stickmaker | JOHT 52: Daily Bread

The Joy of High Tech

Rodford Edmiston

Being the occasionally interesting ramblings of a major-league technophile.

Please note that while I am an engineer (BSCE) and do my research, I am not a professional in this field. Do not take anything here as gospel; check the facts I give. If you find a mistake, please let me know about it.

Our Daily Bread

I like simple foods... and you can't get much simpler than hardtack.

Classic hardtack is wheat and water - sometimes plus a bit of salt - which is baked, then extensively oven dried. (Hence the origin of "biscuit" - it means "twice cooked" from Latin by way of Old French - because of the double baking. The British usage of the word is much closer to this original than the US version, which generally applies to something much lighter and fluffier.) Stored properly - the primary requirement being that it is kept dry - it lasts indefinitely. There are multiple stories of samples of well-stored hardtack over a century old being tasted and found to be just as edible as when fresh-made.

Now, you may take that as damning with faint praise, but properly made, properly stored hardtack is actually quite good. Bland, yes, but it wasn't meant to be eaten by itself. However, it can be, much like some people like crackers as a starchy snack. Hardtack and similar foods have been convenient methods of preserving nutrition for long periods for thousands of years.

How do I know what hardtack was really like? One of the bakeries which made hardtack for the Civil War was still in business until very recently. The G. H. Bent Company (See: http://www.bentscookiefactory.com/ ) was founded in 1801 and supplied the North with much of its hardtack during the War Between the States. I bought some samples of three of their products, back when they were still in business, including their water crackers. These are as tough as hardtack is reputed to be. However, I will focus on the hardtack.

I not only tried the hardtack myself, but took some to gaming one Saturday night. The others were all pleasantly surprised. A Jewish member of the group noted it reminded him of plain matzoh. Which is - surprise - made from flour and water. It seems that every culture which used wheat or any of several other grains has invented something similar, especially as a way to feed soldiers or sailors. Egyptian sailors carried a flat, brittle loaf of millet bread called dhourra cake, while the Romans had a biscuit called buccellum. In a Roman cookbook, Apicius explains this was "a thick paste of fine wheat flour boiled and spread out on a plate. When it had dried and hardened, it was cut up and then fried until crisp, then served with honey and pepper."

Hardtack and its cousins are a simple and reliable way to preserve a nutritious food for later use. Sometimes much later. Besides the now apparently vanished commercial product, there are recipes (many available online) for making it yourself. Some Civil War reenactors do just that, for themselves and other members of their group.

A classic piece of hardtack looks like an oversized saltine cracker without the salt grains on top. It is a bit denser than a saltine, and quite crunchy, but not nearly as hard as legend suggests. However, historically some hardtack was actually double-baked, instead of being baked and oven dried, and even harder than regular hardtack. This treatment was usually reserved for stores intended for long sea voyages and other explorations unusually distant from civilization. Those included Arctic and Antarctic trips.

The horror stories of weevilly hardtack come from it not being stored properly. It needs to be kept dry and in closed containers. In a classic wooden sailing ship, of course, keeping anything dry was very difficult, and cases and crates often broke open or were distorted enough to spread their seams, thanks to the motions of the ship at sea. There are surviving official reports from the War Between the States of Army hardtack going bad due to improper storage and handling. Sometimes the hardtack was transported in bulk and simply dumped on the ground for the troops. (Much of this was still used. Hungry soldiers will eat a lot of things most people won't.) Even the tales of how hard hardtack was generally depended on the quality of storage. Contributing to the problems, contractors often cheated when preparing the hardtack. The wheat might be adulterated (there are even accounts of sawdust being added to the flour) the water tainted, the baking too short, or some combination. There are actual surviving official reports of this, and of contractors being punished.

Pilot bread can be thought of as deluxe hardtack. It is made from wheat, water, salt, shortening and a bit of sugar. Because of these extra ingredients, without modern packaging pilot bread will only last months, rather than centuries.

