Confederate delicasy: Boiled Cat

Will Carry

First Sergeant
Joined
Jun 1, 2015
Location
The Tar Heel State.
How soldiers lived between battles has always interested me. This is from "A History of Lumsden's Battery. CSA"

Known as Biled Cat to those who fit for the South.

Take biscuit dough and roll it out into a sheet 1/4" thick. Spread with stewed apples or peaches. Season with sugar, spice and everything nice then roll it up into a long roll, then roll the roll up into a clean towel or potato sack, tied up and dropped into a pot of boiling water until done. When done unwrap it from the cloth and cut into sections 1/2" thick and deluge with butter and sugar.

At one time the Confederate government experimented with a mixture of cowpea flour and wheat flour, for making a nourishing hard tack.....but most men's teeth were not able to grind it. It took a hatchet or an ax to break them up and the pieces resembled flint rock.
 
I almost didn't click in, for fear of what the recipe might be. Whew! What a relief to my sensibilities!

Same here. I was getting ready to make supper and I hesitated opening the thread because I didn't want to be thinking about a poor little kitty cat if that was actually in the recipe and then lose my appetite for the next day or so.
 
I had the same thoughts at first but it actually doesn't sound bad, anything deluged in butter must be good
Oh, Man...that's a little bit mean! But I know you're NOT stirring up trouble. Butter, YES!!!! Neighborhood kitties NOOOOOOOO!

Now, you just watch. Someone is going to come up here and say: "I ate boiled cat one time with snapping turtle. Both of them tasted like chicken." Well, I will tell you that I have NEVER eaten neighborhood kitties, but I've eaten snapping turtle plenty of times (you would not believe the squad of EXCELLENT red neck country chefs among my friends list) Parts of snapping turtles do, indeed, taste like parts of chickens.

I still refuse to speculate about the taste of neighborhood kitties. I refuse!
 
Oh, Man...that's a little bit mean! But I know you're NOT stirring up trouble. Butter, YES!!!! Neighborhood kitties NOOOOOOOO!

Now, you just watch. Someone is going to come up here and say: "I ate boiled cat one time with snapping turtle. Both of them tasted like chicken." Well, I will tell you that I have NEVER eaten neighborhood kitties, but I've eaten snapping turtle plenty of times (you would not believe the squad of EXCELLENT red neck country chefs among my friends list) Parts of snapping turtles do, indeed, taste like parts of chickens.

I still refuse to speculate about the taste of neighborhood kitties. I refuse!
Oh gosh, don't get me in trouble, I didn't mean cats in butter I was referring to the actual recipe
 
Why did they boil so much of their food? Why not bake it or fry it? I've seen it many times in reading history of the frontier, not just the CW, where for instance, where a Mountain Man would boil buffalo meat. Other than a hot dog, (and not since I got a microwave), I don't think I've ever boiled meat,
 
just so you know bubble and squeak is an english dish which is boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes. the bubble is the mash and the squeak is cabbage
Bubble and Squeak in Australia when I was growing up was the leftover vegetables (mashed potato, peas, string beans, mashed pumpkin etc) all fried up with butter in the pan and makes a pancake sort of thing.
 
Whew! Glad that's what the ingredients are. Thought I was gonna have to move this thread to "Four Footed Friends Of The Civil War". :D
 
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