Arkansas weekly mansion., 1883-09-15
Hard Tack.

As write. there lies before me on my
table an innoccnt looking cracker, which
] have ia thfuliy preserved for years. 1t
Is about the size and has the appear
:tncc of an ordinary soda biscuit. If
YOU take it in YOUR hand. YOU will find
1t somewhat heavier than an ordinary
biscuit. and if you bite. it-but, no; |
will not let YOU bite it, for | wish To see
how long | can keep it. But if you
were to reduce it to Il fine powder, you
would find that it would absorb a great
cr quantity of water than an equal
weight of ordinary flour. You would
also observe that if is very hard. This
Won NAV. perhaps, think is to be attrib-
utcd TO it> great age. But if you inn
arinc that its age is to be measured on
" bv the wears which have elapsed since
the war, YOU are greatly mistaken; for
there was a common belief among the
bows that our hard-tack had been baked
long LLiOre the commencement OF the
Christian era: This opinion was based
upon the fact that the letters Is. c. were
stamped on many, if not, indeed, all OF
the cracker boxes. To be sure, there
were some SkepticS who shook their
heads, and maintained that these mys-
tcrious letters were the initials OF the
name of some army contractor or in
widespread and deep-seated that they
were certainly intended to set forth the
era in which our bread had been baked.
For our hartI-tack were very hard
1t was difficult to break them with the
teeth Some of them you could not
fracture with your fist. Still, there was
an immense amount of nOIIrIShment IN
thcm-whcn once you had learned how
to get at it. 1t required some expert
ence and no little hunger to enable one
to appreciate hard-tack Alright, and 1t
demanded no small amount of inventive
power To understand how to cook hard
tack aS they ought to be cooked II L
remember correctly, in our section ofthe
army we had not less than fifteen diff
ferent ways of preparing them. In 9th
cr parts. L understand. they had dis
covered one or Two more ways; but
with us, fifteen was the limit of the GU
linary art when hard-tack was on the
board.
On the march they were usually no.
cooked at all. but eaten in the raw
state In or,;cr, however. to make
them somewhat more palatablc, you
simply cut down slice of nice fat
pork. laid the pork on Your cracker. put
II spoonful of brown sugar on top of
the pork and you had a dish fit for a
soldier vi toilI>t. lit f'''l N iItt'i lt0t
come out of the pickle, and was con
scuucnilv quite raw. When we halted
for coffee. we sometimes had frica>secd
bareback prepared by tnastin@ them
Ecfnrc the hot Goals. When. as WAS
generally the case on a march, our
har,I-t:Ick had been broken into small
pieces in our haVcr>ackS, We soaked
these in water and fried them i'll pork
fat stirring we'll, and seasoning with
salt and suffers pepper, thus making
what was commonly known as
..hiShy y-hashy," or Il ''hot-tired stew
Thus You see what vast and unsul-
pcctcd possibilities reside in this inno-
ccnt-looking thr"e-and-a-half inch
square hard-tack living here on my
table. before, me. Three like the Spcci-
men made Il meal. and nine were
ration; and this is what fought the
battles for the Union.-Hdrry NJ
kjcRjr iH 81. NichOiGS..