Food That Time Forgot: Ships Biscuits
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- čas přidán 6. 05. 2023
- Ship's biscuit was a staple food for sailors and soldiers for centuries. Join us as we take a journey back in time to learn how this simple, hard, and durable bread sustained armies and navies during long voyages and battles.
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okie
here are my people foods pastinaak, schorseneren, aardpeer, meiraap, raapstelen, koolrabi, koolraap en postelein. Zeekraal en lamsoor
You're so hot.
My favourite channel. Thank you so much for this wonderful content.
I wish every video on every subject was as well done as this one
Sailor: "Cook, I was eating your biskets and bit into something soft!"
Cook: "What was it? A worm?"
Sailor: "No. A nail."
Oh no no
just a small dose of iron
@@dante666jt by togr
Rofl - very good!
Damnit boi 😂
"The soldiers stuffed ships biscuits in all their coats."
Are you sure they weren't just trying to get a layer of armor? 😂
Just like packing Nokia’s in your body armor. Just an older version. Heard in the north they started building homes out of the things. Drove the carpentry business down.
Well, now - why do a thing for just one reason when several reasons will do just as well? 🙂👍
18th century bulletproof vest
dont let Ukrainians hear this idea😆
Yeah, they could also throw it at their enemies and break their skulls!
....I'm 85 years old, and I remember my grandpa always refering to regular bread as, "light bread".....
@@swampfire6600 probably a little bit of both
To be fair it still is in some areas of the US in rural rural areas. Out in the sticks in Eastern Kentucky I grew up calling it that and many still do and I'm not quite 40.
@@christianweatherbroadcasti3491 shut up
"The lighter the wheat, the less there is to eat."
@@christianweatherbroadcasti3491you will be going to hell for this
Ship's Biscuits are a great example of starvation-food; they contained just enough nutrition to prevent starvation for a few months. They were in no way nutritionally complete and led to multiple deficiencies if exclusively relied on for too long. The sailors probably hoped there would be bugs in the biscuits because this increased the nutrition content drastically...
I suppose technically the grubs would be pretty clean since all they've fed on is desiccated biscuit.
So, at this point then I'm wonding, why didn't they grow insects on the ships for eating? There are plenty of cultures who eat insects, such as Thailand. Many Thais love snacking on grasshoppers, crickets and woodworms. Or Ghana. During the springtime when food is scarce, Ghanaians rely on termites as their main source of protein. These are examples I found on Google. Also, why couldn't they bring along a few small barrels of soil for growing plants in? I think they had methods of water desalination back then. There are obviously answers out there, otherwise sailors wouldn't have been known to commonly die of malnutrition diseases such as scurvy.
Also, I wonder where else I can ask these questions?
@@MrTrevortxeartxe they barely had enough water on ships for people and bugs are hard to store with just wood
@@MrTrevortxeartxeonically my first thought was that if I were in a situation with only hard tack to eat and it became infested with insects, I would simply eat a fraction of the insects and allow them to reproduce in the tack as it would pretty much be farming them for somewhat sustainable protein. The obvious answer as to why many people dont think like that is historically people didnt understand nutrition very well and also insects taste disgusting and are very unpalatable. I've eaten plenty of insects and prefer to dry them and grind them into a flour, however eating an actual bug, guts legs and all is a truly upsetting experience, though I'm sure in some cultures people are very used to it.
PS they definitely did *not* have water desalination back then and even today it's quite challenging and not common on ships
@@N8Dulcimer Oh my god, that's gross.
10yr old ship's biscuit: "just as edible as it was before!"
Important: you didn't say it was edible, simply that the edibility hasn't changed over 10+ yrs
As evidenced by worm larva in the center. 🤢
@@keithtorgersen9664 That's just extra protein that is. Good for growing boys.
A cask of incorruptible biscuits! They never go off... though some would argue that they were never on.
Just FYI: The larva wasn't planted there for sustenance. The bug put its babies there for shelter.
@@TRAMP-oline lol. Even the bugs know that it isn't edible.
Every person I’ve seen handle hard tack always has to smack it together. It’s like an instinct for us
Like clinking silver coins to make sure they’re real. Can’t be eating no counterfeit hardtack
lol I know right, I’m sure even the sailors did that too centuries ago
Like picking up Tongs.The clack must happen.
Max Miller from Tasting History shows a clip of him clacking hard tack together whenever it's mentioned.
