Tasty tasty Hardtack?!

I have heard of tapping the shipp's biscuits on the table to drive the weevils out. True? I don't know.

Carbo6 has it right, not even close.

Half-Cocked said:

To say I love food would be an understatement. I love the food of many countries it’s one of the things that’s made this country so great!

So to no surprise to me my love of food and history intersect again.

My earliest recollection of this is when I purchased a biblical times cookbook as a child. I wanted to know what they would of eaten back then. I was a curious little bugger some things never change.

Hardtack was apparently invented in 1792. Pretty smart stuff as it could feed someone for months on end. Useful during sailing missions and the like.

I am going to whip up a batch tomorrow. Has anyone tried this? Just curious. Hmm wonder if this was the first known “mre”.

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it could feed some one for months on end, because it was ineatable!

my father back in the 50's would take cold JOHNNY CAKES, some people call them JOURNEY CAKES, and break them up in warm milk with a small amount of sugar, it is great and yes I was raised on EM! any body else ever eaten JOHNNY CAKES?

toot said:

my father back in the 50's would take cold JOHNNY CAKES, some people call them JOURNEY CAKES, and break them up in warm milk with a small amount of sugar, it is great and yes I was raised on EM! any body else ever eaten JOHNNY CAKES?

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now isn’t that a cornmeal flap jack?

For the hard tack naysayers I say this.. it’s colonial times I am on a 3 month journey my choice of food includes 1. Hard tack 2. The rats on the ship and 3. The cockroaches.

guess which I will be eating not to starve?

answer is all three. Solider!

Half-Cocked said:

now isn’t that a cornmeal flap jack?

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why yes it is, now you are showing your AGE OR KNOWLEDGE?

Half-Cocked said:

now isn’t that a cornmeal flap jack?

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We call them hoe cakes down here. Cooked on the fire using a hoe.

toot said:

why yes it is, now you are showing your AGE OR KNOWLEDGE?

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To be honest it was on an episode of Sopranos! One of the mob guys walked into the diner and met another guy who introduced him to Johnny cakes! That’s when I first learned about them. Never have one myself though they sound really tasty.

russellshaffer said:

I have heard of tapping the shipp's biscuits on the table to drive the weevils out. True? I don't know.

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It’s a common story that ship rations were bad. But one bite of ships bread shows how hard it is so not eaten as a cracker.
The song Leave Her Johnny complains
‘It was rotten meat and weevily bread
Leave her Johnny leave her
Eat it or starve the old man said
It’s time for us to leave her‘
As one verse of a long list of complaints about a poor ship.
For the most part ships tried to provide good rations and about four thousand calories per day.
The older ships bread was the more chance of weevils. And the purses job was to make sure rations were fresh barrels and not recycled .
When the British fleet mutinied in 1797 it’s interesting that all the ills we blame on tough sailors life were not complained about.
A few officers were kicked off the ships as tyrants. And there were complaints about the purses pound , shorting food rations while the purser pocked the difference. The principal complaint was back pay and the fact the army got a raise but the navy didn’t.
Flogging,bad food, impressment were never mentioned by the mutineers. And toward the end those tars would sail on to victory.

Bob McBride said:

We call them hoe cakes down here. Cooked on the fire using a hoe.

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You are right, Bob! Ate many a hoe cake helping out chopping cotton in west Tennessee and eating greens with it along with some fatback or side meat.
Great memories!

jwberns said:

You are right, Bob! Ate many a hoe cake helping out chopping cotton in west Tennessee and eating greens with it along with some fatback or side meat.
Great memories!

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Yes sir. Some say, oh no, a hoe cake or journey cake is flour or cornmeal or a mixture or whatever but it was whatever you could grind or afford and the general recipe is probably 10,000+ years old. Not much more HC than that.

My grandfather used to make what he called flannel cakes, kinda like a huge flap jack about 1/2 in. thick and tougher than a saddle seat they would hang off a dinner plate one of those with butter and King syrup and a glass of milk you were good to go until supper time. Now the morning started at about 5a,m, supper was around 6 p.m. that evening.

