Hardtack

Moonshiner

Corporal
Joined
Mar 19, 2015
Location
Midwest
While in Gettysburg, I went into a shop and seen they had "genuine hardtack" for sale. Of course it wasn't from 1865, but I was told it was "genuine" as far as ingredients and texture. So I bought two!

Curiosity got the best of me so I just open one and took a bite.

Those poor guys..... Eating this stuff sometimes for days on end?

Wow!
 
While in Gettysburg, I went into a shop and seen they had "genuine hardtack" for sale. Of course it wasn't from 1865, but I was told it was "genuine" as far as ingredients and texture. So I bought two!

Curiosity got the best of me so I just open one and took a bite.

Those poor guys..... Eating this stuff sometimes for days on end?

Wow!

You've got to have grease or coffee to soak it in. You only got half the ration !
 
I think my Grandpa said his grandad soaked it in something like red-eye gravy, essentially coffee or the equivalent and pork grease. The others GP dealt with johnny cakes. As my southern ancestors were POWs at some point, and my ancestors lived into the early 1900s, this seems to be likely. J.W. Holder of the 46th NC was 14 in 1863 and died abt 1924.
 
I make my own, but there are some who feel that you should really buy the commercial product because they're so uniform. Soldiers didn't make hardtack, although civilians did as a travel/survival foodstuff. I use one of those cutters. It's so much easier than cutting and piercing each cracker, and they come out more uniform. A ration worked out to something like 9-12 crackers a day, but I just can't eat that many. I pack 12-15 for an entire weekend. They're good broken up and boiled in your coffee, too. A couple years ago, (at the height of the George Zimmerman trial) I was boiling up a cup of coffee and hardtack for breakfast on Sunday at the Gettysburg event. One of my comrades looked over my shoulder and asked "What are you having for breakfast, crackers?" Another, with a completely straight face and deadpan delivery replied "I'm offended by that." I laughed til I cried
:smile:
 
WOW, Moonshiner, takes a heck of a set of choppers to eat hardtack straight! Not like the wimpy crackers we munch on today.

Soldiers often said the best time to eat hardtack was at night.

That way they couldn't see all the maggot worms that had been laid by flies in the holes of the crackers they had to eat.

Yech!

Unionblue
 
One of the things to remember when folks decide to make their own Hardtack.... majority based on various posted "recipes" gleaned from various reported sources.. habitually tends to not really replicate what was issued back then... some might look fairly close, others not...

Some historian pards a couple years ago got on a kick to try to accurately replicate the original... They actually were able to take a fragment of an original and have it tested... Tried out the various publicly known recipes with mixed results... One thing that quickly came to light is that the flour types commonly found available at the local grocery, that most tend to use... usually is something very much different than what was available and used back then... The critical gluten levels and other stuff isnt even close... thus the results received are also much different... might look somewhat close... but isnt.... Hardtack/Hard Bread/Sea Biscuits/Crackers didn't use any of the standard household run of the mill flour types found available today... They consulted various professional bakers for additional input based on the sample analyst. It was stated there was no commercially available flour type that matched the original composition... The chemical compound analysts comparison was sorta close to what today is between a type of a known cracker flour and what is labeled as a certain specific type of pastry flour... They had to special order it through one of the bakers ... then tried a couple batches with it... also with mixed results... then discovered they weren't baking it hot enough... tried it again using their commercial oven at the suggested temp one of the bakers recommended for it... poof... it was a perfect match...
 
One thing that quickly came to light is that the flour types commonly found available at the local grocery, that most tend to use... usually is something very much different than what was available and used back then...

Interesting... logical when one thinks of it, but it hadn't occurred to me-- a non-baker, I realize that I tend to think that "flour is flour" when of course it isn't-- depends on what was milled to make it!

Times like these I wish I still had my grandma around. I betcha she'd be able to teach a course (she was both a farm girl and a professional baker).
 
It would appear that the crackers that were in the little green C Ration cans and Hardtack had a great deal in common, except that I doubt that the hardtack came with cheese spread or peanut butter.
 
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