Same thing with BBQ pincers. If you don't smack em together you ain't human :)
Our boy actually ate some of the rock hard decade old biscuit with visible bugs. Legend.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure he picked out a piece with no bugs in it.
Plot twist: it was rice
@@omppusolttu5799 he clearly visibily inspected it so he wasn't directly chompin on a juicy one, but still
@@andybunn5780 Makes no difference to me. If you see visible bugs in it, there will be insect eggs too that you don't see and what about insect saliva or whatever greasy substances that covers their body that touched other parts. Very disgusting i could not have done it (well it depends on $ too).
That's free meat, what's there not to like 😄?
Fun fact: ships biscuits where used by poachers to lure tropical parrots. Hence the phrase ''Polly wants a cracker?''.
Wow. Did not know that. Heard the phrase before though.
You learn something new every day.
Wrong, it comes from a Nirvana song.
innit@@_munkykok_
@@_munkykok_no but they used it
As a sailor in 2023 I can tell you the improvement to the food has been minimal 😂
What do you eat now?
@@kaptein1247 processed and frozen foods cooked to beef jerky or medium rare regardless of the kind of meat
No scurvy is a huge improvement, in my opinion.
@@yaroslavromanyuk5669 yeah it was just a joke I know that the food is obviously better than what they had and the conditions are better, I definitely the food can be very subpar especially when running out of rations, I was once given a hamburger on raisin bread with mustard
lmao
What's wild is I remember watching the original video from 10+ years ago, and realizing this biscuit was probably cooked in that video. Circle of life.
🥹
😂
Also, probably true.
I too remember that video.
Why the updated video??
@@alexscott8950 Because many of us wouldn't have seen the original one, and this one is probably better.
This is how I imagine the dwarven bread from Terry Pratchett's Disc World. You take it with you and when you're hungry you just take it out of your backpack and look at it. And suddenly you're no longer hungry :D
🤣
The most important dwarven bread being, of course, Scone of Stone.
Also makes for a great weapon if needed.
This is the waybread that Galadriel gave to Gimli and the rest of the fellowship.
@@magister343Did you say... "Stone?!"
the etymology of the word biscuit is really interesting, it’s literally latin for “twice baked” (bis coctus) corrupted a bit over time
I feel like the "cuit" is derived from the same vulgar latin which became French
Biscuit is literally a French word as far as I know, derived from the Latin term just as described in the first comment.
I know several languages used very similar words too, such as biscotti in Italian, meaning exactly the same thing.
It's pretty interesting how modern biscuits evolved into becoming dense dry cakes or cookies, usually sweet and eaten for desserts or snacks, instead of the more cracker-like form of the hard-dry bread they originally were at the time.
It also feels a little funny to see things called soft biscuits, when in practice they most likely were baked only once, and kept moist on purpose, which I could say my teeth are the most thankful for, haha!
Haha coc
Also interesting how it means the dense, hard, sweet “biscuit” in England. But in America “biscuits” are light, fluffy, once-baked breads
Interestingly, we have "dvopek" (lit. twicebake) in Slavic countries, looks like your regular industrial sliced bread (usually intended for toasting) only dried out completely. Italian biscotti are biscuits (also dry), while over here "biskvit" is the soft sweet freshly baked stuff you layer with cream to make cake.
Clack Clack!
We all immediately thought of you 😆
@@amandag8741 Now I just call hard tack, clack clack.
Clack Clack!
“Clack Clack!” Said the Tack
@@amandag8741 Hahaha, so true! I remember watching that clip on Max channel 😆
Legend has it they call it “Hardtack” not because “tack” is old British sailor slang for food, but because when you hold two, you instinctively “tack-tack” them together!
I have watched enough videos from Max Miller to know that. Almost sounds like roof tiles.🤣
@@MomPickMeUpImScared-st4wiUnga bunga, monkey brain bash biscuit together
What's the British slang for "surrender"? Fack?
@@TheRedRaven_ what
This is really brilliant. I'm a recluse living in Australia, and at 73 years old I don't intend to go out shopping much for the rest of my time. I'm fairly self sufficient from my garden and surrounding forest, but your posts really help me out. The first one I watched was the mushroom ketchup (brilliant). I will now start to catch up on all the others. Thanks so much.
Oh my, you could live 20 or more years, you’ll need supplies at some point !
