All of the food has one thing in common, no water. As long as it's dehydrated, and kept dried it should stay good. Keeping the food dry is the real challenge that no one ever talks about.
@@kingmasterlord Not MAKING it dry, KEEPING it dry. Unless your wizard is hovering over the stores like a dragon hovers over gold, you need to find a better answer.
A lot of dried survival foods were actually re-hydrated into soups and stews, as eating them dry was a miserable and sometimes painful experience. Love your work, Bob!
Also keep in mind that the jerky of ye olden days was different from the one we buy today. It was leathery, soulcrushingly salty and had little to no condiments.
I make hard tack all the time as a civil war reenactor and here is what I have learned: The best way to make proper hard tack is actually to bake at the lowest temperature for about 4 hours. This will make sure to get all of the water out of the dough and it will leave you with something that keeps for 200+ years (seriously, SteveMRE has a video eating civil war tack). The easiest way to eat it is to smash it into bits in a canvas bag with a hammer and add it to your coffee. Its like coffee flavored cereal and all the ingredients are lightweight and can be kept for years in dry conditions. If you have pig grease, you can also fry the hardtack into a "Hellfire Stew." Anyways, thanks for coming to my ted talk
I've eaten hard tack many times before while LARPing, it is absolutely meant to be left in a bowl of stew to soak up the broth while you eat the vegetables/meat in the stew, then by the time you get to the tack (it needs to soak for as long as you're willing to wait) it's like a dense bread full of flavour rather than a thick dry cracker.
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 True, but it is, in some cases def meant to be at least hydrated in some way. Depending on recipe and time since baking obviously
@@thewisewolf768 I’m talking in general. Op said it’s “absolutely meant to be,” which is simply untrue. I am under the impression that he meant that in general, and that nobody ate hardtack by itself, which again is untrue. It’s actually incredibly common for hardtack to be eaten by itself as seen in historical records, not like the mentally impaired op would know
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 It's a given that if water isn't available, people would survive with whatever they have. However it's fairly obvious that if water is available people are going to make stew out of whatever ingredients they can muster. You lose all credibility when you seemingly feel the need to call someone mentally disabled over a tiny historical detail.
My grandmother used to make us hard tack as kids. Though, she let it puff up and sprinkled it with brown sugar. She talked, more than once, about eating a lot of hard tack during the depression.
Just fyi, this is real hard tack. Flour salt and water, that's all it is. You can put dry seasonings on it before you bake it too and it'll still last forever.
@@NPS69it won’t last as long as real stuff because it was cooked hotter and faster. Real stuff would be the equivalent of 170-200 for upwards of 2 hours to get it seaworthy. For actual hardtack, op wouldn’t have been able to bite into it.
TBH I thought biltong a alternate to jerky would be in DnD, it's not bad it's like the meatloaf version of jerky and last even longer than jerky and can surprisingly taste just as good (depends on how it's made and seasoned)
And that's how biscuits and gravy became a dish. Boil bones with water, throw in some veg, boil them down and throw in the hard tack at the end to soak up the excess water, turning the soup into gravy. Rinse an repeat.
I wonder if one could add a small amount of fresh or dried herbs to the hard tack dough before baking without any significant impact to their near infinite shelf life. I would assume that baking those thin biscuits for an hour at 375F is gonna kill off any microbes or spores that might have been on the herbs as well as being so dry throughout the biscuit that nothing could grow even if it survived. So if that is the case then hardtack would have only been unflavored to save money not because of shelf life.
My understanding is it is better to store spices separately in a pouch (which they also have in dnd) so that you can add based on need. Also, I think the oils would be lost in the baking process.
The reason they didn't do that is that they weren't made for direct consumption unless things are desperate. Think of them more like an ingredient rather than a snack.
