palatable preparation called "spiced beef," mentioned as prepared by one
of the sailors for a shipmate dying on the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth harbor.
It must have been a very different article from that we now find so
acceptable under that name in England. Winthrop' gives the price of his
beef at "19 shillings per cwt." Winslow advises his friend Morton, in
the letter so often quoted, not to have his beef "dry-salted," saying,
"none can do it better than the sailors," which is a suggestion not
readily understood. "Smoked" beef was practically the same as that known
as "jerked," "smoked," or "dried" beef in America. A "dried neat's-
tongue" is named as a contribution of the Pilgrims to the dinner for
Captain Jones and his men on February 21, 1621, when they had helped to
draw up and mount the cannon upon the platform on the hill at Plymouth.
Winthrop paid "14d. a piece" for his "neats' tongues." The pork of the
Pilgrims is also said by Wood' to have been "tainted." Winthrop states
that his pork cost "20 pence the stone" (14 lbs.).

Hams seem to have been then, as now, a highly-prized article of diet.
Goodwin mentions that the salt used by the Pilgrims was (evaporated)
"sea-salt" and very "impure." Winthrop mentions among his supplies,
"White, Spanish, and Bay salt."

The beans of the Pilgrims were probably of the variety then known as
"Spanish beans." The cabbages were apparently boiled with meat, as
nowadays, and also used considerably for "sour-krout" and for pickling,
with which the Leyden people had doubtless become familiar during their
residence among the Dutch. As anti-scorbutics they were of much value.
The same was true of onions, whether pickled, salted, raw, or boiled.
Turnips and parsnips find frequent mention in the early literature of the
first settlers, and were among their stock vegetables. Pease were
evidently staple articles of food with the Plymouth people, and are