Authentic Civil War era panada.

[major bill]

"Three days after the battle of Shiloh a Yankee surgeon making the rounds of his hospital tents spotted a heavy set woman clad in a grey Rebel overcoat and slouch hat. Drawing closer, he saw she was dispensing hot soup, tea, crackers, panada, and whiskey to the wounded" I do not know what panada is so I guess I would have taken the soup, cracker, and the whiskey. When I looked it up panada or panado comes in 5 types: bread, flour, rice, potato, and Frangipane. Not sure what Frangipane is. So how is panada made? Was panada a common dish during the Civil War?

 

[major bill]

I looked up Frangipane and now guess I would have tried some. Frangipane sounds similar to marzipan.

Now back to French panada. It appears this was a common food to give sick or injured people. I mean they are already sick or injured and now they are being forced to eat panada?

 

[donna]

Bumped two older recipes on panada. There are others on forum.

 

[SeaTurtle]

Misread that as "Civil War era panda" ... didn't know Chinese food was popular with the Blues and Greys

 

[major bill]

Now I want to go to Panda Express for lunch. Hope they don't serve panada because the bumped recipe thread does not sound tasty.

 

[sarladaise]

After reading the recipes, I still wouldn't want to eat panada - sick or healthy!

 

[Rhea Cole]

After the Battle of Chattanooga, there were large hospitals in Chattanooga. One of these was fortunate enough to have Mother Mary Bickerdyke in attendance. (If you are not familiar with her, Google & prepare to be impressed.) The hospital consisted of tents set up inside a fort that had been a part of the Army of the Cumberland's works.

During the winter of 1864, a cold front of epic proportions bulldozed across North America. The Mississippi River below Memphis froze. The front roared over Lookout Mountain & descended into the valley like a solid wall. Buildings & anything loose were scattered before it. At the hospital, the tents flew about like leaves. Behind the wall the temperature dropped like a rock. An ice storm sent local streams up & over their banks. It was an apocalyptic event impossible to exaggerate.

The helpless men in the hospital could only shiver as the tents were put back up. As darkness fell, the officer in command bowed to the power of an act of God & went to bed. Not Mother, as the soldiers called her.

With the help of pioneers, she built fires & heated bricks from war torn buildings. The bricks were then placed around the patients. The water rose so quickly that some of the helpless patients were washed away. The pioneers went into the woods & hauled wood back for the fires. In the middle of this a convoy of ambulances evacuating the patients from Rome GA stumbled in out of the driving sleet.

Drivers had to be manhandled down & the surviving wounded carried to the bonfires. One of the wrecked building had been a turpentine works. The giant cast iron cauldrons were dragged to the fort. Into them Mother poured the makings of panando.

Boxes of crackers were emptied into the boiling water along with salt pork & other soldier rations to make a thick, hearty mush. Mother topped it off with medicinal whisky. The hot panando was served out to the shivering patients, pioneers & long suffering mules.

As the night wore on, it became too dangerous to take the mules into the woods. Encased with ice, trees were coming down. From personal experience, I can say that sounded like dinosaurs were stomping & chomping the trees. There was nothing to do as the fires began to burn out.

There was nothing an ordinary person could do, but Mary Bickerdyke was anything but ordinary. I would love to have a photo of the facial expressions of the pioneers officers when she told them to start tearing the Timbers out of the surrounding fortifications. As Sherman famously remarked when officers complained about Mother's activities, "I can't help you… she ranks me." Whatever trepidation the officers might have harbored regarded reducing a fort in time of war, they knew that their men would do as she said regardless.

Throughout the long night Mother stirred the bubbling cauldrons of panando. Her dress repeatedly took fire & had to be patted out. In the morning, the sun rose to a clear sky & sent jewel like sparks of crystalline light across the treetops, the worst of the ordeal was over.

Another picture would have been the dumbfounded officers who awoke to find their fort gone. Mother Mary had burnt it. An attempt to have Mother arrested was brushed off by her & the openly hostile pioneers who surrounded her.

When called upon to face a court of inquiry, Mother shook her finger in their faces & famously said, " if I hadn't saved those (2,000) soldiers from freezing, just where do you think you fine officers would be now? Somebody would have wound up with their backs against the wall… but it 'taint never me!" She turned on her heel & walked out into rousing cheers from the assembled soldiers. She shouted at them to shut up & get back to work.

Her dress with the burn holes sustained during her epic panando making feat was preserved & used to raise money for the Sanitary Commission. During the Grand Review in Washington, Mother Mary Bickerdyke rode next to Sherman at the head of the Western Army.

This account, from memory, is in Mrs Livermore's memoir of serving in the United States Sanitary Commission. Do please look it up.

 

[Rhea Cole]

"Three days after the battle of Shiloh a Yankee surgeon making the rounds of his hospital tents spotted a heavy set woman clad in a grey Rebel overcoat and slouch hat. Drawing closer, he saw she was dispensing hot soup, tea, crackers, panada, and whiskey to the wounded" I do not know what panada is so I guess I would have taken the soup, cracker, and the whiskey. When I looked it up panada or panado comes in 5 types: bread, flour, rice, potato, and Frangipane. Not sure what Frangipane is. So how is panada made? Was panada a common dish during the Civil War?

He encountered Mother Mary Bickerdyke, a true force of nature. Her panando was the elixir of the gods to the wounded men. It was a true godsend in Chattanooga during a 500 year winter storm event. Details below.

 

[FedericoFCavada]

I looked up Frangipane and now guess I would have tried some. Frangipane sounds similar to marzipan.

Now back to French panada. It appears this was a common food to give sick or injured people. I mean they are already sick or injured and now they are being forced to eat panada?

Egg yolk has lots of fat. Butter is fat. day old bread would otherwise go to waste, but it gets turned into a sort of "easy-on-the-stomach" stiff porridge or pudding-type of affair... Not appetizing to us, I suppose, but we do eat things like tapioca and rice pudding and bread pudding and so on...

The Chinese have their "egg drop" soup where eggs are dribbled into hot liquid to form a sort of scrambledy-egg-looking "noodle." In Spain I've 'had a rather grim "sopa de abuela" that was pretty much chicken broth or stock with a bit of cumin, a lot of garlic, some day-old bread, erm, uh, "croutons," and poached egg floating around...

Might be the sort of "easier for weak constitutions" to keep down.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Pananda was made by crushing crackers to bits in whiskey. It would give a little easy to digest nourishment, and whiskey was a common pain-reliever and fever reducer in an era before drugs for that purpose.

 

[FedericoFCavada]

Pananda was made by crushing crackers to bits in whiskey. It would give a little easy to digest nourishment, and whiskey was a common pain-reliever and fever reducer in an era before drugs for that purpose.

19th century medical nuttery held that whisky was a great aid to health, and even strength... I mean, made from healthy grain and all...

 

[Rhea Cole]

19th century medical nuttery held that whisky was a great aid to health, and even strength... I mean, made from healthy grain and all...

… & what's wrong with that?

 

[7thWisconsin]

19th century medical nuttery held that whisky was a great aid to health, and even strength... I mean, made from healthy grain and all...

Water is the strong stuff that carries whales and ships,
But water is the wrong stuff; don´t let it get past your lips.
It rots your boots; it wets your suits; puts aches in all your bones:
Dilute the stuff with whisky, aye, or leave it well alone.