I love to enhance my characters by giving them customized rations based on their preferences. My Yuan-ti *loved* pickled eggs and would often pack a canister in with her rations as treats. The rest of her rations would often consist of jams, dried apricots, and smoked fish or poultry jerky.
fun fact about hardtack: you can't just bite into it, it will break your teeth in the past soldier often used musket's butt to crushed or punch to break a hardtack into smaller pieces.
absolutely love the concept of rations. Wanted to turn that "Rations of fantasy races" post into an actual renfair shop but the laws around selling meat and dairy is insane
Where I grew up, hard tack is a candy made in a big sheet and then cracked apart... Kinda like homemade lollipops. It looks like shards of stained glass but can look like sea glass if you dust it with 10x afterwards.
There used to be weevils that would burrow into hardtack on ships, it was gross but it tasted better than plain hardtack so they just ate it in the dark.
It’s worth pointing out that both in real life and fantasy adventure land, rations like these were eaten last in the event you couldn’t get a meal in the wilds. If you can catch fish, forage for wild fruits and veg or shoot a couple rabbits or a deer, you’d leave the rations in the bag. A successful and well kitted party might also have a few vials of spices on hand to make bland but nourishing food more palatable. I played an orc ranger once who became a monster hunter for hire because he wanted to cook and eat one of every creature he possibly could. He had a whole-ass chuck wagon loaded with cooking supplies that he would drive around with his oxen wherever he could, and later got a handy haversack specially to keep some portable cooking supplies in case he had to leave the wagon. Only time he ever used rations he used the jerky, fruit and nuts to make a pie filling with some butter and some whiskey they had looted and crushed the tack into flour to make the dough.
Had a half orc, I was playing poor all the ingredients of a ration in his mouth and poured water in his mouth while the party was walking and let it sit for 10+ minutes, then started chewing and eating. Mm soup.
Boil some water throw in some hard tack dried fruits and nuts mash it together and you would have a decent like porridge. Extra points if you have some spices and sugar.
One of my players is a very good cook, so their character always carries different ingredients with them. It’s more fitting for adventurers to be eating good food.
A ranger or druid should be able to find chicory or magical, caffeinated root to dunk your hardtack in. Foraging, imo, is a fair and balanced way to add to your rations. You should allow yourself to forage for challenges like this.
Unless they come up with an affordable human version of monkey chow this is also likely still the diet of your average worker minus the coffee and energy drinks.
i used the exact same recipe just cut in half, think i added a bit too much salt 💀 had to throw it at the ground to break it and ate some of the rest with soup
This video is kinda bad. You cooked it on too high a temperature and not nearly for enough time. Traditionally, they would be baked for hours multiple times to drive out as much moisture as possible, so that they won’t spoil on long voyages. Also „hardtack“ is a modern term for them that was rarely ever used in history, and in fact unheard of until the civil war. Alsooo the holes are so that steam can escape without jeopardizing the integrity of the bisket. You have successfully made thick saltines. Ships biskets? Not so much. And being picky here, traditionally ships biskets were circular, again, not being square until the civil war, during which the process of making hard bread was industrialized. And because d and d uses swords and not muskets, ships bread would be circular to be accurate. Not like it mattered, because like I said, you made thick saltines instead of ships bread
If you’re going to correct someone, you should first spell biscuit right 😎 unless of course you’re using some pre 20th century English version of the word. However, I agree with you on several of your points. He also said that the salt was optional. I think it’s likely the salt in addition to the lack of moisture that helps these stay fresh for decades. I therefore wouldn’t say the salt is optional. What do you think?
All of the food has one thing in common, no water. As long as it's dehydrated, and kept dried it should stay good. Keeping the food dry is the real challenge that no one ever talks about.
prestidigitation
@@kingmasterlord Not MAKING it dry, KEEPING it dry. Unless your wizard is hovering over the stores like a dragon hovers over gold, you need to find a better answer.
You can make a water proof pouch to store this stuff in with medieval technology so it’s not that big of a leap for an adventurer
Tightly wrap in some waxed cloth inside your pack, should keep it dry unless it gets tossed in a river
@darlingjo7492 It is.
A lot of dried survival foods were actually re-hydrated into soups and stews, as eating them dry was a miserable and sometimes painful experience. Love your work, Bob!