Enjoy your days
I made your ship biscuit recipe years ago to explore historic cooking. And it lead to a discovery. Ship biscuit tastes like Grapenuts cereal. So I looked into it, and the ingredients on a box of Grapenuts is almost identical. And it was invented to compete with corn flakes during the bland = healthy Era of packaged food. So now, if I want grapenuts and the stores are closed, I can just pound a couple ship biscuits and add a spoon full of malt, the only additional ingredient in the box. :D
explode or explore?
@@user-jd3gf5xw1x explore, though it turned out to be both when we dropped one on a hard wood floor!
@@user-jd3gf5xw1x Obviously explode.
@@user-jd3gf5xw1x both if you're good at it
our man was cooking up explosive hard tack@@user-jd3gf5xw1x
Townsends: “Here’s a ten year old ships’ biscuit, and it’s probably still edible…”
Steve1989: “Challenge accepted.”
If you haven't seen the video, Steve did eat a piece of hardtack from the Civil War that was baked in 1863.
He would have described the taste and texture of the insects
funnily enough, I was on a Steve1989 video just before watching this one!
i was looking for this comment. well played, comment-ninja.
@@DJBillyQ same. czech republic 24 hour ration
The classic hardtack 'clack-clack.' 😎
Max Miller is giggling.
and we are all giggling too
✝️🩸
Romans 1 KJV
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
1 Corinthians 15 KJV
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Romans 3 KJV
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
♥️know♥️
1 John 5 KJV
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
It's been 5 days and I haven't made it past the first 30 seconds
Tasting History has really conditioned me to expect that satisfying *clack clack* whenever someone talks about hardtack and I'm so glad it was included here as well.
Yeah me too!
It’s not hardtack without the clack!
During WWI era, one soldier made his stew in the trench. His stew consisted of meat, vegetables, water and powdered biscuits. He got his flavourings and thickener from the biscuits.
A corned beef stew
And he’ll share it with his mate
The vegetables came from a local farmer who didn't know he was helping.
And the bugs came from the biscuits. The biscuits were their homes.
Would be an interesting experiment to create modern soup rations out of freeze dried greens, either freeze dried or canned meat as well as those biscuits.
For some reason an extremely simple food like this is much more fascinating to me than some complex and fancy dish from the past
I think it's the simplistic nature of it that amazes us. So incredibly simple yet so fundamentally important.
and the fact that it could save your life some day
@Karl with a K by our standards it is not food, but it will keep you alive if you eat it
@Karl with a K well they didnt really have that much choice back then. I wonder if they ever caught and cooked fish. Did they have ovens in ships? Or was it not feasible?
@Karl with a K wheat is good for you
Our family has something very similar that came from Norway with my great-grandfather in 1890's. They were made by his mother for the journey. it traveled in a special air tight wooden container called a tina handmade by his dad. The bread has now lived there for 133 years. It is opened on rare occasions and only on a low humidity day. The joke among folks in my generation (and there are two generations behind me) is what kind of family passes down old bread as family treasures. Collectors of course!
@Joy David, I am Norwegian too, my paternal grandparents and maternal great grandma (my grandmother’s mother) emigrated somewhere between 1910-1920. But I hadn’t heard of that kind of bread in my family. We do joke in typical Norwegian fashion about lutefisk though.
I love this story. Does the bread have a special name? Or is it just called "bread" (in Norwegian)?
@@losthor1zon Maybe skonrok. From low German, meaning 'pale rye'.
My Norwegian ex's family here in Minnesota had some lutefisk that had been passed down for several generations. It has never been opened, and if you've ever smelled "fresh" lutefisk you can understand why.
@@Raskolnikov70 To the tune of "O Tannenbaum:"
O lutefisk, O lutefisk,
How strong is your aroma.
O lutefisk, O lutefisk,
You put me in a coma.
You smell so strong, you look like glue,
You taste yust like an overshoe,
But, lutefisk, come Saturday,
I t'ink I eat you anyvay.
-- In loving memory of Eldo Kanikkeberg (1929-1993), Seattle's famous singing streetcar motorman.
I am a Turkish from Mardin. We named that biscuit "bakısma" and definitely better than normal bread. We used them by soaking in water, then eat it with cheese, olive and other breakfast things.
I was thinking of soaking one in water, then fry in oil. I wonder how that would turn out. Have your tried that?
@@thewiseguy3529 Oli and water mix well, and it helps to keep the eyes wide open when looking at the pan, and stay close to the action to see what happens.
Also, turn up the heat to the max.
