Camp Food Tennessee hard tack.

[Will Carry]

This is the type of thing that I am really interested in. I spent my entire adult life tent camping while kayaking. After a week of camping in a tent I was ready for a hot shower and a cold beer. These men did it for far longer under terrible circumstances. That is why I honor them.

"At one time the Confederate government experimented with a mixture of cowpea flour and wheat flour, for making a nourishing hard tack. Doubtless it was nourishing enough when there was enough time to boil them down soft enough to eat, but most men's teeth were not able to grind them. It took a hatchet or ax to break them up and the broken pieces resembled shiny pieces of flint." From page 25 of A History of Lumsdens Battery, CSA. By Dr. George Little and Mr. James Maxwell.

 

[lupaglupa]

Yikes! I imagine adding pea flour significantly increased the nutrients. But that hardly matters if you can't eat it.

 

[Little Mac]

I found these excerpts from two Yankee letters:
(source: https://altchive.org/camp-talk/sowbelly-hardtack)

Jan. 23, 1863: you Will find the hard tack as bad as henry Said to day i broke three hard tack into A tin cup of Coffee and Skimed 15 worms off of it and they Would average from A half an inch to an inch long and besides the most of them are full of littel bugs but then it is nothing after you get uste to it. (Edward Cotter, CW Doc. Coll. MHI) Monroe County, NY

Feb. 8, 1863: we shal have hard tack and cold water for dinner I wish you could have some hard tack you would have to have some new teeth. (Benjamin Hatch, CW Document Coll.MHI) Windsor County, VT

...Someday I'd like to bake and eat it just for the experience, but mostly I think I'll stick to smores!

 

[donna]

Their poor teeth. Had to really be hungry to eat.

 

[lupaglupa]

There are a couple recipes on CWT - @donna who was it that tried to recreate hardtack?

 

[donna]

Mike and Ami made Hardtack. I bumped their thread on it.