I'd be willing to bet that eating hardtack dry has killed at least one person, whether from choking or an infection in a cut or chipped tooth.
Also keep in mind that the jerky of ye olden days was different from the one we buy today.
It was leathery, soulcrushingly salty and had little to no condiments.
My brain was half expecting Max Miller to show up
Clack clack
Yup
Clack clack
the clack clack played in my brain
*clack clack*
I make hard tack all the time as a civil war reenactor and here is what I have learned:
The best way to make proper hard tack is actually to bake at the lowest temperature for about 4 hours. This will make sure to get all of the water out of the dough and it will leave you with something that keeps for 200+ years (seriously, SteveMRE has a video eating civil war tack). The easiest way to eat it is to smash it into bits in a canvas bag with a hammer and add it to your coffee. Its like coffee flavored cereal and all the ingredients are lightweight and can be kept for years in dry conditions. If you have pig grease, you can also fry the hardtack into a "Hellfire Stew."
Anyways, thanks for coming to my ted talk
your.... ted "tack"? heh.......... I'll see myself out
@@EyeMCreative Well played, sir
I don't think anyone has ever made hard tack without clacking them against each other.
Now that I think about it, every hard tack video I've seen has them clack them together. This one, Max Miller, even Flakfire back in 2016
Must be how you can tell its done
I've eaten hard tack many times before while LARPing, it is absolutely meant to be left in a bowl of stew to soak up the broth while you eat the vegetables/meat in the stew, then by the time you get to the tack (it needs to soak for as long as you're willing to wait) it's like a dense bread full of flavour rather than a thick dry cracker.
It’s not „absolutely meant to be,“ it’s just a common practice
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 True, but it is, in some cases def meant to be at least hydrated in some way. Depending on recipe and time since baking obviously
@@thewisewolf768 I’m talking in general. Op said it’s “absolutely meant to be,” which is simply untrue. I am under the impression that he meant that in general, and that nobody ate hardtack by itself, which again is untrue. It’s actually incredibly common for hardtack to be eaten by itself as seen in historical records, not like the mentally impaired op would know
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 It's a given that if water isn't available, people would survive with whatever they have. However it's fairly obvious that if water is available people are going to make stew out of whatever ingredients they can muster. You lose all credibility when you seemingly feel the need to call someone mentally disabled over a tiny historical detail.
@@CrizzyEyes don’t care
Hard tack (insert Max Miller clacking his hard tack)
*clack clack*
It will get harder as it ages. Most sailors and soldiers would have to immerse it in a liquid to soften it.
Long ago, the four elements lived together in harmony
My grandmother used to make us hard tack as kids. Though, she let it puff up and sprinkled it with brown sugar. She talked, more than once, about eating a lot of hard tack during the depression.
I bet it'll make a good stew if you combine them all
Funny you should say that. That's commonly what was done, when they had the time and opportunity.
Good old hellfire stew because raw hardtack ain’t in the card.
Make a stew, crumble up the hard tack and mix it in, not nearly as hard once it's soaked up some liquid
"Hardtack"
(face of resignation) clack clack
I'm just imagining someone's saying "mmmm! Hard tack! My favorite!" And then get strapped in the deck of the ship. 💀
Congratulations, you discovered how to make roof tiles!
Yep, there's a clack clack. Good hardtack!
I missed during the actual video that the Hard Tack* was actually a rock at first.
I'm kind of inspired to make my own tasty tack with some old flour in my pantry that is going to expire soon.
still probably more moist than those hospital cold turkey sandwiches you get!
if you don't plan on storing it for years, splash some sugar in the mix and don't let it bake too long and then it'll be a rather tasty snack.
How was it with soup?
Crunchy
I love the taste of rock
Aren't you supposed to put water on it or something when you go to eat it?
when you make actual hard tack yes. This is just a cracker
Just fyi, this is real hard tack. Flour salt and water, that's all it is. You can put dry seasonings on it before you bake it too and it'll still last forever.