Good luck!
@@_munkykok_ you obviously don't know anything about wet dough.
Have fun eating out at the restaurants enjoy the boogers and butt juice
@@thewiseguy3529u stupid?
Definitely not better than normal bread lol 😂. This guy never bit into a slice of brioche before that’s like heaven.
1:40 "Eat them in the dark, so you don't know what you're eating" reminds me of my ex. I miss you Ann Marie... We could off gone places...
A ship captain is approached by his quartermaster who tells him they don't have enough cannonballs for an extended battle. The captain tells the quartermaster to tell the master gunners to load the hard tack when they run out of iron. When the battle starts, the crew members immediately start loading sacks of biscuits into the guns. The captain then asks the quartermaster why they are doing that, to which he replies "they'd rather eat the cannonballs"
Sounds like a bad case of iron deficiency to me.
Haha
Good one
lmao
We got the joke after 16 words, yet to carried on anyway, making the rest as boring to read as eating flour and...
I had a summer job at a museum, and one day we were doing a marine-themed tour for some kindergarteners. One of the things we showed them was hardtack that my coworker made. We passed some of the biscuits around and let the kids be amazed at how hard they were, then I decided to be a bit of a showman and actually eat one to end the demonstration. I only found out later that my coworker made those biscuits for the FIRST time they had done this tour - years ago! So I, too, can vouch for the fact that it stays the same for a looooong time.
aren't you an american without dental coverage?
that's just financially irresponsible to bite into one.
@@HisameArtwork Who told you Americans don't have dental coverage?
@@HisameArtwork I'm Canadian, we don't have to worry about that.
@@TheLegless101 all the american comedians complaining about it. all the ppl complaining in the coments of those vids.
and when we lived there we had to buy our own and it didn't cover the costs anyway. was just a waste of paperwork and plastic.
Eww it had years of grubby little kid hands on it.
Love that everyone taps the hard tack "CLACK CLACK"
I haven't watched any of your videos for years. Back when your channel had just a relatively few videos. You have come so far as a host. You used to seem a bit nervous, but now you're clear, calm, and charismatic. Great videos.
I imagine hardtack made a great side business for small town bakeries. After you were done the bread in the hot oven, then the town people's dinners in the medium oven, you could have your apprentice mix up a dough and use the overnight low oven to do the biscuits while he sleeps by it. Selling them to travellers passing through and tucking a barrel away for hard winters.
Imagine getting an order for 100 barrels of ships biscuits
@@juggernaut316 the apprentice is going to hate that 😆
@@TheLord0Ice0Wind Nah, he'd just knead the dough using his feet.
@@LordDragox412 🤤🤤🤤
@@juggernaut316 Sounds like something a character from H.P. Lovecraft's stories would order before embarking on a grand adventure with their crew on a suicidal mission 😂😂
I'm italian, from Cattolica, on the adriatic sea. My grandpa was a fisherman and it was tradition ti bring on ships some kilos of dry bread called "bizzulà", an enormous ring of bread.
They used to hung them and share them holding and cutting them with a big knife.
You opened this wonderful memory of one of the most important person in my life, Michele, the best dad and grandpa...
bizzulà, what an interesting word. It seems to turn up very few results online, it must be a really local dialectical word, right?
@@ericpalacios920Yes bizulà is Romagnol word
What would this look like? I tried looking it up in Google Images as well and only see results of pizza! :)
@@firewolf34 looks like a donut with the shape like ouroboros
@@sentboumaster3436 yes, just like an ouroboros
I bought a reeces peanut butter cup years ago that had a few bugs in it....I only wish that I had noticed them before halfway through, but in reality, they went unnoticed until I saw them...The taste was fine until the discovery!
You can buy military bisquits with caraway here in Poland. It's nice snack when you go hiking.
I love that ship biscuits' iconic clack-clack introduction ❤
wish i could tag Max but i think he will watch it this video anyway
It's very Max Miller.
It's inevitable he'll see this and love the callout
I'm an immortal highlander who has been baking bread since the invention of agriculture & making hardtack since I was in the Egyptian navy (of course we just called it 𓏏 back then), and I gotta say I learned more from this video than during my entire cursed existence.
i simultaneously hate and love that you made me look that symbol up
@@chibi_bb9642 was it a boat symbol, or what was it? 🤣
😂
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE
Immoral*
I stumbled upon this wonderful video it bought back memories from my childhood. As a kid i was reading tin tin comic books and in this specific chapter called "the shooting star", tin tin and snowy gets stranded on a island formed by a meteorite. They quickly resort to emergency food box of the boat as the hunger strikes and there were ships biscuits in it.
