The members of each mess club, their rations of provisions, and breakfast, dine, and sup together in allotted intervals between the guns on the main-deck.

In undeviating rotation, the members of each mess (excepting the petty-officers) take their turn in performing the functions of cook and steward.

And for the time being, all the affairs of the club are subject to their inspection and control.
It is the cook's business, also, to have an eye to the general interests of his mess; to see that, when the aggregated allowances of beef, bread, etc., are served out by one of the master's mates, the mess over which he presides receives its full share, without stint or subtraction.

Upon the berth-deck he has a chest, in which to keep his pots, pans, spoons, and small stores of sugar, molasses, tea, and flour.
But though entitled a cook, strictly speaking, the head of the mess is no cook at all; for the cooking for the crew is all done by a high and mighty functionary, officially called the "_ship's cook_," assisted by several deputies.

In our frigate, this personage was a dignified coloured gentleman, whom the men dubbed "_Old Coffee;_" and his assistants, negroes also, went by the poetical appellations of "_Sunshine_," "_Rose-water_," and "_May-day_." Now the _ship's cooking_ required very little science, though old Coffee often assured us that he had graduated at the New York Astor House, under the immediate eye of the celebrated Coleman and Stetson.
All he had to do was, in the first place, to keep bright and clean the three huge coppers, or caldrons, in which many hundred pounds of beef were daily boiled.