There was nary a cook among them. Nor a single woman, the usual gendered division of labor notwithstanding. No, in December 1606, the Virginia Company of London sent 104 men into the treacherous, wintry Atlantic, with stopovers in the Canary Islands and later Bermuda and the Caribbean. After a brief reconnaissance stop at Cape Henry, they made their way to what became James City on May 14, 1607.
And this is how they found themselves thus, according to Captain John Smith, who arrived in chains for some perceived infraction, only to be released once it was determined that the Virginia Company of London had decreed him – in a secret ballot and box – one of the governing council of the new colony.
Way past the planting season, thanks to a voyage of five months instead of two.
“Whilst the trading ships stayed, our allowance was somewhat bettered by a daily proportion of biscuit, which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give, or exchange with us for money, sassafras, furs, or love. But when they departed, there remained neither tavern, beer house, nor place of relief but the common kettle. Had we been as free from all sins as gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints. But our President would never have been admitted, for engrossing to his private oatmeal, sack, oil, aqua vitae, beef, eggs, or what not, but the [common] kettle. That, indeed, he allowed equally to be distributed, and that was half a pint of wheat, and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day. And this having fried some twenty-six weeks in the ship’s hold contained as many worms as grains, so that we might truly call it rather so much bran than corn. Our drink was water, our lodgings castles in the air.” (Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), Chapter 2 Book 3.
So how did 104 men manage? History suggests not well. The story of the settlement of Virginia leads to the fascinating story of America, with insights into what became the United States. And the food? In the beginning, English. And in spite of the multitude of souls that arrived on these shores, with all their culinary skills, the food at root still tastes of England.
Upcoming: The first official cookbook arrives aboard the ship Supply, 1620.
© 2015 C. Bertelsen
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
Carolina, no one on the manifest was given the title of cook; everyone had a skill/job assigned to them. Cooking in the large English manor houses was men’s work, yes, at the time, but as I said, no one on any of three ships seems to have been by profession a cook. That’s my point. Yes, I am sure some knew how to make a pottage, but it wasn’t their chief métier. The Jamestown adventure seems to have come at a time when cooking was beginning to be seen more as a female task, but not till slightly later.
RE: “Nor a single woman, the usual gendered division of labor notwithstanding.” Well, I’m not so sure. Alot of men, and in some instances, only men, were cooks. Court kitchen staffs were primarily, even exclusively, composed of men. So were those at Cathedrals…and at aristocratic country houses. Ship crews and exploration parties. And cookbook writers. Heck, even during the Revolutionary War, the soldiers, the men, were required to do their own cooking. I realize that’s much later, but…still. In any event, it doesn’t seem like cooking was necessarily considered “women’s work” back then. Or maybe it was? Or perhaps it was only women in a home, but a “job” situation was different?
At the same time, perhaps it was similar (to an extent) to current times, in that most Big Name chefs are/were men, even though it is/was women mostly doing the cooking in the home. (I still haven’t figured that out! Seems it’s been that way for decades, despite the women’s movement…in fact, women’ve had to fight to be allowed in…go figure…but that’s a whole ‘nother topic!)
– – carolina / historiccookery.com