This was posted on FB's Historic Cooking. You always do such a good job of explaining, a natural teacher, and there's no hamming it up. Keep up the excellent work!
When I was in the US Navy, I also attended college classes at night. In our history class, we were given a task of doing history research related to our jobs. Since I was in the US Navy, I choose foods in the time of sail. Biscuits were always on the menu for every meal. Some were "ship's biscuits" and there were other varieties. A fruit laden biscuit like biscotti that some ships out of San Diego took with them for the officers mess. (Boxes of dried fruit were for everyone onboard.) There was also a Spanish-Mexican pioneer dried cookie that was taken.
I find that late 1800's to early 1900's period of naval history fascinating. There was such a rapid transition from sail to steam and then to steel, but so many of the ancient naval traditions - like food - didn't catch up with modernity for a long time. It's just weird to read about sailors on a WWI era battleship still eating hardtack and pease.
Do you have any reading material that you remember from the class? I would love to read about it
@@Hardlythere There are a lot of resources. The Public Library, City of San Diego and many other libraries in California might have old documents listing ship's stores. There are Naval History websites, and you can do online search for lists of ship's stores and bills of laden (not sure the spelling). In the 1970s we had to do the research the old way of reading books, copying the information, the references, author's information, and book titles for our reports. PS: The Spanish-Mexican dried cookie was designed for travel in the coaches, carts, wagons, and in backpacks which made it ideal for sea stores. I remember that it was sweet and made with cornmeal and would last for months. I tried to make it once and I must have done something wrong. It crumbled and would not stay together.
Random question just out of curiosity. Do you thing would be easy for a modern sailor to adapt to the menu on a ship from that era
?
Max Miller would be proud of that opening clap.
Absolutely love this channel. I used to watch this channel at Fort Campbell in my barracks for past time. Brings back good mememories in my stay in Kentucky.
I baked hardtack today and it was amazingly easy than I thought.
I also learned a lot about American history from you. Thank you🤗✨✨
In Italy they're known as gallette del marinaio(sailor's biscuits)and you can still find them in bakeries. We use them as a main ingredient for a Ligurian salad called "capponada", soups, etc.
I think it's so funny that Italy gave us the word "biscotti" but then have an entirely different word for biscuits. And also, in French, a galette is a flat tart. Language is weird.
@@Levacque It is indeed :)
The etymology of galletta is "pebble".
It denotes a dry and hard baked product, generally salty. In Italy almost every biscuit is called biscotto (also, pasticcino, dolcetto= pastry), but only ancient and traditional biscuits/cookies, such as the crisp Tuscan cantuci is the original biscotto(actually and lit. cooked/baked twice). Biscuit is Old French(bis-coctum, Latin).In France a galette can be anything really, even crêpes (Bretonne).
In Spain las galletas are simply cookies, while bizcocho is a cake or some times a traditional biscuit.
@@edoardotomassoni4476 ahh I love complex etymology with regional specifics! That explanation just kept getting worse in the best possible way 😂
@@Levacque 😅🤣
@@edoardotomassoni4476 Biscuit also literally refers to its being baked twice.
Don't think I didn't see that shout out to Max, Jon 😂 wonderful episode!
Glad I'm not the only one who saw that... we need a crossover ep!😄
Which series is Max from?
@@keithtorgersen9664 Tasting History, great channel!
*clack clack*
@@Oltoir Max participated in a Live Stream a couple or three years ago if I remember correctly. It was fun and very informative.
This was so delightful to watch - I recall my history class in high-school - Canadian soldiers in WWI had hard tack and billy beef as part of their rations
This is filmed incredibly well, great job!
Back in the 70's there was a bakery in Katwijk that still made them. When they're fresh, they still are a bit soft on the inside. Butter and sugar made it palatable.
They still make them. However, they are only baked once, whereas the originals were baked twice. But we live in modern times, so you can order them online. These have been dried a bit, though.
Where I grew up they sold those in stores. Not that there was ever a shortage of regular very tasty bread so, even as a child, I was baffled why anyone would buy them. They tasted OK, a bit like bread with fennel seeds but not quite. There must have been other herbs added. They were as hard as those in the video judging by the sound. I ate them maybe a couple of times, just for the heck of it. It was work.