@@NPS69it won’t last as long as real stuff because it was cooked hotter and faster. Real stuff would be the equivalent of 170-200 for upwards of 2 hours to get it seaworthy. For actual hardtack, op wouldn’t have been able to bite into it.
TBH I thought biltong a alternate to jerky would be in DnD, it's not bad it's like the meatloaf version of jerky and last even longer than jerky and can surprisingly taste just as good (depends on how it's made and seasoned)
Clack clack
And that's how biscuits and gravy became a dish.
Boil bones with water, throw in some veg, boil them down and throw in the hard tack at the end to soak up the excess water, turning the soup into gravy.
Rinse an repeat.
I wonder if one could add a small amount of fresh or dried herbs to the hard tack dough before baking without any significant impact to their near infinite shelf life.
I would assume that baking those thin biscuits for an hour at 375F is gonna kill off any microbes or spores that might have been on the herbs as well as being so dry throughout the biscuit that nothing could grow even if it survived.
So if that is the case then hardtack would have only been unflavored to save money not because of shelf life.
My understanding is it is better to store spices separately in a pouch (which they also have in dnd) so that you can add based on need. Also, I think the oils would be lost in the baking process.
The reason they didn't do that is that they weren't made for direct consumption unless things are desperate. Think of them more like an ingredient rather than a snack.
I love to enhance my characters by giving them customized rations based on their preferences.
My Yuan-ti *loved* pickled eggs and would often pack a canister in with her rations as treats. The rest of her rations would often consist of jams, dried apricots, and smoked fish or poultry jerky.
Use +1 (or better )Teeth of Hard Tack eating to chew.
Yum, stone cookies
Engagement for the engagement god!
Hardtack for long term storage is usually cooked much longer, to remove all moisture. It usually becomes too hard to bite at that point
You want a good slow cook for hardtack, possibly multiple bakes. If you can bite into it straight, no soaking, then it wasn't baked dry enough.
and that is why they're willing to drop so much gold on meals when they get back to town
Now you have to spend energy like an adventurer.
fun fact about hardtack: you can't just bite into it, it will break your teeth in the past soldier often used musket's butt to crushed or punch to break a hardtack into smaller pieces.
absolutely love the concept of rations. Wanted to turn that "Rations of fantasy races" post into an actual renfair shop but the laws around selling meat and dairy is insane
There's _ALWAYS_ dwarven bread.
Where I grew up, hard tack is a candy made in a big sheet and then cracked apart... Kinda like homemade lollipops. It looks like shards of stained glass but can look like sea glass if you dust it with 10x afterwards.
There used to be weevils that would burrow into hardtack on ships, it was gross but it tasted better than plain hardtack so they just ate it in the dark.
Hardest larper on the small screen, right here
It’s worth pointing out that both in real life and fantasy adventure land, rations like these were eaten last in the event you couldn’t get a meal in the wilds. If you can catch fish, forage for wild fruits and veg or shoot a couple rabbits or a deer, you’d leave the rations in the bag. A successful and well kitted party might also have a few vials of spices on hand to make bland but nourishing food more palatable. I played an orc ranger once who became a monster hunter for hire because he wanted to cook and eat one of every creature he possibly could. He had a whole-ass chuck wagon loaded with cooking supplies that he would drive around with his oxen wherever he could, and later got a handy haversack specially to keep some portable cooking supplies in case he had to leave the wagon. Only time he ever used rations he used the jerky, fruit and nuts to make a pie filling with some butter and some whiskey they had looted and crushed the tack into flour to make the dough.
Dried fruit _puts down regular dates_
Hard tack was known for breaking teeth, and lasting a long time, there have been variant recipes found in Egyptian tombs that are still safe to eat
Everyone looking through the comments .. 👍 this video. My man is a chef!
Had a half orc, I was playing poor all the ingredients of a ration in his mouth and poured water in his mouth while the party was walking and let it sit for 10+ minutes, then started chewing and eating. Mm soup.
Boil some water throw in some hard tack dried fruits and nuts mash it together and you would have a decent like porridge. Extra points if you have some spices and sugar.
pemmican would also be a good addition
One of my players is a very good cook, so their character always carries different ingredients with them. It’s more fitting for adventurers to be eating good food.
