🍴🍴🍴 Muharrem

{ Food Headcanons }

Muharrem prefers traditional food of his father’s country, and the neighbouring Grecian cuisine far above and beyond what English and colonial fare provides. Many of the ingredients can be found anywhere – either by nature or by trade – but he has particular tastes when it comes to some, causing him to save his wages explicitly to purchase them so that he might be able to make the ship fare more bearable.
When on land, Muharrem is known to cook for the crew who have an interest in it – a small group will split off and put their money together for a feast, which Muharrem will direct quietly and result in a hearty meal for the lot of them that often leave the newer to it rather attached to the privy for awhile afterward. Muharrem considers it a hilarious compliment when those same men return for the farewell meal despite their experience with proper food.
Muharrem is not arrogant about much – but when it comes to food he does believe his father’s people to be far advanced over the British. He will never be able to comprehend why the English hold such a monopoly over spices they clearly have no notion how to use, nor any desire to learn how to implement.

🍴🍴🍴 Jane

{ Food Headcanons }

Jane is a woman of simple tastes when it comes to her food – perhaps especially among her companions in the French aristocracy. Their particular notions of ‘delicacy’ tend to leave her faintly nauseous at the mere idea of them and she is more often than not finding tricks to concealing how little of them she is truly eating – even going so far as to make a special compartment in her purse to stow them away so she can throw them out at her leisure later.
Perhaps the most decadent things in Jane’s life are savoury crepes ( dinner sorts ) or sweet ones ( desert types ) though she also at times indulges in fresh bagels lightly buttered with cheese, that she considers to be rather the height of luxury.
Jane has learned to make broths and soups for her brother, and has employed this skill for her children. When they are ill, only her own soups will do, much to the chagrin of the cooks.

🍴🍴 Horatio

{ Food Headcanons }

Horatio actually has a very delicate stomach that is prone to nausea under the best of conditions. Heavy meals do not do well for him – anything cream or milk based is sure to set him off, and he cannot tolerate either even in his tea or coffee. ( He is, in fact, lactose intolerant! Not a diagnosis to be found until the 1960′s however. )
Taking this and placing him aboard a ship is certain to induce a motion sickness, which is something Horatio suffers through the entirety of his career. Though it does get better, storms and long periods ashore can aggravate this condition and make it that much more intolerable later on.

Witch!Horatio takes an herbal concoction to combat it that sadly, our normal Horatio will never get hold of.
A Horatio exposed long to the New World is a danger to his bland counterparts in the fact that he actually makes use of the spices traded so proudly by his country. Introduction to fare in the south Americas makes for a broad and experimental palate that is rarely satisfied by typical English fare again.

🍴🍴 Derek

{ Food Headcanons }

Derek has spent his entire life on ship fare, so his experiences to date have been rather limited by what the crew had on board at any given time. Biscuits have never been a favorite of his, mainly because he has never once had one that wasn’t a little stale or hard, and too often he finds them to be infested with maggots to be all that delectable as it were. He also abhors grog – both because the flavor is vile, and also due to how so many good men seem to rely on it to assuage their tempers.
Though he never really said as much, his favorite time was generally breakfast back on the Illinois, with Captain Morgan. Fresh, hot coffee and whatever the cook brought in that day was always made good enough in the captain’s pleasant company, with his tales of adventures past and future, and his affable, cheery nature that so often lifted even the darkest of spirits.

🍴 Julienne

{ Food Headcanons }

Julienne enjoys fruit above all other things – as it tends not to keep well, he always takes the time to enjoy it when it is made available to him. While his favorites beyond a doubt are apricots and peaches, he has a quiet fondness for apples and oranges, pears and plums.
If it is a fruit or even a berry, chances are he will find some measure of enjoyment in it – he is also unafraid to try local fruits in new areas and in fact tends to request the local delicacies simply to expand his own palate as he travels.

🍴🍴🍴 Elijah Grey

{ Food Headcanons }

Elijah is a man who deeply enjoys his dark teas; particularly with a dab of milk and honey. White and green teas are too bitter for him – though the few times he has been offered either, he has drank them without notable complaint or discomfort, out of sheer will to spare anyone insult or hurt feeling.
Things Elijah really does not like ( aside from mushrooms of all varieties! ) are onions or very hot peppers. He isn’t a fan of hot-spicy foods in the least, but he loves savory-spices, perhaps a great deal more than many of his fellows. His favorite foods are Greek and Mediterranean based.
One thing Elijah knows how to make – and only because he pestered and bothered the cooks on the estate until they caved under the condition he stayed out of the kitchen but for one day a month when he was allowed to make it himself, is loaf bread.

