hardtack

Apple Pie Recipe Without Apples used by Confederate Soldiers

/ sandramervillehart

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Recipes used to be called ‘receipts.’ Confederate soldiers were often low on supplies and had to make do with ingredients found nearby.

I found an intriguing recipe called “Apple Pie Without Apples” in an 1863 book, Confederate Receipt Book. I had to make this one.

The main ingredient is crackers. Civil War soldiers ate hard tack, which John D. Billings describes in his book, Hard Tack and Coffee, as “a plain flour-and-water biscuit.”

Billings, a Civil War soldier, had two of these crackers while writing his book that published in 1887. (It doesn’t say if the hard tack was baked during the war.) When measured, he found they were 3 1/8 inches by 2 7/8 inches and almost ½ inch thick.

This apple pie recipe uses crackers. The soldiers would have used hard tack because that was available.

blog-127Place crackers in a small bowl. (Not having hard tack on hand, I thought Triscuits might be an acceptable substitute.  I used 20 of these crackers. Regular crackers would also be fine.) Soak these in water until soft. For our modern crackers, this takes about five minutes. I can’t imagine how long soldiers soaked the hard tack.

Empty excess water. Mash the softened crackers.

Add 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, ¼ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and ½ teaspoon nutmeg to the crackers. Mix together.

Spray ramekins with cooking spray. Spoon mixture into ramekins until about 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

My husband tried it first. “It’s strange. It doesn’t taste like apple pie.”

I had to agree. This recipe does not taste like apple pie. I didn’t really care for it.

Soldiers probably didn’t have cinnamon too often in camp but this spice would definitely enhance the flavor. In the next batch I added a teaspoon of cinnamon along with the nutmeg.

Both my husband and I agreed that cinnamon improved the “appleless” pie. Though it was a strange and unfamiliar dessert, I’m happy I tried it. It would make a fun dish at Civil War reenactments.

For the Confederate soldier starving for his mother’s apple pie, eating this dessert probably gave him a nostalgic taste of home.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times. Confederate Receipt Book, Applewood Books, 1863.

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

 

Civil War: Union Army Rations

/ sandramervillehart

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John D. Billings was a Union Army soldier. Billings served as a private in the Tenth Massachusetts Battery for three years. He wrote Hardtack & Coffee, a wonderful book originally published in 1887.

These are the normal rations he received as a private:

Salt pork, fresh beef, salt beef

Ham or bacon were rarely issued

Hard bread, soft bread, flour

Potatoes, occasionally an onion

Beans, rice, split pease (peas)

Dried apples, dried peaches

Desiccated vegetables

Sugar, molasses

Coffee, tea

Vinegar

Salt, pepper

Candles, soap

Soldiers didn’t receive all these rations at the same time. Only one meat was issued at a time and that was usually pork. Soldiers received either hard bread, soft bread, or flour. They drew beans or rice or peas.

Soldiers were entitled to the following as a single day’s rations:

12 oz. pork (or bacon) or 20 oz. salt beef or fresh beef;

22 oz. soft bread (or flour) or 16 oz. hard bread or 20 oz. corn meal

For every hundred rations (soldiers received a share of these):

One peck of pease (peas) or beans;

10 pounds of rice or hominy;

10 pounds of green coffee or 8 pounds of roasted ground coffee or 1 ½ pounds of tea

15 pounds of sugar

20 oz. of candles

4 pounds of soap

2 quarts of salt

4 quarts of vinegar

4 oz. of pepper

Half bushel of potatoes when practicable

1 quart of molasses

In addition, desicatted vegetables were also issued. These were large round cakes of compressed vegetables, about two inches thick. They had to be soaked to be edible and even then, there was some doubt about the wisdom of eating it. Soldiers dubbed them “desecrated vegetables.”

According to Abner Small, 16th Maine, none of his comrades could figure out what was in it. Charles E. Davis, 13th Massachusetts, thought it tasted, when cooked, like herb tea.

Pickled cabbage, dried fruits, vegetables, and pickles were sometimes included in rations to prevent scurvy.

According to Billings, these were the rations given to the rank and file soldiers, as privates were sometimes called.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

“Hungry? How about worm castles and desecrated vegetables?” CivilWar.org, 2017/02/08 http://www.civilwar.org/education/pdfs/civil-war-curriculum-food.pdf.

 

Civil War: Hardtack and Salt Horse

/ sandramervillehart

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John D. Billings, a Union Army soldier, served as a private in the Tenth Massachusetts Battery for three years. He taught school after the war. He also wrote Hardtack & Coffee, a book originally published in 1887.

Billings talks about food rations. As a soldier in the Army of the Potomac, he did not remember being without rations more than a day or so. Wagon trains were often several hours behind when on the march or in battle. Soldiers generally had advance notice of a delay in receiving their rations and ate sparingly of food they still had in their haversack.

The quality of the food left something to be desired. Armies served quantities of stale beef or salted beef (soldiers referred to salted meat as “salt horse”) or unwholesome pork.

Hardtack, a plain flour-and-water biscuit, was often so hard that soldiers couldn’t bite it. A strong fist blow could break them. According to Billings, soaking hardtack didn’t soften it. Instead the soaked cracker eventually turned elastic like gutta-percha, a tough plastic material resembling rubber. Yuck!

Another problem with hardtack is that they were sometimes moldy and wet when privates received them. Billings believed the crackers had been packaged too soon, perhaps still warm from the oven. Hardtack also got damp in wet weather when stacked at railroad depots awaiting trains to take them to army camps. Billings blamed inspectors’ negligence for food, ruined by rain or sleet, reaching the army camps.

It gets worse. You may want to skip the next paragraph.

Hardtack sometimes became infested with weevils and maggots in storage. This problem wasn’t usually enough to keep them from being distributed. Soldiers still drew the infested crackers as rations.

Nine pieces of hardtack were a single ration for some regiments while ten pieces were given in others. It was usually not a problem either way; there was enough for those who wanted a larger number because some soldiers refused to accept them at all.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee, University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

“Gutta-Percha,” Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2017/02/08 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gutta%E2%80%93percha.

“Salt Horse,” Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2017/02/08 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salt%20horse.