History National Hardtack Day

[nitrofd]

It may be strange as there is no national food day for January 31st. So I am making it official that today is National HARDTACK day.This is the most important food source during the Civil war.

 

[Legion Para]

Hardtack (aka the Army biscuit) existed before the Civil War and continued long after the Civil War. Armies of many countries issued a hard biscuit.

 

[Legion Para]

WW II and Viet Nam.

 

[nitrofd]

Hardtack:

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

What a tasty food holiday!

Here's a photo I took at the Seminary Ridge Museum of a preserved piece of hardtack. Looks brand new, which is scary!

 

[nitrofd]

What a tasty food holiday!

Here's a photo I took at the Seminary Ridge Museum of a preserved piece of hardtack. Looks brand new, which is scary!

View attachment 122193

Sort of like a twinkie,they look the same after 50 years.

 

[unionblue]

One can still order hardtack from the G. H. Bent Company, who made hardtack for Union forces during the Civil War.

I would order two or three packs of ten crackers at the start of every year and use them during reenactments and school presentations.

 

[nitrofd]

One can still order hardtack from the G. H. Bent Company, who made hardtack for Union forces during the Civil War.

I would order two or three packs of ten crackers at the start of every year and use them during reenactments and school presentations.

Can you eat it with false teeth or do you have to soak it.

 

[unionblue]

Can you eat it with false teeth or do you have to soak it.

The stuff they make is just like the original in size, shape, and ingredients. You give it a while, and you have to break it apart with your musket butt.

In all my school presentations I warn the students to look for worms or not to break their teeth on them.

 

[nitrofd]

The stuff they make is just like the original in size, shape, and ingredients. You give it a while, and you have to break it apart with your musket butt.

In all my school presentations I warn the students to look for worms or not to break their teeth on them.

I guess I would have a tough time then.

 

[unionblue]

I guess I would have a tough time then.

Indeed.

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

I guess I would have a tough time then.

A lot of soldiers in the Union soaked them in their coffee to soften them and help with weeding out the worms as they would float to the top and then would be skimmed off

 

[MaryDee]

Even riskier if you have crowns--they are expensive and once broken, the tooth stump usually has to be pulled. I haven't even tried!

I've read (in Shelby Foote) that you soaked the hardtack in your coffee and then skimmed off the weevils. Seems to me you lose a lot of the food value--great protein source--that way!

 

[amweiner]

Even riskier if you have crowns--they are expensive and once broken, the tooth stump usually has to be pulled. I haven't even tried!

I've read (in Shelby Foote) that you soaked the hardtack in your coffee and then skimmed off the weevils. Seems to me you lose a lot of the food value--great protein source--that way!

True. One wonders why the hardtack bakeries never caught on and just decided to bake the weevils IN the hardtack. It would've saved so much time and created a prototype protein energy bar.