The recipe that Bill provided is something we sometimes make in the fall season when we're at local events. While it's definitely a documented dish, it would have been prepared by soldiers who had access to the ingredients and also the time it takes to sit and cook it up. The fried bits go remarkably well with the sweetness of the apples and dried cherries.
Another great reference to period food can be found in the "Columbia Rifles Research Compendium, 2nd Edition." Actually, this book is in my opinion a must have for any reenactor seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the "Three M's" which are "Man, Material, and Method." A few excerpts from the book for those interested, taken from original accounts:
"It would make you laugh to see us cook our grub when we are marching and every man has to carry his grub with him and cook for himself; to see every man with his tin dipper boiling his coffee and frying meat on a tin plate."
"A dirty, smoke-and-grease-begrimed tin plate and tin dipper have to serve as our entire culinary department. We boil potatoes, fry pork, and make coffee-all in our dippers."
"We serve out our pork and bacon raw except when we have beans to boil with our pork. i youst (used) to get a meal when i had a chance and fry flap jacks. you would laugh to see us frying them on a tin plate. and our crackers we sometimes soak them and fry them."
"In drawing his ration of meat from the commissary the quartermaster had to be governed by his last selection. If it was a [meaty] hindquarter then he must take a [bony] forequarter the next time....The kind of piece drawn naturally determined its disposition in the soldier's cuisine. If it was a stringy, flabby piece, straightaway it was doomed to a dish of lobscouse....If the meat was pretty solid...it was quite likely to be served as beefsteak."
"Our beef, when we got any, marched with us and was in the best of condition, no fat, all bone and muscle. It was usually killed about 4:00 a.m. and we got it in time for breakfast. We were supposed to get 3/4 of a lb. No choice cuts, take it as we got it, bone and muscle counted, we stuck it on a sharp pointed stick, held it to the fire, and roasted it with our coffee and hard tack."
"I am writing...after eating a very good dinner of stew. I will tell you what my stew is made of-small pieces of beef cut up very fine and four potatoes cut up fine and hardtack broke up fine, well seasoned with salt and pepper to suit. It makes a very good dish."
"The dessicated vegetables used in our army...I regard these compressed vegetables as the best preparation for prairie traveling that has yet been discovered. A single ration weighs, before being boiled, only an ounce, and a cubic yard contains 16,000 rations."
Those are just a few accounts of what was being rationed to soldiers, and what they did with it. Even better are accounts of the supplemental food items that soldiers begged, bought, borrowed, or stole...most often they stole it from local farms and mills. Such foraging was looked down upon by officers but with a wink and a nod the men would provide an officer who witnessed the killing of a hog, etc. with a choice cut of the meat. Several accounts of this happening among the sharpshooters themselves have been documented; Wyman White mentions killing a pig, leading a calf away from it's mother, stealing apples, etc., Stevens mentions a Swiss member of Company A getting in trouble with Col. Berdan for not killing a chicken he had stolen. One of the most widely joked about foraging exploits within Company F was when the men had broken into a hogshead of molasses and dunked one of the more ambitious men into it headfirst. About foraging, stealing, etc. and the preparation of such things, the CRRC:2 gives several accounts:
"I...had picked up an apple from the ground, a fine, big, juicy fellow, and commenced to eating it...A lady suddenly appeared at an open window in the house some 15 yards distant...She addressed me in the following language, leaning out of the window, "I say, you damned infernal Yank, don't touch one of my apples"...I, however, heeded not the order. Continuing to feast on the delicious fruit, I eyed her ladyship with silent scorn and contempt...After indulging for fully ten minutes in the must abusive, obscene, and blasphemous language that I ever heard, she added, "Go home, you damned thieving Yankees to your whoring mothers in the North." I hauled off with all my force, driving the fruit through the window, and smashing the glass into a thousand pieces. This caused her ladyship to beat a hasty retreat."
