Civil War Cuisine

Flour, water, and salt. This was all we needed for a filling meal when the cabinets could offer no better. We each were taught the recipe for hardtack in Mrs. Webb’s fifth grade social studies class as she told us how soldiers from both the Union and Confederacy munched on these little baked bricks of dough. And so did we. When our hunger demanded it, we poured, mixed, and baked ourselves up some Civil War cuisine. The leftover crumbs acting to alert the parents of our imminent malnutrition, mother would take us out to shop for some twenty-first century sustenance.