Nice one, Charley - it'd team up with my song "Harriet Lane", also about food on board ship. "Harriet Lane" was the sailors' nickname for an early tinned meat product much favoured on late Victorian merchant ships as an alternative to salt pork, named after the victim of a particularly gruesome London murder! The song is based on an account of food at sea written by Swansea sailor Jack Owens, who was apparently always complaining about his food!

Harriet Lane
Words & music by Andrew McKay
Recorded on 'Characters' by Andrew McKay & Carole Etherton
see Crane Drivin' Music for details.

Oh listen, you landsmen, I'll sing you a song,
How they feeds us at sea when we're out there so long,
The Board of Trade tells 'em the least we can get,
They could give us more, but they never has yet.
Oh Harriet Lane, oh Harriet Lane,
I'm telling you clear, and I'm telling you plain,
A blessing to sailors is Harriet Lane!

Well, biscuits like roof-tiles we gets every day,
They're baked out of sawdust and bulked out with clay,
You can smash 'em or hash 'em, or throw 'em away,
But with Harriet Lane you get meat every day!

Well, wet hash for breakfast, it works pretty well,
It slips down a treat if you don't mind the smell,
But oatmeal with treacle that tastes just like tar,
It goes over the side, it's a breakfast too far.

Dry hash for breakfast, that isn't so good,
It tastes like its made out of chippings of wood,
But pea-soup it fine, it'll warm you right through,
And if anything breaks, you can use it as glue.

Now, the beef that they gives us is leathery hard,
The pork that they gives us is mostly sour lard,
As a slurry with curry they calls it a treat,
But with Harriet Lane you gets close to real meat.

Oh listen, you landsmen, I'll sing you a song,
How they feeds us at sea when we're out there so long,
The Board of Trade tells 'em the least we can get,
They could give us more, but they never has yet.
Oh Harriet Lane, oh Harriet Lane,
I'm telling you clear, and I'm telling you plain,
A blessing to sailors is Harriet Lane!