Pork and beef were salted to preserve them.
The food was pretty bad. There was no cooking on the ships. They had dried beef, barrels of water with them, salted pork, and barrels of ale.
The Fat.
Many cuts of pork have historically been salted to preserve them, but the part commonly called salt pork comes from the belly of the pig. This is the same place that produces bacon.
Salted Pork
no salted pork
Bacon is the salted flesh of a pig.
Hardtack (hard biscuit) Sow belly (salted pork fat)
Hardtack (hard biscuit) Sow belly (salted pork fat)
Generically the meet form a pig is called "pork", as in pork chops or a pork roast.However, by convention if the meet is cured (salted) it is then called "bacon", "ham", "gammon" etc.
Scurvy is caused by the lack of vitamin C, a common scourge suffered by sailors in the past. Before the lack of vitamin C was fully understood, a long voyage on a sailing ship meant the crew lived almost entirely on salted beef, or salted pork, and a ships biscuits diet throughout the voyage.
They salted them or dried them out in the sun.
Hardtack (hard biscuit) Sow belly (salted pork fat)