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.