Ye Want Me Ta Punch Ya?

Artillery Punch. Even the name promises to deliver with a bang. There are many variations on this famous old recipe out there - poke around and made a bowl (or a barrel) full of the one you like the best. But yer a pirate and you've got a busy schedule already, so I'll share two popular versions right here!

Original Chatham Artillery Punch

8 lemons
1 pound superfine sugar
750-milliliter bottle bourbon or rye
750-milliliter bottle Cognac
750-milliliter bottle dark Jamaican rum
3 bottles Champagne or other sparkling wine
Nutmeg

1. Squeeze and strain the lemons to make 16 ounces of juice. Peel the lemons and muddle the peels with the sugar. Let the peels and sugar sit for an hour, then muddle again. Add the lemon juice and stir until sugar has dissolved. Strain out the peels.

2.Fill a 2 to 3-gallon bucket or bowl with crushed ice or ice cubes. Add the lemon-sugar mixture and the bourbon, Cognac and rum. Stir and add the Champagne. Taste and adjust for sweetness. Grate nutmeg over the top and serve.

Yield: About 25 drinks for normal landlubbers.   Or ONE drink for a pirate.

And here's another variation. Actually, this one is much closer to the recipe I'd always heard of, as it includes tea. Because we are all about the social niceties, now, aren't we?

1 quart strong black tea
1 quart rye whiskey
1 bottle red wine
1 pint Jamaican dark rum
1/2 pint brandy
1 jigger benedictine herbal liqueur
1 pint orange juice
1/2 pint lemon juice

Combine all the ingredients in a large punch bowl with a block of ice. If found too dry, sugar syrup may be added. Decorate with twists of lemon peel.

There are many variations on this famous old recipe out there - poke around and made a bowl (or a barrel) full of the one you like the best.

And now a bonus recipe! Just today I learned of Verity Holloway's delightful blog. I will be reading more of it soon. For now though, here's what drew me in.

"I have a Christmas treat to share with you: Mama Frances Rossetti’s recipe for a frightfully boozy rum punch!"

Pirate Coffee, Armadan Style

Now, the official drink of Armada is of course RUM! but sometimes ye might want something to crack yer eyes open wider, or perhaps you crave a hot strong substance to stir rum into on a chilly evening.  In either case, you need to brew some coffee.

Landlubbers swear you need to have a fancy pot and special water and grinders but the average ship's galley doesn't have room for silly things like that. Doesn't mean you can't brew up a fine cuppa joe, though. You just need to get a bit inventive.

First, you need to make a fire, cause you want your coffee hot, right?  The ships cook probably doesn't want you bothering him while he's cookin' yer dinner, so the polite thing to do is start a fire somewhere else on the ship.  A bucket will work. Fill it full of belaying pins and bits of rags (or yer bunkmates old pants, you don't want to be smelling them another night anyway) and set a match to it.

Now you need a pot for yer coffee.  Got another bucket?  Good enough.  Fill it with water, NOT from the sea. Trust me on that, I won't make that mistake more than, oh, four times. Set that bucket into the flaming bucket and cross yer fingers.  With luck, you'll have boiling water soon.

While your waiting, ponder the beans. Check the haul from yer last raid, I'm betting there's a bag of coffee beans in there somewhere.  Take big handful of them out and hit them with something hard, like the blunt end of your knife or a small anchor. When they're all busted up, scoop them up and throw them in the pot of trying-to-boil water.

Have a cup of rum while you watch the black mess bubble and roll. Ponder how you're going to steal a few eggs from the cook.  Yes really.  Now go do it.

Got yer eggs?  Great!  Crack 'em into the pot. Throw the shells in for good measure.  Most of the grounds will cling to the eggs as they cook and you can scoop them out. Don't eat them unless you like crunchy eggs.

Now!  Take yer ladle... wait, I didn't tell you to steal a ladle from the cook, did I?  Go do that.  Stop givin' me that look. And find a mug, too! I'll wait.

Oh, good, ye'r back.  No, I don't know how your rum bottle got empty, it musta evaporated while you were gone. Anyway, ladle up some coffee into yer mug, and enjoy! 

Oh, I forgot to tell ye to put the fire out, didn't I? Funny how buckets melt after a time, isn't it?

Shiver Me Timbers Pirate Pie Pops

Pirates are scurvy, dirty creatures.  Pirates are fearsome, and should be avoided at ALL costs!

.... now that's just silly. Pirates are adorable. Really we are. Don't bother knotting those purse strings, just come on over and sit a spell. We'll have herbal tea and discuss the latest in doily patterns.

Okay, maybe that's absurd in the opposite extreme, but really, Pirates Are Cute! And I bring ye proof positive. Cause the proof isn't in the pudding, as the saying goes, the proof is in the PIE.

