Confederate Camp Cooking Quotes

“Because the hardtack was packaged in boxes marked “B. C.” (probably for “brigade commissary”), the men took to saying that the crackers were so hard that they must have been baked “before Christ.”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking

“It was not referred to as hardtack until 1861. Tack is a contemptuous term for food. It was merely a thick, virtually imperishable square cracker made of flour and water. When fresh, it is not unappetizing, but when boxes of hardtack sat on railroad platforms or in warehouses for months at a time before being issued to the men, the foodstuff hardened and often became insect-infested.”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking

“At times baking soda and yeast were not to be had. Individuals were issued rations, including flour, to utilize as best they could. Because of lack of equipment, especially when men were on the march, bread-making was sometimes accomplished in the manner described by Timothy Mitchell, writing home to southwest Virginia from Tennessee: “Our flour we make up in an oil cloth, back of a dirty shirt, or towel; roll it ’round a stick and hold it before the fire.” [26]”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking

“French imported salmon, green peas, and sardines were thought to be more appetizing than American goods such as canned condensed milk, meats, oysters, and vegetables.”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking

“Thousands of bushels of grain would ferment and rot at one station; hundreds of barrels of meat stacked at another, while the army starved because [of] ‘no transportation!”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking

“Often and again, the troops around Richmond were without beef — once for twelve days at a time; they were often without flour, molasses or salt, living for days upon cornmeal alone! and the ever-ready excuse was want of transportation!”
― Patricia B. Mitchell, Confederate Camp Cooking