I

Bob McBride said:

Yes sir. Some say, oh no, a hoe cake or journey cake is flour or cornmeal or a mixture or whatever but it was whatever you could grind or afford and the general recipe is probably 10,000+ years old. Not much more HC than that.

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It seems the hoe in the eighteenth century was what we call a griddle today. Cut in a shape resembling the hoe instead of the dirty piece you were using in the field.
King Alfred was still sloppy in letting oat cakes burn

tenngun said:

I
It seems the hoe in the eighteenth century was what we call a griddle today. Cut in a shape resembling the hoe instead of the dirty piece you were using in the field.
King Alfred was still sloppy in letting oat cakes burn

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Sounds right me me though I do remember seeing a period painting of field slaves cooking on an actual hoe. I’ll see if I can track it down. A good wipe or two and you didn’t have to tote extra flat iron with you...

A cooking shown on Townsend’s was done at Mt Vernon. The young lady cooking up hoe cakes said they were made in early morning. She made the point that folks might be leery about building a fire to fry up some cakes in the middle of the afternoon near os in the fields.
Hoe cakes seem to keep well enough for most every day use as a preserved bread. Oat cakes just as well. Could it keep for years like hard tact? I bet. But today I bet few people make up a batch of hard tack and keep it forever. I make up a batch in spring and throw out what I don’t use after six-eight months.
I wonder how many costal traders packed hoe cakes in place of hard tact. The American army at least during the revolution was happy to substitute corn for wheat, so I wonder did they make corn based hard ships bread?
Did Scots and Irish fisherman pack oat ships bread? Basque fisherman were fishing the Grand Banks before Columbus. I wonder if they packed barely ships bread.

I’ve made and ate hardtack many times. I normally crush it up and use it as a base or thickener for soups/ stews or break off a piece and put it in my mouth until it softened while in the deer stand. I’ve let it sit in milk or water then fried it in bacon grease. Add some sugar, cinnamon and/or honey and it will fill the belly. I also use Sailor Boy Pilot Bread 90 calories per. 3 inch round unsalted hard crackers Tastes like a Stale saltine. Add some peanut butter, jelly, cheese and luncheon meat and you have a meal. I was introduced to them when in the Army in Alaska. Couldn’t get them anywhere else for the longest time. Now Amazon has them. They don’t last a long as hardtack but it’s not a survival ration. mountain house has them by the #10sealed cans for long term storage

irishmp said:

I’ve made and ate hardtack many times. I normally crush it up and use it as a base or thickener for soups/ stews or break off a piece and put it in my mouth until it softened while in the deer stand. I’ve let it sit in milk or water then fried it in bacon grease. Add some sugar, cinnamon and/or honey and it will fill the belly. I also use Sailor Boy Pilot Bread 90 calories per. 3 inch round unsalted hard crackers Tastes like a Stale saltine. Add some peanut butter, jelly, cheese and luncheon meat and you have a meal. I was introduced to them when in the Army in Alaska. Couldn’t get them anywhere else for the longest time. Now Amazon has them. They don’t last a long as hardtack but it’s not a survival ration. mountain house has them by the #10sealed cans for long term storage View attachment 40214

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Yep, I ate the odd Sailor Boy when I lived on Ft. Wainwright myself.

This child grew up on a side-hill farm, and Johnny Cake was a staple of our diet. Sometimes supper was that with a bit of fried salt pork and some boiled potatoes with white gravy. Mmmm- mmm ! My father also used to crumble it up in a bowl with milk. Cooked on a hot griddle ... or a skillet .... or a Dutch Oven ... or a hoe blade ... it was Corn Dodgers. Boiled instead with a pinch of salt and (If you had it) a bit of brown sugar it was corn mush ... which the leftover could be allowed to dry, then later fried in bacon grease. Mercy! Makes me hungry thinkin' on it.

"tasty hardtack"? That's an oxymoron.