Sykes Regulars Hard Tack Recipe:

When on campaign I strive to be as authentic as humanly possible in this day and age. I avoid eating fruits and vegetables out of season or those varieties unavailable to the soldier of the 1860’s. Salt pork, country bacon, and goober peas form my usual source of protein. And in true Yankee fashion, hardtack comprises the bulk of my marching ration.

At my first event, I carried the equivalent of three days marching ration on a seven mile march: 4 ounces coffee, 2 ¼ lbs. salt pork, and 27 pieces of hardtack. Add to this July heat and my first true taste of the wool fatigue uniform and you get one first-timer who got his immersive experience and then some. But in the spirit of instruction, I now seek to share my personal recipe (really a baked version of my grandmother’s dumpling recipe) for hardtack with the viewing public.

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups all purpose flour (plus more if necessary depending on weather)
2. ½ tsp. salt
3. One egg-sized ball of shortening or lard
4. ½ cup cold water (plus more if necessary depending on weather)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place dry ingredients in large mixing bowl.
3. Cut lard/shortening into flour with a fork until the flour becomes grainy in appearance.


4. Add water and mix with fork. For this step, I find it best to make a well in the flour mixture and then add the water to the well. I then place a fork in the center of the well and begin to stir the mixture together while slowly incorporating the flour from the sides of the well. Once the mixture becomes a cohesive mess, I then dive in with flour covered fingers.


5. Work dough until stiff. At this point you may need to add more flour or more water until the dough becomes stiff yet slightly sticky—imagine something less like canned biscuit dough and more like play-doh. The amount of flour or water you may need to add will vary depending on the weather and humidity outside.
6. Roll out dough on flour dusted surface to a thickness of ½ inch and cut into 3x3 inch squares. I rework leftover dough into as many additional pieces as possible—I usually get 9 pieces of hardtack from one batch of dough.


7. Poke 12 (my sous chef accidently poked only 9 in the pics) evenly spaced round holes in each piece of hardtack. This aids in the drying out process.
8. Place hardtack on ungreased cookie sheet and insert in 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. Your goal is to dry the hardtack more than it is to bake it.
9. After 30 minutes have elapsed, flip hardtack and allow to cook an additional 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and allow to cool. I usually make my hardtack at night and allow it to cool overnight before tossing in my haversack or placing in a container for long term storage.

This hardtack will remain dense yet crumbly and edible with little real effort over the course of a weekend. Indeed, I find it quite tasty on its own or with some country ham. If you leave it stored in a non airtight container or in you haversack for a month it will resemble the hard inedible stuff you read about in books. Also, this hardtack will absorb the odor of the contents of your haversack over the course of a weekend. This is fine if you don’t mind a slight coffee or porky taste. However, you might want to avoid keeping loose Castile or lye soap chips in your haversack.

Happy campaigning!

Gettysburg: Three Up, Three Down.

Okay, I admit it. In anticipation of the coming season I got in one of those rare moods where I want to sit down and watch the movie Gettysburg. You can only read, surf web forums, and dream about your next gear purchase so much before you find yourself wanting to just sit back and watch the war unfold on the small screen. So, just like we used to do in the Army at the end of every After Action Review (AAR), I offer my three up and three down for Ron Maxwell’s Civil War drama.

Three Up:

1. Robert E. Lee disciplining J.E.B. Stuart. Although we will never know what Lee really said to Stuart the evening of July 2nd, this representation of it is simply magnificent. It is easy to picture Lee in such a way based on what we know of him today. And whatever was said, Stuart never let it happen again and it possibly contributed to his death at Yellow Tavern almost a year later.

2. Pickett’s Charge. The cannonade, Armistead and Pickett inspiring their troops, and the rows of Johnnies stepping off into oblivion—enough said.

3. Sam Elliot as General John Buford. As a Kentuckian I am a bit biased towards this Kentucky-born cavalryman and his contribution to the battle. But I am sure Sam Elliot was created for this role—and that of the stranger in The Big Lebowski of course.

Three Down:

1. The beards. James Longstreet looks like he’s wearing the remains of a small mammal and J.E.B. Stuart looks simply clownish. I am sure they could have done a lot better had someone convinced Ted Turner to invest a little more money on hair and makeup and a little less on his under-achieving Braves.

2. Lewis Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock professing their love for each other. We get it already.

3. Buster Kilrain. I can overlook an enlisted man taking such liberties with his regimental commander—they were state volunteers and not Regulars after all. However, I still find his one-man defense of Little Round Top a bit much. Where the heck is that sharpshooter who took out John Reynolds when you need him?

There you have it, my three good and three bad for the movie Gettysburg. I am too cheap to buy Ken Burns’ Civil War. I have seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off too often to stomach Glory more than once in a blue moon. And I would rather drop a cannon ball on my genitals than sit through Gods and Generals again. Sometimes you just need your Civil War fix. It is a good but not great movie about the Civil War’s greatest battle. And like Roger Ebert said when he reviewed Top Gun, the good parts are so good and the bad parts are so relentless. But sometimes addicts have to settle.