Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — A STEAMER’S BILL OF FARE. [ARTICLE]

A STEAMER’S BILL OF FARE.

The Many Tons of Provisions Consumed on a Vessel Annually. The cost of provisioning an ocean steamer of the present day is very great. In a year the provisioning of only one boat will, as a fair average, include 500 sheep, 200 lambs, 3,000 oxen, 300 fowls, as many ducks and miscellaneous poultry, besides several thousand head of game and other sundries. Add to these a hundred thousand eggs. 10 tons of ham and bacon, 5 tons of fish, 2 tons of cheese, 1,000 tins of sardines, 100 tons of potatoes, 5,000 loaves and 50 tons of flour biscuits, 5 tons of jam and marmalade, 3 tons of oatmeal, 2 tons each of rice and peas, pearl barley, plums and currants, and 12 tons of sugar, with a ton of tea and 3 tons of coffee, and you have what may be called the backbone of the daily fare. The drink bill will average per vessel per year about 50,000 bottles of beer, 20,000 mineral waters, 3,000 bottles of spirits and 5,000 bottles of wine. We have only mentioned the necessaries and said nothing of the luxuries, which we ought not entirely to omit. Let it be added, then, that each passenger averages three oranges, almost as many apples, and half as many lemons a day; and that the ice cream supplied averages a pint ahead a week; and that on an Atlantic trip, .taken at a venture, the fruit bill included 160 melons, 100 pineapples, 10 crates of peaches, 10 bunches of bananas, 100 quarts each of gooseberries and currants, 250 quarts each of raspberries, strawberries and cherries, and 75 pounds of grapes. The breakages are simply appalling. During one week, not so very long ago, the steward’s return on one well-known liner showed an average breakage list of 900 plates, 280 cups, 438 saucers, 1,213 tumblers, 200 wine glasses, 27 decanters, and 63 water bottles, all of which had, of course, to be made good on arrival in port.