Shiver Me Timbers Pirate Pie Pops

Thanks to Bubble and Sweet's creator, Linda of Australia,  for teaching us how to make these!  If you want to learn how to make more goodies on a stick, she's got herself a cookbook ye can buy!

Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go!

Thanks to Kimika Ying of Armada's Scoundrel Fleet for this discovery! 

Dire Times Menus

New Babbage Commodore Jedburgh Dagger didn't become the formidable power that she is simply by looking good in a uniform (which she does) or only on her brilliant tactical mind (which she has).  Sometimes it comes down to yer belly (She's got one of those too), and trying to keep it sated during hard times. On the high seas, sometimes you make do with what you have.

MILLER STEW

• 6 to8 good sized Millers
• 2 lg onions, chopped
• 7 cups water
• 4 cups canned tomatoes
• 6 med.potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 cups whole kernel corn
• 2 Tablespoon butter
• 5 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons pepper

Instructions

1. Cook millers until done in water. Remove millers from broth, separate meat from bones and shred meat.
2. Dip off as much fat from the broth as possible.
3. Simmer potatoes in 1 cup of broth in covered saucepan until done, do not drain. Mash potatoes slightly, keeping them lumpy.
4. Add corn, onions, salt, and pepper to broth.
5. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
6. Add potatoes and millers and simmer slowly with lid off for at least 45 minutes.
7. Right before serving, stir in butter and let it melt.

 In case you are curious now, during the great ‘Age of Sail’, seamen tired of eating the standard ship’s fare of hardtack and salted meat were known to catch and eat ship's rats. Rats were referred to as "millers" as they were often found dusted with flour from the ship's stores.

Occasionally, the situation calls for even more drastic measures.


My Little Seabiscuit Pie

· 2 pounds of pony meat, trimmed of cell shading, cubed
· 2 medium onions, chopped fine
· 2 carrots, thinly sliced
· 2 bottles of Porter
· 4 to 6 hardtack crackers/pilot bread/sea bicuits

Put meat, onions, and carrots into pot. Pour one bottle of porter into pot, one into cook. Cover remainder of ingredients with water and simmer for one-half hour covered. Open pot and place hardtack on top of mixture to cover. Replace lid on pot, simmer for one and one-half hour.

(this is actually based on another authentic Age of Sail Sea-pie recipe)

Not-So-Great Moments in Buccaneer Foodie History

The first chocolate factories opened in Spain, where the dried fermented beans brought back from the new world by the Spanish treasure fleets were roasted and ground, and by the early 17th century chocolate powder - from which the European version of the drink was made - was being exported to other parts of Europe. The Spanish kept the source of the drink - the beans - a secret for many years, so successfully in fact, that when English buccaneers boarded what they thought was a Spanish 'Treasure Galleon' in 1579, only to find it loaded with what appeared to be 'dried sheep's droppings', they burned the whole ship in frustration.

Found at the History of Chocolate page at Aphrodite Handmade Chocolates.

Chocolate! Rum! And CAKE!

It's a true fact. Pirates LOVE cake.  (Also, they adore cookies, but they are loathe to admit it due to the cute-factor. Cookies, and even the saying of the word 'cookie' is hopelessly cute.)

Cake, however, is a manly dessert. A good, dense, deeply flavored cake is true gentleman's fare. Add a lot of rum to it and it's PIRATE fare! Now add chocolate and no one ever born can or wants to resist!

Pirate's Pleasure Chocolate Rum Cake

Choose yer favorite strong, dark rum for this kitchen adventure.  Of course, ye'll be wanting to have at least twice as much as the recipe calls for, in order to keep the chef well-sauced, too.

CAKE
6 ounces of your favorite hearty chocolate
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup rum
4 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

SOAKING SAUCE
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1/4 cup rum
1/4 cup sugar
PLUS 1/2 cup more black rum

Break up the chocolate and throw it in a large glass bowl.  Add the butter and roughly chop through it a few times.  Slosh in a cup of rum.  Now, either set the bowl over a saucepan of boiled water, or microwave it slowly (20 second pulse) until everything melts.  With a small whisk, blend everything till glossy.

Add the two sugars to the bowl of melted wonderfulness and whisk. Add the eggs and whisk again. There's a lot of whisking, it's good for your muscles.

Find or steal another bowl and sift into it the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. Add about half of this to the other bowl of moist ingredients. Mix completely, then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix completely again.

Bake in loaf pans at 350 degrees till done (when a straw or tester comes out clean). A big bread loaf pan will probably need an hour to bake, for a guide.

While the cake is baking, have some rum and gather up more butter and sugar for the soaking sauce. Throw the butter, 1/4 cup of the rum and the sugar into a sauce pan and slowly bring to a boil. Let it roll for a few minutes then take it off the heat.  Whisk in the other half cup of rum. If there's more rum in the bottle still, why not have a celebratory drink for your success in getting this far!

