Cheese As A Trail Food.

SPANISH SCHOOL, 17TH CENTURY

BREAD, PASTRIES, BASKETS, CHEESE AND COPPER POTS ON A SHELF WITH A PINK FLOWER

One of my favourite trail foods is bread & cheese. Both can be simply wrapped in linen cloth or the cheese can be placed between pieces of bread to stop the cheese oil from soaking into the cloth. Cheese can also be potted, but this entails covering the cheese in a ceramic pot with grease, & this process makes the cheese heavier to transport even though it will keep longer in hot weather.
Cheese in any temperature will grow surface mould. IF your cheese goes mouldy, it will still be safe to eat providing you make a cut at least one inch all round & below the mould.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/01/10/moldy-bread-cheese.aspx

http://www.today.com/health/it-ok-eat-moldy-food-t11696

http://www.eatingwell.com/blogs/health_blog/4_moldy_foods_you_can_eat_plus_which_foods_to_toss

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/csiro-identifies-foods-that-are-safe-to-eat-when-mould-is-cut-off/story-fneuz8zj-1226821756687

Potted meat or cheese in a ceramic jar. Still Life with Kitchen Items_Attributed to Martin Dichtl (1639-1710)

Food Preserving & Cheese Use.

Some do use to parboil their Fowl, after they have taken out the garbage, andthen do dip them in Barrowsgreace [lard], or clarified butter, till they have gotten a new garment over them, and then they lay them one by one in stone pots, filling the stone pots up to the brim with Barrowsgreace or clarified butter.  – Sir Hugh Plat, 1607.   

Take three pounds of Cheshire-Cheese, and put it into a mortar, with half a pound of the best fresh butter you can get, pound them together, and in the beating, add a gill of rich Canary wine, and half an ounce of Mace finely beat, then sifted fine like a fine powder.  When all is extremely well mixed, press it hard down into a Gallipot, cover it with clarified butter, and keep cool.  A slice of this exceeds all the cream-cheese that can be made.

The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse, 1747

"We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese." A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain. Defoe 1724.

Provisions listed for the British ship Bellona 74 guns in 1760
listed as provisions for 650 men for four months.

Beef 5200 pieces    20800 lbs

Pork 9620 pieces    19240 lbs

Beer 236 butts        29736 US gallons

Water 339 butts 30 puncheons 60 hogsheads    49018 US gallons

Bread 650 bags      72800 lbs

Butter                      3900 lbs

Cheese                    14160 lbs

Oatmeal                 19008 lbs

Peas                        20800 lbs

Flour                      15590 lbs

Suet                        2600 lbs

Vinegar                   709 US gallons

Having turned out my horse in the sweet meadows adjoining, and finding some dry wood under shelter of the old cabin, I struck up a fire, dryed my clothes and comforted myself with a frugal repast of biscuit and dried beef, which was all the food my viaticum afforded me by this time, excepting a small piece of cheese which I had furnished myself with at Charleston and kept till this time.

John Bartram Mid 18th Century. http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bartram/bartram.html

A seventeenth century soldier could expect 6d a day wages, and a typical daily ration in a garrison

might be: 450 g (1 lb) of meat-beef, mutton, pork or veal

 25 g (8oz) bread

 350 g (12oz) oatmeal

 125g (4oz) dried peas/beans

 70g (2oz) cheese

 2.5 pints beer of the weaker kind

 (Chalfield garrison, Wiltshire, 1645)

On the march in 1643 Parliamentarian Colonel Popham’s Regiment got:

 300g (10.5 oz) biscuit 135g (5oz) meat/cheese

 85g (3 oz) peas 0.5 pint beer

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/pendennis-castle-discovery-chest-englishcivilwar/pendennis-dc2-englishcivilwar.pdf

Braddock's Campaign of 1755 - Benjamin Franklin suggested that campaign parcels

be compiled for officers as follows. For each officer:

6 lbs Loaf Sugar, 6 lbs good Moscavado (brown sugar)

1 lb good Green Tea, 1 lb good Bohea ditto, 6 lbs ground Coffee

6 lbs chocolate

1-2 Cwt White Biscuit

1-2 lb Pepper,

1 Qt. best white wine Vinegar

1 Glouster (sic) Cheese

1 Kegg (sic) containing 20 lbs good Butter

2 Doz Old Madiera Wine

2 gal. Jamaica Spirits (rum)

1 bottle flour of Mustard

2 well-cured Hams

1-2 doz dried Tongues (beef)

7 lb Rice

6 lbs. Raisins

Estimation of the cost of emigration to New England were published in the 1600s. The following is a compilation from Higginson and from Josselyn first published about 1630.

Food	£		s	d
Meal, one hogshead	2		0	0
Malt, one hogshead	1		0	0
Two bushels of oatmeal			9	0
Beef one hundredweight			18	0
Pork pickled, 100 pound	1		5	0
Bacon, 74 pound	1	5		0
Peas, two bushels			8	0
Greats, one bushel			6	0
Butter, two dozen			8	0
Cheese, half a hundred			12	0
Vinegar, two gallons			1	0
Aquavitae, one gallon			2	8
Mustard seed, two quarts			1	0
Salt to save fish, half a hogshead			10	0
One gallon of oil			3	6

Salted meat, often dried as an extra measure of preservation, was another staple.  Slabs of beef and pork were stored in casks with brine or packed directly in the salt.  Butter and cheese were sometimes available early on in the journey but did not store well and were quickly eaten. Suet or fat cooked with flour was sometimes substituted for the meat and cheese ration.  Oatmeal and “pease,” dried peas served like lentils, were staples for the English sailors, while rice, beans, and chickpeas fuelled the Spanish.  As much as a gallon of beer was rationed to the sailors each day, often served mixed with water.  It was a popular beverage that could be stored for travel, repelling algae growth and bacteria due to its alcohol content. 

http://www.beyondthemap.ca/english/daily_tack.html

 

18th century Cheese making Print By Granger.

As for my part I shall be obliged soon to make a Virtue of Necessity for I have torn almost all my Cloaths to pieces by going into the Woods; and tho' we do not want for Taylors, We do, Woolen Drapers. Our Excursions, put me in Mind of your going a Steeple Hunting, We sometimes, put a Bit of Salt Beef, or Pork, Bisket, a Bottle of 0 be joyful, in a Snapsack throw it over our Backs, take a Hatchet, a Brace of Pistols, and a Musket, and away we go, scouring the Woods, sometimes East, West, N. S. if Night overtakes us, we light up a rousing Fire, Cut Boughs & make up a Wig-Wam, open our Wallets, and eat as hearty of our Fare as You, of your Dainties, then lie down on a Bed, which tho' not of Roses, yet staying out all Night, accordingly We laid down our Bread an Cheese Wallets, make up a Wig-wam of green Boughs, cut some dry Ferns for a Bed, lit two or three rousing Fires near our Hut, and set down to Dinner. We sung the Evening away, and about 9 O’Clock retired to Rest, taking it by turns to keep watch, and supply the Fires with Fuel.

George Bouchier Worgan - letter written to his brother Richard Worgan, 12 - 18 June 1788. Includes journal fragment kept by George on a voyage to New South Wales with the First Fleet on board HMS Sirius, 20 January 1788 - 11 July 1788.