians. Part of the daily ration, and certainly one’s emergency food onboard and while at sea in the 17th century, was this biscotto or galletta.[1] Consumed almost always stale, its recorded taste and appearance allows one to suggest that it had agency in the daily lives of galley labourers recruited in Malta on board the galleys of the Order of St. John.

Consuming hard tack biscuit was a sensorial experience of course (as will be elaborated further on), symbolic in its preparation, distribution, and consumption, and became, as I will show, charged with emotions of hardship. In the early modern period, it was argued that the sense of taste was an inferior one in the perceived hierarchy of senses; being far from the brain, it responded to desire and bodily needs. Eating also required the mouth to open and close, revealing the insides of the body, considered vulgar, making man mimic animals who eat exposing their tongues, munching large bites if not controlled by eating slowly and in small bites.[2] The consumption of the ship’s biscuit by all the galley’s labourers, from knight to slave, did not necessarily require one to sit or use any cutlery; it was eaten using the hand. It also meant that one would also have seen various ways in which the mouth moved and munched through the hardness and staleness, not simply because the food might have been tougher to eat through, but because of different perceptions of how to eat, causing different reactions and creating aspects of community and otherness.

In 17th-century Malta, the ship’s biscuit was officially produced by the Order’s ovens in Valletta but often also brought to the island in great quantities from Sicily or else expropriated from enemy ships by the Order’s fleet. However, this was not only a meal consumed at sea or ordered by the Commission for the Galleys. The English traveller George Sandys in the early 17th century comments on how the Grecians and islanders of Lesbos consumed biscuit, onions, and olives as their daily substance.[3] In times of war, this hard tack biscuit followed whole armies. The exact amount was not recorded; however, the main food that stopped the hunger for both the Ottoman forces and Maltese defenders during the Great Siege of 1565 consisted of this biscotto,consumed with anything that could be foraged or hunted. Even in Malta’s slave prison, Moorish prisoners commented through letters on the food one must eat to survive, that is: garlic or cheese with biscuit.[4] The fact that these references exist suggests a sensorial and emotional impact that must not be ignored. By examining the sensory history of this stale piece of food, one gains deeper insights into cultural, environmental, and emotional structures that conditioned daily life at sea.

Without delving into the production of ship’s biscuit, it suffices to say this was not the only energy source that sustained the diet at sea, although consumed in great quantities daily. The distribution of other food stuffs such as bread, fruit, oil, meat, and cheese at sea represented systems of sensorial dependence besides that of nutrition, and when these couldn’t be delivered for running out, one notices moments of rupture once the biscuit became, as the days passed, the only energy source with its particular sensory nature. On the galleys of Malta in the 17th century, bread was provided for, and it was paramount that its quality be good, especially that consumed by the knights and sick on board. This is because, one can say, such finer bread had an elevated sensory experience that bettered the daily life of the commanding personnel with more noble tastes and alleviated the suffering of the sick. Of course, it was also important that the right amount of bread was distributed according to the regulations and depending on one’s role. On board, there was enough bread to last a week; after that, it was the hard tack biscuit that replaced it. Rowers, the main force of a galley, were then given 3 biscuits a day, but these were relatively larger than one might imagine and would amount to around 1.134 kg.[5] Since voyages did not necessarily last very long, one only reads that the daily consumption of ship’s biscuit became a concern after having been at sea for an extended amount of time that led to other resources running out.

There was another matter tied to a sensory daily life in the 17th century. Everyone on board Catholic galleys, like those of Malta, followed strict dietary regulations instituted by the Church that restricted sensory pleasures. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, dairy and meat could be consumed. With regard to the other days of the week, these products could not be consumed. There was also the Advent and Lenten fast.[6] There is a sensory logic to this, for the purpose of fasting is to abstain from human desires of pleasures, in this case pleasure of the tongue and taste as a way of repentance. Besides, this naturally regulated the consumption rate on board of meat and cheeses. This meant the bread and then the hard tack biscuit was the only food that surely had to be consumed daily for the necessary energy resources of the galley labourers, be they knights, soldiers, mariners, or slaves.