When the cake is done, grab a dagger or a fork or a poking stick and poke holes all over the cake. That's so the soaking sauce can really get in there. Slowly pour the soaking sauce all over the cake, delighting in the sight of it disappearing into the cake.

Now you need to finish any leftover rum cause you need the bottle. Really!  Get another bread pan out and set it right on top of the cake. You're going to want to weigh it down - the intent is to subtly compress the cake.  Take that now-empty rum bottle and fill it with water, set it in the top pan for extra weight.  Yes, you could have used something else but I thought you'd appreciate a valid reason to drink more rum.  You're welcome.

Let the whole mess cool down completely. Take the rum bottle and weighing pan off the cake and turn the cake out onto a serving plate. (Cool trick: Lay the plate upside down on top of the cake pan and then just turn the whole mess over at once, and remove the pan. Viola. Cake on plate. And ye didn't even have to be sober to do it.)  The soaking sauce has now become one with the cake.

Slice, share with your crew, and enjoy!   Perhaps with a mug of rum.

Revealed: Pirates are Foodies!

buc·ca·neer 

n.

1. A pirate, especially one of the freebooters who preyed on Spanish shipping in the West Indies during the 17th century.

2. A ruthless speculator or adventurer.

---

[French boucanier, from boucaner, to cure meat, from boucan, barbecue frame, of Tupian origin; akin to Tupi mukém, rack.]

---

v.

Word History: The Errol Flynn-like figure of the buccaneer pillaging the Spanish Main may seem less dashing if we realize that the term buccaneer corresponds to the word barbecuer. The first recorded use of the French word boucanier, which was borrowed into English, referred to a person on the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga who hunted wild oxen and boars and smoked the meat in a barbecue frame known in French as a boucan. This French word came from a Tupi word meaning "a rack used for roasting or for storing things, or a racklike platform supporting a house." The original barbecuers seem to have subsequently adopted a more remunerative way of life, piracy, which accounts for the new meaning given to the word. Buccaneer is recorded first in 1661 in its earlier sense in English; the sense we are familiar with is recorded in 1690.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

And here's some history from.... unsurprisingly enough, the BBQ Pirates.

A Pirate Recipe Collection

Armada's drunken fearless leader, Commander Jervil, somehow found this bit of treasure!

Pirate Recipes from Gone-Ta-Pott.com

If you are brave enough to try any of the recipes, please reply to this and reassure us that you are still alive and well.

YUM.

Crackin' Good Pickled Air Kraken

Recipe details Researched, Taste-Tested, and Survived by Miss Ceejay Writer.  This recipe was entered in the Iron Bay Chef contest at the 2012 New Babbage Air Kraken Festival, where it won Third Place!


Often New Babbagers will get pickled after a good Air Kraken hunt.  Here's a variation in which the Air Kraken gets pickled... not to say that New Babbagers won't as well, but at least in the case of this recipe, you'll wake up with both a hangover AND jars of food for the winter months!

CRACKIN' GOOD PICKLED AIR KRAKEN

You'll need about ten pounds of Kraken pieces.  Often just hanging around the docks during the annual Air Kraken festival will yield up what you need.  Show up with a bucket and tongs and ignore the expressions on everyones faces as you collect the best leftover bits after the big ships unload their Kraken Kargo.. er Cargo.

Drag the bucket back home and dump it in the kitchen sink.  Mind the aroma: step back immediately and let your main ingredient 'breathe'.  You may notice family pets and elderly in-laws fleeing the premises now.  This is an added bonus, allowing you peace and quiet for the afternoon.

When you can bear to approach the sink, rub down all the bits with coarse sea salt to de-slime them. Cut any larger chunks down so all the Kraken is in similar bite size pieces.  Throw them all in a sturdy colander and pour boiling water over to rinse and blanch. By now all your downwind neighbors should be blanching, too.

Rinse out the BIGGEST glass jar you can find.  You want one big enough to hold all the kraken bits. Scoop them out of the colander and into the jar.  Now comes the fun (and infinitely less messy) part:

Add to the jar:
A half cup of hot sauce.
Two big handfuls of little pearl onions
A pinch of salt, followed by a cup of salt.
A pint of whole black peppercorns
A dozen cloves of garlic
A cup of standard pickle spicings.
A gallon of good pungent cider vinegar

Stir the entire mess together, top off with more vinegar and a couple drops of a good industrial oil at the top to help the lid seal.

Now, stuff the jar in the back of the pantry, where it will wait to charm and delight your wintertime dinner guests!

Sea Food Is Not For The Timid

Thank you for the sound advice, Historic LOLs!

Armada Scoundrel Fleets Kraken Recipe:

Armada Scoundrel Fleets Kraken Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Kraken, freshly killed (details follow)
Several barrels rum
Pound or two of oregano
As many limes as you can find
Plenty of pepper
large cauldron, or alternatively small metal ship that you don't care about that much, hollowed out
Whichever you choose the former should be filled with oil and heated (olive or whatever you could steal)
A bag or so of flour, just enough to make the mix stick.


