Thanks to the fact that nowadays more and more books are digitized we are able to read books that are some times for decades no longer available for the public for several reasons. That's quite a pity while these books contains useful information while the archives are destroyed, incomplete or nor accessible.
In a publication dealing with scurvy the author wrote that in contrary to the Royal British Navy this still was a problem in the British merchant trade shipping. In most cases the sailors came from Mauritius, Sidney, Ceylon, China or India. However there were two cases dealing with Russian sailors in spring 1838 of whose ships stayed for several months in the Thames. The most interesting information is given in the footnote because we can get an impression of their meals.
P. 63: “One of these men was admitted on the 2d, the other on the 15th of March. The winter bad been uncommonly severe. The diet of one of them consisted of black rye bread and Russian butter, with tea, mornings and evenings; and for dinner, one pound of salt beef, with boiled pearl barley, two days; one pound of Russian pork, with peasoup, three days a week; dry stock fish, with flour pudding on Saturdays; one pound of fresh meat, with barley soup, on Sundays. A small glass of brandy daily, but no beer or vinegar. The diet of the other had been nearly the same: in fact, this is the general diet of Russian sailors in merchant ships ; the only variation being in the relative number of beef and pork days."
Source
Alexander Tweedie. The Library of Medicine. Practical Medicine. Vol V. London, 1840.