@@fotticelli Could say the same about spam, corned beef, baloney yet it still sells. All my old grandparents used to eat all these and their favourite memories during wartime was eating these foods, so eating them today is a way to experience that nostalgia.
They still make them in Katwijk i had one this weekend !
@@timokruis8171where in katwijk?
I love that he just opens with the Max Miller *_TAP TAP!_*
max miller married a man! ABOMINATION! Better to be on THIS page where people are NORMAL! LEVITICUS 18:22 ROMANS 1:22-32.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned that this video is of utmost importance because it explains the biscuits that the racoon in Pocahontas stole from settlers.
Normally I don't watch these kinds of videos, but this one I enjoyed.
You sound so enthusiastic about it, which makes me enthusiastic, despite having neither seen nor eaten one.
In the basements of Kronborg Slot (a Danish renaissance/Georgian era royal castle) they still have barrels of biscuits - if I remember correctly, the oldest barrel is around 300 years old and perfectly edible
I'm sure the barrel is edible, but what about the biscuits?
@@LordDragox412 I don’t know - ask the mealworms 🤷🏻♂️
@@SebMoellerM I can't, they've already became my meal!
@@LordDragox412 clever, he did say the barrel was edible
@@LordDragox412 😂😂😂
The enduringly valuable thing about this channel is the reminder of how much more fully we appreciate history when it's enacted (really doing the acts), integrated, and mundane. Empathizing with the past has nothing to do with swooping military maneuvers on strategic maps, and everything to do with the daily struggles and sensations of life at communal and homestead scale.
Thanks! This is so fascinating! This makes learning so much fun, and I can't wait to share history with my friends and family❤
I'm rereading the Aubrey Maturin series and your videos are helpful to imagine some of the food they mention in the books.
I remember R Lee Ermey talking about eating hard tack in Vietnam on an episode of Mail Call. It seems the Marines never really lost the know-how of how to make it. He said they'd make Marine pizza or Marine spaghetti with it and take tomato sauce out of a ration and put it over the hard tack and let it soak in and once it finally got soft it really wasn't that bad, so long as you heated it up every now and then. I miss that show, watched it before school every day for a long time.
the know how of combining flour water and salt? yeah a real hard recipe to keep track of and remember, you're right.
Another Marine dish was impolitely called $|π!T on a Shingle, using some kind of canned beef hash and gravy, poured over hard tack rations.
@@kimfleury not a Marine dish, just a dish that was served to everyone starting in WW1 Tasting History did a video about it.
@@icebite9888 The secret is not in the making, but the prepping for long life use. Perfect cooking, sealing, storing and ofcourse making the rocks edible.
@icebite9888 - Before this video, did you know how long and at what temperature to cook it to become hardtack without burning it?
I remember some stories passed down from generation to generation in my family, of traveling by covered wagon and cooking with "Hard Tack". Something about it was tooth chipping hard (they only used at desperate times)...using the milk cow that came with them, the hard tack was soaked in milk and it turned to a pulp. It was then used for cooking things like pancakes or what ever they could think up. Sweetened with berries picked along the way or even using the bugs that burrowed inside because and i quote "it's free protein"
I mean...back then they didn't have modern pesticides.
Bugs were...and I know some people will be shocked...part of the nature where they grew the food.
Sometimes it was simply cooked and eaten or simply cut around and then eaten.
As my grandfather would say “Eh, they don’t eat much.”
to my admittedly limited knowledge, all types of "white grub" larvae are completely edible - bee and wasp larva, maggots, those big fat ones you find under the bark of old trees, etc etc - as long as they are clean.
Of course there's a serious dislike of the idea of using maggots for food, but that's because they're usually in gross stuff.
Plenty of other crawly guys are edible too, ofc
@@TherronKeen also bonus extra protein, something hard to come by for poor families.
@@thebravegallade731 uh I don't know If I should say this but someone has to. There is no extra protein from the same food source your body can just synthesise them too.
You are the best kind of content on this platform. I’m glad you’re so successful doing it, you deserve it.
Ship's biscuits are still a popular snack in my native Faroe Islands, and I've got a pretty constant craving for them! 😅
That's interesting
In Poland "special biscuits" or "panzer wafle" as we call them, are "must have" elements in army MRE's
@@michakoniecko853 how is Poland for coloured tourists ? I really am fascinated by the history and culture of Poland and I would love to visit but I have heard some not so pleasant stories from Indians and Africans who visited Poland. Please tell me if it’s okay to go?