Step 1: First find your air Kraken. Recommended method for bringing it down is a harpoon measuring at least 2 meters in width attached to a medium to heavy class warship, this should be heavy enough to prevent the Kraken from dragging you anywhere.

Step 2: After shooting the Kraken, ideally through the eye, tenderize it slightly by dragging it through seawater as you sail circles for a solid half hour or so.This will also add sea salt to the final product. While you wait have a crew start mixing the rum, oregano, flour, and pepper. If you are sailing near Steelhead, there is an excellent and poorly guarded garlic supply that can be added to spice things up a bit.

Step 3: By now the Kraken should be good and dead. Winch it up so it can dry for frying later. Take this time to pierce the Ink Sacs and drain the ink for later use. If you have an extra supply of limes, say 100 or so, this is a good time to soak the beast.

Step 4: Ok time to chop up the Kraken. First make sure you have a large cauldron of olive oil ready to fry it. If you don't have enough olive oil just take whatever the nearest port has handy.  Cut into rings with a large knife or reasonably sized saber. Coating them in the mixture before frying for 3-5 minutes apiece. Have a spear ready to remove the bits, this can get quite hot.

Step 5: After letting the cooked Kraken cool on the deck, Serve with any available veggies, and whatever rum is left after making the batter.

Slow And Steady Wins The (Soup) Pot!

And now it's time for our very first recipe! But first, a word of explanation.  In case you're wondering what makes Sea-Fare different than all those other recipe sites, allow me to explain by means of bullet points. Mostly because Armadans *love* bullets. And bombs. And knives. I suspect they use all of those in food preparation on a daily basis.

• These are seafood recipes. The ingredients may come from the oceans you've heard of in that land of real-life, or perhaps we will harvest ingredients from Armada's own waters, or the Vernian Sea, or even the Blake Sea. 
• These recipes may or may not be easily reproducable in your own kitchen. I'm sure you could find a lobster if needed - but Air Kraken may not be as plentiful in, oh, say, Nebraska.  Set your expectations accordingly.  
• These are recipes gained by Adventure.  Each one will contain the story of how it came to be here.

And that's enough bullet points!  Let's leave a few rounds in the chamber in case a nice salmon swims by. And on with our first Adventure and Recipe!  Yesterday, Armada Breakaway took part in the annual "Europa Wulfenbach Games Day" events. Here is the official description, taken from the full schedule: 

5:30pm-6:30pm: Regatta in Armada Breakaway

This summer's regatta will be held at Armada Breakaway; and it the fine tradition of Armadans, the race will be done on turtle-shape boats! The boats will be provided at the start of the race. Come show us your navigating skill, or cheer on the participants!

Now, what that description failed to mention was that we laced the race course with giant swinging axes,  bombs, and big spiky pointy... things, that moved in and out of the racing lane. You know... like you do. Well, like you do if you're of a pirate mind and live in Armada Breakaway. A fine time was had by all. 

Well, all the but the turtles. As it turned out, those spiky pointy things proved to be the most terrifying obstacle in the race, and many turtles met their end on the tip of a metal point. Very sad for them, but a positive boon for Armada.  A floating city learns to never waste anything, as you never know when the next supply run will be possible.  We disabled the pointy things, and gathered up all that turtle meat. There was quite a bit!  A huge pot was set up near the Welcome Center, and by nightfall there was soup for everyone!  

Life is good in Armada Breakaway.

  
Après Race Turtle Soup
(A Real Recipe You Can Cook)

1-1/3 pounds turtle meat
4-1/2 cups water
2 medium onions
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
5 tablespoons butter, cubed
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons tomato puree
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
Chopped fresh parsley, optional

In a large heavy saucepan, bring the turtle meat and water to a boil. Skim off the foam.  Cut one onion into quarters and dump in the pot. Throw in the bay leaf, cayenne pepper and the salt. Cover, simmer for two hours or until the meat is nicely tender.  Remove the meat and dice into half inch cubes. Set the meat aside for now. Strain the broth, keeping just the liquid, and set it aside too.

Rinse out your saucepan and melt the butter in it. Chop up the other onion and throw in to cook in the butter until tender.  Stir in the flour, let it cook until it's just turning brown.  Put the broth that you saved back in and whisk briskly to blend all the elements.  Lower the heat, add the tomato puree and worcestershire sauce.  Simmer without a lid for ten minutes.

Add the chicken broth, eggs, lemon juice and the meat.  Simmer just five minutes to heat, and serve!  The parsley is for garnishing each bowl. This recipe should produce four to six bowls of soup.

Find your own adventure
 in Armada Breakaway in Second Life!