Gotta see the video where the guy eats some hard tack that is like 8 yrs old. 😂
Hardtack is best soaked in the tears of dying PCs! 😈
And the blood of broken molars
Pemmican has left the chat
Hard tack is like instant ramen, most use it as an ingredient to make something new
You're supposed to soak hard tack in broth or water or something.
yes you add the "TAP TAP" LOL. Be sure to let them sit for a few week or months to really Harden
Not living off of a strict diet of goodberries? For shame.
What you consider dnd rations is what you get in the army to eat most of the time
A ranger or druid should be able to find chicory or magical, caffeinated root to dunk your hardtack in. Foraging, imo, is a fair and balanced way to add to your rations. You should allow yourself to forage for challenges like this.
You can get plot bread online and it's essentially the same thing. Maybe tastes better idk
Ahh, sounds like Passover
*CLACK CLACK*
rip your colon health lmao
Adventuring poops hurt :(
Also, hardtack is usually soaked in soup or water to soften it
Your supposed to wet it with water grog or stew
Unless they come up with an affordable human version of monkey chow this is also likely still the diet of your average worker minus the coffee and energy drinks.
i used the exact same recipe just cut in half, think i added a bit too much salt 💀 had to throw it at the ground to break it and ate some of the rest with soup
Max Miller would like to know your location
*clack clack*
I feel you could've ordered military hard tack
clack clack
Get a pot or boiling water and you can make it all bearable
The clacking of hardtack together twice seems to be a requirement.
For better accuracy, use whole wheat flour
How hot did the oven have to be?
Salt is NOT optional. In a pre-refrigeration world, salt was not only a flavor enhancer, but would also be the only preservative at your disposal.
What about pemican?
My character likes pemican instead of jerky
This man just threw $6000 worth of jerky. Is this where you need to be in life to afford health insurance in the US?
Hard tacknis easy to make. Eat with bacon greese or broth
You're going to want to make sure you get plenty of dried fruit in there if you're actually going to live on this. You WILL need the fiber.
Just don't get bugs in it, or you'll end up with tick tack
Isnt anyone will mix the tack into a stew or soup? I remember in ye olden days people will eat bread with stew or soup.
You're supposed you're supposed to soak the hard tack in your drink before you eat it.
You're great
if yor hard tack is biteable, that's not hard enough
Hard tack? Tasting history is lurking in background....
Yeah. You soak it in a broth. Milk or water
Saltines. The hard tack of today. Also great with soup.
If you can break the hard tack without a hammer you've done it wrong lol. And im serious.
This video is kinda bad. You cooked it on too high a temperature and not nearly for enough time. Traditionally, they would be baked for hours multiple times to drive out as much moisture as possible, so that they won’t spoil on long voyages. Also „hardtack“ is a modern term for them that was rarely ever used in history, and in fact unheard of until the civil war. Alsooo the holes are so that steam can escape without jeopardizing the integrity of the bisket. You have successfully made thick saltines. Ships biskets? Not so much. And being picky here, traditionally ships biskets were circular, again, not being square until the civil war, during which the process of making hard bread was industrialized. And because d and d uses swords and not muskets, ships bread would be circular to be accurate. Not like it mattered, because like I said, you made thick saltines instead of ships bread
If you’re going to correct someone, you should first spell biscuit right 😎 unless of course you’re using some pre 20th century English version of the word. However, I agree with you on several of your points. He also said that the salt was optional. I think it’s likely the salt in addition to the lack of moisture that helps these stay fresh for decades. I therefore wouldn’t say the salt is optional. What do you think?
@@sethburkhart1021 I am using a pre 20th century English version of the word. It is a pre 20th century English recipe.
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 well done! I couldn’t even get it to come up on Google spelled that way.
@@sethburkhart1021 crazy because I could
@@hochspannunglebensgefahr5339 oh ok I see that Townsends lists it that way. In the first 20 or more results they were the only one. Great channel!