Amuse Bouche

At least to start with, the table fairly groaned with food – ‘a rude kind of plenty’, one source called it – even if the fare was hardly up to the standard Bengal society was used to. ‘Ill-concocted soups, queer-looking ragouts and jelly the colour of salt water,’ sniffed one lady. The hold contained 40 tons of salted meat, including beef, pork, bacon and tongue, 15 tons of potatoes, 6 tons of flour, 2 tons of cheese, 4 tons of groceries, five barrels of herring, and six chests of oranges and lemons.
From the Caliban Shore by Stephen Taylor.