The sensorial abstinence on lean days made the working relationships between mariners and sailors tense. One observed what others ate, there was often distrust of the commanding personnel, and questioning of religious devotions in the face of sensory desires or simply hunger. As the ship’s biscuit became even more the main source of food due to necessity, the lines that divide hierarchy on board from captain to slave also became blurred. Only out of necessity did the captain, in agreement with the chaplain, allow meat, eggs, and cheese to be consumed on lean days. This often occurred when there was no other food to sustain the work force other than the hard tack biscuit. The 40 days of lent would have been quite difficult on the senses. Fruits, oil, garlic, and rice would quickly run out, making eggs, cheese, and meat a great temptation. The French on board galleys of Malta were typically the ones found guilty of not partaking in the abstinence from eating dairy products throughout lent. Often the accused then complained to the Inquisitor of Malta that it was customary from where they were from to eat cheeses when fasting. This, however, caused inequality. While others fasted from the tastes of cheese, often on ship biscuit and salted fish, these did not.[7]

The possible stale, dry taste and hard texture allow one to understand why the sources rarely speak of this food being consumed alone. When all supplies ran out, on board Malta’s galleys, the biscuit was consumed together with preserved fish like sardine or cod, fish that could be caught at sea and preserved, while the biscuit crumbs were collected and consumed in broths.[8] This is also telling of the taste and texture of this possibly round and flattish biscuit made from wheat or barley flower, water, and salt. For it to make a decent meal, it could not be consumed alone unless necessary.

In the ordinances of the galleys, it is stated that once this provision ran out, the fleet was to return to Malta. This rule was not necessarily followed because often galleys could stop in a bay even in enemy territory and gather fruits or hunt.[9] However, it signified that a necessity that was directly provided for free during service could not be served. The lack of food, or rather the taste and lack of food other than ship biscuit, pushed many to their limits but most importantly contributed to the lack of discipline. The rate at which the biscuit got stale, infested, or began to deplete was a way of calculating how long one had been at sea, which triggered a general fear. One thing that the Venetian ambassadors in Constantinople pointed out when reporting on the state and military weaknesses of the Ottoman navy in the early 17th century was that Janissaries onboard consumed as much food and whatever food they liked, leaving only ship biscuit for sailors and rowers that possibly contributed to the navy’s failures in military engagements.[10] This makes the emphasis on the senses or the control of sensorial experiences more intriguing and worth further research, as it suggests how one food product may be used as a political tool to undermine the enemy or how consumption practices and sensorial experiences formed part of perceived concepts of otherness.

Lack of discipline also resulted from illness that could have arisen by not consuming the right amount of food for the efforts required at sea. Feeling illness, as well as how one reacted to situations in the early modern period, were intrinsically linked to the long-standing knowledge of the four bodily humours; blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm set down by Galen, which in turn each had their logic to early modern perceptions of the cosmos.[11] When feeling unwell, angry, sad, or lustful, this often was linked to the imbalances of the four hot or wet humours. Such variations were also believed to accompany a man’s experience from sanguine to melancholic with age or when getting sick.[12] Furthermore, individually, many reported to the Holy Office in Malta for breaking the fast and claimed to have experienced tiredness and illness due to the many ‘sufferings of the voyage’ especially during periods of fasting and thus required food other than biscuit to restore their humoral balance.[13]

Disgust for this stale piece is another part of its sensory story. “Food crosses the boundary between the outside world and the interior self and can not only nourish but also potentially poison the eater.”[14] Disgust may be categorised as an emotion stimulated by outer senses, but disgust is also a function of the inner sense ‘fight or flight’ that makes the body recognise a threat; however, social relations also made disgust a cultural identifier. There is then disgust through association of ‘animal-reminder’. In 1609, a galley soldier named Filippo Chiozza confessed to the Inquisitor of Malta that while on a corsair voyage on board the galley of the Order, he ate meat, breaking the fast because the ship biscuit was full of larva, and he explains that only having this biscuit was making him depressed and sick.[15] Janes explains how, while one can be convinced of the evolutionary origins of disgust followed by a cultural evolution, one may also understand how moral judgement could also be the origins of such an emotion.[16] This is termed ‘core disgust’, when one feels threatened by what one is being fed. Often referred to as ‘biscotto cattivo’ (bad biscuit),[17] the phrase probably refers to how stale and hard it was when consumed, stale and hard enough to cause the eater to be sick or hurt his teeth. In the sources, this phrase was accompanied by a reference to how much in weight was given to eat, such as the weight of 3 musket balls. In such descriptions, one not only picks up on judgment towards taste but also a judgment on quantity and fear related to survival.