Pilot bread is a bit easier than hardtack to acquire (and much easier to chew). You can get it in vacuum-packed #10 cans for long-term storage (there's your centuries of shelf life) or in small bags. Sadly, the number of manufacturers has declined in recent years, as have the areas of the United States where it can be easily found. However, among other sources, Sailor Boy Pilot Bread Crackers can still be found.

Pilot bread is popular in several widely scattered areas. In the US, it seems to be most common in some parts of New England, Alaska and Hawaii. In all those places it is used as both a regular food and kept for emergencies.

You can eat pilot bread by itself. You can butter it and toast it in an oven. You use it to make small sandwiches. You can, in short, use it in just about any way you would ordinary bread. Even when it is decades old. As long as it is stored properly.

A distant descendant of hardtack is the shortbread-like food used in lifeboat rations. This is a much more complex product, the extra ingredients greatly reducing the shelf life (though it is guaranteed to last at least five years under any environmental conditions as long as the package remains sealed). However, it is also much more nutritious. It is made primarily of wheat, with other ingredients and considerable enrichment. It is also designed to be non-thirst provoking, cutting back on the need for water. (Remember, when carbohydrates are metabolized this actually creates water in your body.)

These food bars are usually soft, even crumbly. There are several formulations, but most of them taste much sweeter than pilot bread, due to a high simple carbohydrate content. They therefore need less accompaniment to make a meal. You couldn't live on just these long term, of course, in large part due to the lack of dietary fiber. However, they'll keep you going for a good while.

Actual lifeboat rations are deliberately bland, so folks won't be tempted to snack on them before an emergency. You can also get food bars made to the same standards, but with considerably more flavor. I usually bring some of these to conventions so I can skip an occasional meal. If you are at a con where I also am in attendance and are curious, just ask. I'll be glad to show you what I'm talking about, and might even be persuaded to share.

Something else as hard as hardtack is supposed to be is what's known as "hartkeks" or "panzerplatten" ("armor crackers"). These are a wheat-based cracker used by several European militaries in their rations. They are generally made from wheat flour, sugar, sunflower oil, fat, glucose, salt, various types of enrichment, and raising ingredients. I'm not certain how they're prepared, but they are very hard (the nickname comes from a joke that they can be used to supplement the armor on tanks). They are also quite nutritious.

When I was a pre-teen in the early Seventies a friend of my father's gave me an unopened case of US Army C-Rations (actually, these were the replacement for C-Rations, the Meal, Combat, Individual of MCI). I remember that some of those came with a piece of bread - about the size and shape of two biscuits stacked one on top of the other - in a can. This fascinated me then, and I wish I could find something similar now. (There is such a product made in Japan, which is even available there from vending machines. However, as far as I have been able to learn this product isn't exported.) The closest I have come in the US is the B&M canned brown bread (molasses bread). It's not bad, but not quite what I am looking for.

Bizarrely, there is a company which cans entire cheeseburgers, one per can, complete with bun. I've never even been tempted to try one, and from reviews I've read the only thing I've missed is a really bad cheeseburger. The bread, naturally, is soggy.

One of the more interesting ways of processing wheat for later use also comes down to us from the ancient Egyptians. Leftover bread was mashed with water and fermented to make beer. The support facilities on the Giza Plateau for the workers (contrary to popular accounts they were not slaves, but either skilled laborers or farmers working to pay their taxes in the off season) who built the pyramids, temples and other facilities included both bakeries and breweries. However, I have no information on how - or even whether - this beer was preserved beyond immediate use. Even if only used immediately after brewing, this type of beer would have provided a great deal of nutrition and safe hydration.

A more recent development is shelf-stable sandwiches, as well as the pocket bread used in these, which can be purchased separately. They are sealed in a retort pouch, with a dehumidifying/deoxygenating packet included. Shelf life is roughly five years. There are even cinnamon rolls and French bread for breakfast.

There are, of course, many other shelf-stable wheat products, from ordinary crackers to gourmet items. The next time you pull one out for a meal or a snack, or see it at the grocery, remember the history behind this apparently simple product. Without such things, our ancestors - and even many of us, today - would have had a much harder time feeding ourselves.