"We approached the pen cautiously, relying upon the bayonet and butt end of the musket as the instruments for the slaughter, for we dared not shoot...We pulled open the small door of the pen. Immediately out bounced four or five large hogs, followed by an innumerable family of youngsters, squeaking and grunting at every step, terribly frightened and running pell-mell between our legs. We soon commenced the chase...[I] at last succeeded in cornering a fine young pig. It weighed about 40 pounds. One plunge of the bayonet fastened the pig to the ground....We allowed it to bleed freely; after which it was carefully wrapped up in a gum blanket."
"We built a scorching fire of pine logs...The cook was a certain officer of my company...The officer first prepared a paste of moist earth and clay. This paste was placed two or three inches thick all around the hog in it's natural state. The whole was then laid in the middle of the fire. The mud covered the pig was blanketed in hot ashes and burning wood. About an hour after, it was drawn out. The coating of clay, then burnt to a crisp, fell in pieces. It revealed the roast pork. In flavor and whiteness, I never tasted anything as good....I often afterward saw chicken cooked in the same way."
"In the old mill we found some flour and it was soon doing duty as something resembling griddle cakes. We disposed of them all and would have licked the platter if there had been one."
"....when we have a chance to get any flour or indian meal we make flap jacks....when the corn was standing in the fields we used to pull the ears and grind them to meal by punching holes in a piece of tin and rubbing the ear of corn on the rough side of it, thus by a goodeal [sic] of labour one could get a good mess of meal and it is quite a treat when one has been a long time on hard bread."
"Corn meal...requires no forment, and requres no cooking utensils, a plain board placed before the fire is all the oven absolutely necessary. With a frying-pan, thin cakes can be rapidly baked, and are an excellent diet."
You can see from these accounts that men sometimes did a lot with a little, especially in terms of cooking utensils. Culinary knowledge and experience ran the gamut from men who simply relied on crackers at each halt during a march to men who would actively forage and prepare pigs, chickens, etc. in the manner above. Perhaps the simplest, most bare-bones thing someone can do authentically with their rations is eat the crackers plain or toasted (toasting actually softens them!) while boiling a can of coffee and holding pork or beef impaled on a stick over the fire. If you get a mess going, like my friends have, food preparations can be as simple or grandiose as were may be in the mood for. At the Payne's Farm event several years ago my mess was issued authentic field rations; something we're used to. I think we marched about nine or ten miles in a day, in full marching order, before being sent immediately into an intense skirmish that covered nearly two miles. Believe me when I say that during our only rest on the march everyone munched down their hardtack and went to sleep! At night after the skirmish it was too cold to worry about anything but a proper fire; we toasted our crackers and turned in.
If you feel like jazzing your period rations up a bit, using pretty much nothing but period rations, here are a few time-honored classics invented by Civil War soldiers:
"Skillygallee" was made by soaking hardtack in cold water for several hours, frying it in grease until golden brown, and salting to taste. I've done this myself and trust me....it WILL curl your toes.
"Hell-fired Stew" was made by pulverizing hardtack to a powder before soaking it in water and frying it. I've never tried this one but it has always seemed that it would come off as something like falafel.
"Lobscouse" was a stew made by boiling meat, hardtack chunks, and vegetables (dessicated veggie rations or fresh).
"Cush" or "sloosh" was similar to hell-fired stew and was must made from pulverized hardtack and water fried in grease with bits of meat. This is similar to Bill's recipe for "scoosh" but minus the good stuff.
"Hardtack pudding" was made "by placing the biscuit (hardtack) in a stout canvas bag, and pounding bag and contents with a club on a log until the biscuits were reduced to a fine powder; then we added a little wheat flour if we had it....and made a stiff dough, which we next rolled out on a cracker box lid, like a pie-crust; then we covered this all over with a preparation of stewed, dried apples, dropping in here and there a raisin or two for Auld Lang Syne's sake, rolled and wrapped it in a cloth, boiled it for an hour or so, and ate it with wine sauce. The wine was usually omitted and hunger inserted in its stead."
Man, I obviously love period army food and cooking it!
_________________ Brian WhiteWambaugh, White, & Companyhttp://www.wwandcompany.com---------------------------------- Randolph Mess, U.S. Sharpshooters
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