Making Hardtack
I included the recipe in an earlier post, and as I researched further found that there are a few techniques necessary to the authenticity of this wartime snack. The basic recipe is 1/2 to 3/4 cup water to 3 cups of flour and "knead until your wrists are sore"--which mine were. One recipe even instructed not to wash your hands and allow the sweat from kneading the dough season the hardtack. Gross. I am proud to say that my hardtack was not that historically accurate. It took quite a while to get the dough to a "leather-like" consistency, and it was even harder to roll that tough dough out in a flat sheet. After baking the squares for an hour, the result was very hard, very thick, tasteless cracker. . . which was perfect.
The Reaction
The reaction to the hardtack was mixed: some tasted the stale white biscuit with great trepidation (and understandably so), others were curious, still others were just excited to have a snack of any kind. (The latter prove the theory that some middle schoolers will eat anything. I have found this to be true for boys and girls alike. This insatiable adolescent appetite knows no gender.) One student examined his hardtack carefully before venturing a taste. He knocked the snack against his desk, and judging from the sound of the two objects hitting one another and the fact that no crumbs resulted, I think the desk and the hardtack were equal in density and rigidity. Still funnier was the deep thud that came when some of hardtack hit the trash can.
Seriously skeptical
Funny
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