Ah I too enjoy eating rocks,
@@Sachinrockzful This summer there were many tourists from Qatar and other middle eastern countries. It's safe for people of color, but some Poles might make rude remarks about them.
As children in Australia, in the 1970's we had something known as a "Bush biscuit". Now, if you wanted one of these, you had to be very hungry and have a drink. It was a huge, dense and very hard dry commercial biscuit. Technically it was a sweet not savory, but there was nothing sweet about it. They were available in canteens esp in primary school, and were when we had only cents left, and were very hungry. Designed to fill you up
Fantastic video - well done indeed!
I have read about ships biscuits so many times, without ever knowing what they actually were - And now I know everything I wanted to know about them - Thanks!
Thank you for your educational videos. I appreciate that you are not letting this kind of history die
the Lithuanian military still makes these and puts them into their military rations, they do add caraway seeds for flavor but yeah hard as a rock nicknamed panzerwaffles people have driven tanks over them and they do not break.
Not to be confused with panzerschokolade
I have probably watched like 5 or 6 different videos about ships biscuits or hard tack and yet I can never get enough.
I'm glad you're still making videos. I really enjoy watching your content.
A boy in one of my history classes in high school brought in hardtack for our Christmas party. I discovered that it actually tasted REALLY good dipped in eggnog.
I have eaten hard tack but never searched what an eggnog is and I don't know how to feel about it
Any thing hard is always good after being dunked in some thing tasty!
We would soak a piece of hardtack in the morning and it would be soft enough for us to crunch through it by lunch time.
I remember a crew member forgot to soak his piece and had it in his pocket and dropped it from like 60' up in the rigging. It made a pretty good dent when it hit the deck and carried a lot of momentum as it ricocheted.
@@salmontanio212hammer dipped in mayonnaise
My favorite reference to these is in the bloody Jack series, when she’s sailing she automatically taps the biscuit so all the weevils fall out, she even does it at a nice dinner with a regular biscuit and everyone looks at her funny 😂
Yes, Bloody Jack! I was the only person I knew who read the series. Good to see someone else give it recognition.
Between Townsends, Max Miller, and B Dylon Hollis, I’ve seen more and more ship’s biscuits *clack* *clack* 😂
Having so much fun with these videos!
The word "biscuit" actually means "twice cooked" (French). There actually was a American Civil War era parody of a Stephen Foster song called "hard tack". A modern day equivalent of ship's biscuit or hard tack still exists in the cuisine that originated in Newfoundland, Canada. It is simply called "hard bread" and you could probably sharpen a knife on it but it features in a few traditional Newfoundland recipes. I have tried a few of them. Stores across Canada sell it as there are expatriate Newfoundlanders all across Canada. I assume that there the equivalents all around the globe.
In Sweden we still eat the equivalent called knäckebröd. It is standard in all cantines , like in schools but also in many basic restaurants. Also most people have them at home because one can have them for a very long time without them going bad. I usually eat them if I run out of regular bread in the weekend so that I can wait until the start of the week to buy freshly baked bread then .
The Germans have adopted it I think, we call it Knäckebrot here. Popular as a food to take to school/to eat out and about!
A company called Purity still makes and sells these biscuits by the tens of thousands in Newfoundland. The bread is soaked overnight and then fried up with pieces of codfish as a delicacy called “fish and brewis”.
Eww that sounds nasty! Sorry, but it just does!
@@salmontanio212 nah sounds delicious, nothing better than fish and bread, except maybe fish and potatoes
@@salmontanio212 are you American?
@@salmontanio212it iss fried fish and biscuit, how is that sound nasty?
What were they soaked in? I’m curious, would like to try and make it myself 🙂
Loved your hard tack video from 11yrs ago 😁 Bless you!
They still sell and people buy and eat ship biscuits in Philippines and many people like them. Probably in some other countries too. Because when you are on a remote island with no electricity no refrigeration, hot humid and bugs and ants everywhere - this is what you want to have.
In Philippines they call them galletas, there are also modernized versions called: magic flakes and sky flakes.
I worked for interbake foods the last large manufacturer of pilot bread which is essentially hardtack. They planned on discontinuing it years ago and there was such a large push back they decided to continue the product. They always warn new hires to not waste their employee allotment on it but curiosity always get the better of most.