On the other hand, having to survive on nothing but ship biscuit, enduring its sensorial experience was something worthy of praise. When in 1606 three of the Order’s galleys crashed on the island of Cimbalo, it was later recounted that the shipwrecked Maltese crewmen had salvaged from the sea the ship’s biscuit, but in order to consume it after it was washed ashore, they rinsed it with fresh water to remove the salty sea taste that had been absorbed and would have probably harmed them. With only this food, they awaited Maltese vessels to save them from the deserted island, but in the meantime they managed to put up a week-long defence of their makeshift encampment from an assault by North African corsairs who, thinking them vulnerable, intended to capture them all. Consuming or tasting something perhaps disgusting or dire to survive and indeed having the energy to fight, added to the heroic aura around those who consumed it.[18] Similarly, one Andrea Genovese who, in 1607 had miraculously escaped slavery from his Muslim masters and later arrived in Malta, had survived on the uninhabited island of Lampedusa by consuming the ship’s biscuit left as an offering in the Marian shrine by other mariners.[19] This gave him the strength to venture to sea on a raft when he lost hope of being saved by a Christians otherwise, making his story legendary for Maltese and Genovese chroniclers. His story, commemorated with a marble plack, welcomes tourists who visit the ancient shrine on Lampedusa today.

The hard tack biscuit, besides being part of the Mediterranean diet, had its largest emotional effect on those who consumed it at sea not only because of its high consumption but also for its ability to determine behaviour, maintain order, cause fear and disgust, or transform ordinary sailors into heroes, assuming the name ship’s biscuit. Such agency has been attributed to other food products such as bread, spices, or tea in other contexts such as domestic environments, war, or revolution. Food even assumed nationalistic qualities in the modern period, and food preparation and consumption became a marker of identity. The early modern Catholic war galleys of Malta were microcosms of Mediterranean cultural identities and taking one element of the daily emotional lives experienced on board opens up new questions related to power relations, faith, concepts of nutrition, and preserving the self and collective memory.


[1] There is a whole literature on victuals on board the 18th century Men of War type vessels see, e. g., Anthony G. Brown, ‘The Nore Mutiny—Sedition Or Ships’ Biscuits? A Reappraisal’, The Mariner’s Mirror 92, no. 1 (2006): 60–74.

[2] Viktoria von Hoffmann, ‘The Taste of the Eye and the Sight of the Tongue: The Relations between Sight and Taste in Early Modern Europe’, The Senses and Society 11, no. 2 (2016): 83 – 113.

[3] George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey Begun An. Dom. 1610: Foure Bookes Containing a Description of the Turkish Empire, of Aegypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote Parts of Italy and Islands Adioyning (W. Barrett, 1615), ff. 18, 82.

[4] Liam Gauci, ‘The Diet of Ordinary People and Slaves in the 1590s’, in Georgio Scala and the Moorish Slaves: The Inquisition Malta 1598, ed. Dionisius A. Agius (Sta Venera, Malta: Midsea Books Ltd. Malta, 2013), 389.

[5] Ibid.

[6] [N]ational [L]ibrary [M]alta, [A]rchives of the [O]rder of [M]alta Lib. 1759, f. 447v.

[7] [M]dina [C]athedral [M]alta, [A]rchivium [I]nquisitionis [M]elitensis, Proc. Crim, 34B, f. 631–632.

[8] Gauci, ‘The Diet of Ordinary People and Slaves’, 390.

[9] NLM, AOM, Lib. 1759, f. 519.

[10] Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Archivio manoscritti, VII. 880, 7797, Christoforo Velier 1614. n. p.

[11]  Zirka Zaremba Filipczak, Hot Dry Men, Cold Wet Women: The Theory of Humors in Western European Art 1575-1700, 1st edition (New York, NY: Amer Federation of Arts, 1997), 16–17.

[12]  Filipczak, Hot Dry Men, Cold Wet Women, 18–19.

[13] MCM, AIM Proc. Crim. 41A No. 33, f. 215v.

[14] Lauren Janes, ‘Exotic Eating in Interwar Paris: Dealing with Disgust’, Food and History 8, no. 1 (2010): 238.

[15] MCM, AIM Proc. Crim. 29A, f. 320.

[16] Janes, ‘Exotic Eating in Interwar Paris’, 243–245.

[17] MCM, AIM Proc. Crim. 41A No. 33, f. 216rv.

[18] Bartholomeo Dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione di Malta, Part I (Verona, 1703): f. 511.

[19] Dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione di Malta, f. 533.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
nemos (September 12, 2024). “Tasting the Ship’s Biscuit” NEMoS. Retrieved March 9, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/12rlw


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