He’s never made it outside of his home kitchens of course, but he has memorized all the steps and every measurement over the years. His favorite treat is his own bread, fresh baked and lightly coated in blackberry jam.

🍴🍴 Abigail

{ Food Headcanons }

Abigail is quite fond of shellfish, lobster in particular. Perhaps because it was the one thing that could never be eaten with a true elegance, and forced even the most noble to humanize themselves a little in order to best enjoy it.
By contrast, she abhors veal and lamb, considering it absolutely dreadful by sheer principle of the inhumanity necessary to slaughter an animal in infancy.

By extension, Abigail cannot bring herself to enjoy meat that comes from most land animals, with singular exception to pigs and boars, which she feels are quite dangerous and violent – which means if one does manage to secure such a beast, the least that it can do is serve as sustenance for all the trouble it caused in life.
Abigail adores trying food from other places. She is fond of lemon, and has come to learn that she deeply enjoys cajun food ( though of course it was unheard of at home, after Charlestown she eventually saw no reason to avoid the indulgence! )
To those with the patience to show her, she is even more grateful, as she loves to be self sustaining just as much as she enjoys learning new things.

🍴🍴 Theo

{ Food Headcanons }

The one thing Theodore misses most of all when he is out to sea and away from home ( aside from spending time with his sisters and dear Bumble! ) is Adella’s cooking – and in particular, her raisin bread and the way it fills the entire little cottage with the most wonderful and homey aromas.
Due to how much he adores his sister’s cooking, he does all that he can to contribute by way of using savings to purchase new cookware for her, or special spices. Whenever he is in town he does the grocery shopping, and helps out with basic chores of cooking along with Eudora, such as washing and chopping the vegetables in preparation.
Theodore doesn’t like how alcohol tastes in the slightest and considers the scent to be very unfavorable. He does not partake, and when he is coerced to do so he proves to be a susceptible lightweight who is dangerously easy to manipulate – which, of course, is all the more reason to avoid the stuff full stop in his books!
Catching Theodore drinking is never a good sign – for either he is in a position where the cost of not drinking is greater than the risks of doing so ( generally, this is the fault of admiralty pressures to be ‘sociable’ ) or in the far more likely scenario, he is aware that his position is reliant on his ability to manipulate a man sexually, and this is something he knows himself to be capable of best when he is at least a little tipsy.

In his life he has only been in a situation where he felt it necessary to drink three times – and to manipulate under one overall circumstance.

Two of the necessary drinking periods were during his affair with Lord Byron, while the other was during a party hosted by the admiralty where his behaviour served as a direct reflection on his superiors. His refusal to drink was causing haughty remark, and finally he chose for the sake of his friends to partake – by staying close to Gillette, all disasters were averted in the wake of doing so.

And all other times came during the ‘abuse storm’ we do not talk about. All in all these experiences have hardly endeared alcohol to him by any stretch of the imagination.

🍴🍴 Thomas Hamilton

{ Food Headcanons }

Thomas has – palate issues, in that certain consistencies can cause him incredible distress. This was true well before Bedlam, though afterward what could cause minor nauseated sensations is now certain to result in physical upheaval of a most violent and virulent nature. It is very upsetting to him and for this reason he tends to be very clear with people about what he can and cannot tolerate.
Thomas cannot hold his liquor for shit and he knows it. A heavy drink bears the fruit of a lascivious and giddy flirt who holds absolutely no understanding of shame or propriety. For this reason he abstains most firmly from drinking in good company, and will stick to mixed wine that has been watered down specially for him out of sight of guests.

🍴 Andre

{ Food Headcanons }

Andre is a menace in a kitchen, to the point that on his estate there was a ban not only in his own household but also in all establishments where he may be known to be party. Even the military cooks had heard of the curse over this man’s head and banished him from the mess tent entirely – he was welcome to eat with the other men in other areas, but was never permitted to be where food was being prepared and – frankly – he does not lament it one wit.