Food for a pirate party- ideas?

That’s right, we’re having a pirate themed party, because we are lame, lame college students.

As far as drinks, I’ll be having a Shirley Temple while my dear friends drink themselves silly on rum. Not being 21 for another 20 days, I’d never dare partake in such behaviors.

Anywho, with drinks covered I’m now considering food. This isn’t a college PARTY, as you’re probably thinking- just 5-10 of us hanging out for an evening. And dressing like pirates while watching piratey movies.

So any food ideas? I don’t eat seafood and I hate the smell, so anything not involving seafood would be fantastic.

A friend of mine is obsessed with pirates and with the 18th/19th century British navy in general (some of you may remember him from the thread where I talked about his ill-fated entrance at a party clad in jodphurs and a British India Company uniform) and he swears by Lobscouse and Spotted Dog. This book has a lot of historically-accurate recipes corresponding to the time period of the Patrick O’Brien novels. He once made leg of lamb, mashed turnips and spotted dick for us at a dinner party, which turned out quite good.

I don’t know how far you want to go with this pirate party, but if you really want to go all-out, this book should be perfect.

This same guy made us grog also. There’s probably a better recipe online for it somewhere but as I recall, it was two parts water and one part rum with lemon juice, nutmeg and fine sugar mixed in liberally. It turned out pretty good.

Oh wow, see, now THAT would represent my history major side to the max.
That said, I can’t cook. It’s likely best if we stay with finger foods and smaller things that are perhaps less historically accurate, but fun and fairly easy.

I would just go with a seafood theme. Shrimp. Calamari. Some oranges to fight off scurvy.

Well, that effectively rules out what I was going to suggest, namely cavia-R-R-R-R.

Pieces of cake!
Pieces of cake!
squawk!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtichokes.

Salt beef. Alligator / crocodile (from Peter Pan). Limes.

Salt water taffy and hard tacks (Cuban crackers look pretty similar and are edible). There should be octopus, of course, but you don’t like seafood, so well.

What about a pirate ship cake ?

Mutton, jerked or salted meats. For extra realism, stale, old, weevil invested biscuits.

Get some plantains and mangoes for decoration, but don’t eat the plantains. They’re nasty.

Get everybody a fake parrot to wear on the shoulder.

Pirate’s Booty!

Hard tack and salted horse, weevils are a must (meal worms from your local pet store should work).

Wait, do you like these people? If so, disregard.

Chocolate Gold Coins, available at most confectioners. Serve in a small wooden “treasure chest” from Pier One.

Gold foiled chocolate coins of course! and some hard candy to make gems.

“Tostones” thin-sliced fried green-plantain rounds also have that gold coin look for a salty alternative to chocolate coins.

did I mention octopus?

I’d suggest “Poultry on the Plank.”

A properly piratical name for rumaki, served with the toothpicks used to keep the bacon around the chicken livers still in place. If you don’t care for chicken livers, try making the rumaki without them, just with whole water chestnuts wrapped with bacon.

Barrrrrrrr-becue.

Obviously you’ll need some yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.

Who heard of a pirate party without seafood? You’re sailing the Caribbean and you’re not going to have some delicious coconut shrimp? Walk the plank!

Speaking of planks, I suppose you could serve some regular food on planks…