Smoked Meat and Pirates,Before Europeans arrived in the Caribbean the native Arawaks had their own m
Smoked Meat and Pirates,Before Europeans arrived in the Caribbean the native Arawaks had their own methods of smoking and preserving meats. One such method used the buccan, which was a simple wooden rack on which the meat was laid upon over a fire to slow cook, dry, and smoke. When French settlers began to settle some Caribbean islands, they learned to smoke meats with the buccan from the Arawak. Thus they were often called boucanier.By 1630 the Caribbean was a sea of turmoil as English, French, and Dutch privateers and pirates preyed on the rich Spanish treasure fleets carrying gold, silver, and jewels from America to Spain. Since pirates often spent long months on the open ocean without a friendly port of call to get supplies, they too had to learn how to smoke meat. Just like the French boucanier they learned the Arawak technique of smoking meats on a buccan, thus they were often nicknamed buccaneers. -- source link
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