The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-10-04
Hard-Taok.

AS I write, there lies before me on
my table an innocent-looking cracker,
which I have faithfully preserved for
years. 1t is about the size and has the
appearance of an ordinary sods biscait.
If you take it in yoar, hand you will
find it somewhat heavier than an ordi-
nary biscuit, and if you bite ,it--but,
no; 1 will not let you bite it, for 1 wish
to see how long 1 can keep it. But If
you were to reduce it to a fine powder,
you would find that it would absorb q
greater quantity of water than an equal
weight of ordinary flour. You would
also observe that it is very hard. This
you may, perhaps, think is to be attribu-
ted to its great age. But il you imag-
inc that its age is to be measured eniy
by the years which have elapsed since
the war, you are greatly mistaken; for
there was common belief among the
boys that our hard-taek had been
baked long before the commencement.
of the Christian era! This opinion was
based upon the fact that the letters b.
G. were stamped on many. If not. in
deed, all of the cracker boxes. To be
sure, there were some skeptics who
shook their heads, and maintained that
these mysterious letters were theinitials
of the name of. some army. contractor
or inspector, Of supplies, but the belief
was widespread and deep-seated that
they were certainly intended to set forth
the era in which our bread had been
baked. se ,.,.. ,v..vs. ,-ss.sa,r.t-F..,,.. +.
For our hard-tack were very. hard. It
was difficult to break them with the
teeth. Some of them you could rot
fracture with your fist p Still, there was
an immense amount of nonris1menti in
them-when once you had learned how
to get at it. It required some expert
ence and no little hunger to enable one
to appreciate hard-tack afight, and It
demanded no small au1oant Of inven1
tive power to understand how. tos cook
hard-tack as they ought to be cooked.
If remember correctly. iug our section
of the army we had not less than fifteen
different ways of preparing them. In
other parts. understand, they had dis-l
covered one or two ways; but with us,
fifteen was the limit of the CULINARY art.
when hard-tack was on the board. Is. ~
On the march they were usually. not
cooked at all, but eaten in the raw
state. In order, however, to make
them somewhat more palatable, YOU
simply cut down a slice aofs niee fat
pork. laid the pork on your erack ker. put.
3 spoonful of brown sugar on top of the
pork, and you had dish fit for az
soldier. OF course, the pork had Just
come out of the pickle, and was eonse-
quently quite raw. When wesshalted
for coffee, we sometimes had fricasseed
hard-tack-prepared by .toasting them
before the hot Goals. When, as was
generally the ease on march, sour
hard-tack had been broken into small
pieces in our haversacks, we soaked,
these in water and fried them in pork
fat, stirring we'll, and seasoning with
salt and suffers pepper, thus making
what was commonly known as a
''hishy-hashy," or a ..hot-fired stew''
Thus you see what vast and upsus-
pected possibilities reside in this 1imno-.
cent-looking three-and-a-halfis inch
square hard-tack lying here on my ta-.
BILE before me. Three like this aspeci-
men made meal, and nine were a ra=
ton; and this is what fought the sbat-
ties of the Union. SO Nicholas for
September. sH - t1Ss9A ei @sssfs4 ~