Hard tack is how I found your channel! Thanks for so many years of excellent quality cooking and history videos
Me too!
I just found our channel. I love it. Thanks for sharing.
Hardtack is alive and well in Newfoundland. It can be bought in most stores as Purity Hard Bread
Max Miller wakes up in a cold sweat. He hears the clacking. It never truly goes away
Hard tack (CLACK CLACK) and tasting a decade old ration (nice!) hits the spot for food videos I love.
This was a really cool and informative video. I’ve been curious about this for a long time. Thanks!
When I was stationed in Germany in the mid 90s, I used to get zwieback bread, or twice baked bread. It was always brown and decently hard. We always ate them with beer. It was a decent snack.
Jon: *clack clack*
Max Miller: SPIDEY SENSES TINGLING
This is an old food supply currently being made to store as "future" emergency rations on many homesteads.
As opposed to preparing for past emergencies? Why is "future" in quotes?
@@filonin2 Because he obviously means the not so far future.
What kind of emergency?
@@comsubpac The British are coming! 😂
@@filonin2 Kind of difficult to prep for something in past unless there is a chance it will happen again in the "future".
Your videos are always enjoyable to watch!
Big fan here from NH. Met some folks at an event and was thrilled when I found out they love you too (and also Mrs Crocombe lol).
They have hard tack and switchel during the event and I kinda like the biscuits 😀
Just wanted to say that I really appreciated the deep dive on _why_ rations like this were so critically important in the first few minutes of this. I've watched countless videos on even what feels like such an extremely specific 'overdone' (affectionately: 'clack clack!') topic, but none have made me appreciate personal impact of portable food was traveling modernly routine distances.
There is a type of ships biscuit in my part of Scotland that has stayed rampantly popular on land: there's lard and butter in them so they stay soft, barely rise and never go off. They're called rowies/butteries/Aberdeen rolls depending on who you ask, and while they arent good for you I love them
"I mean, it is _not_ good for you, but it tastes really nice" seems to sum up the entire Scottish approach to cuisine. And I for one can respect that.
I went to google and found a recipe, I’m going to try them, they look good !!!
Amazingly explained the science behind creating them the way they were made. Glad I saw this
When I lived in the UK, I lived next door to the Carr family. They make their famous Table Water crackers today, 250 years ago they pioneered ship’s biscuits for the Royal Navy.
I love your videos! Our Alexandria , Virginia home is 200 years old and many sea captains lived on and near our street so this is fascinating for me. I race sailboats and we keep Pringles potato chips in our boat to pass around to the crew when we are out sailing and find ourselves without much wind. I don’t know how long they would stay fresh but I’m guessing a pretty long time. Pringles are our ship’s biscuit! 😂
Ah yes...for us on out S2 7.9 it was Twinkies....they would last for several seasons and still be edible (...some wild chemicals in those things I am sure) 😂
If you really want to go with that theme, build a spud locker on your sailboat!
I’m in on the ship’s twinkies !
Spud locker has a ring to it. We just toss the Pringles cans into the sailboat oven which is never used but will now be called a Spud Locker. Pringles are easy to pour and pass around while sailing. I wonder how hard tack was stored ?
Ohhhh barrels !
@@toniwadsworth7577 I first saw the term on the USS Alabama while touring it a while back, there was a door with an engraved brass plaque and I thought it sounded super fancy. I have no idea why they needed a separate storage space for potatoes (ventilation, maybe?) but the idea that they were so important to the US Navy that they required their own designated "locker" was interesting :)
Always gotta do the CLACK CLACK. 😂
Max really has turned that into the meme of food history! lol
Just found this channel. I think this is gonna be my favourite channel for a while
Not sure how I missed this video. One of my favorite hiking food is hard tack with travel soup (beef broth style) and I put in dandelions and tick seed flower in the soup.
I was born and raised close to sharpsburg Maryland. A family friend bought 30 acres with a very old small barn that had collapsed do to age. My cousin and myself dug through the debris looking for anything old my cousin found what looked like a tangled mess of clothing turned out to be a soldier uniform from the civil war the only way we could identify it is because of the buttons on the uniform. We also found a very old tin with hardtack inside. Most of the hardtack had crumbled but a couple were still completely intact. I guess the land owner of that barn might have been a veteran from the civil war and possibly stored his uniform in the small barn it was more of a small out building than a barn.
You had a antique treasure!!
Fascinating!
I remember your recipe for hardtack. It's actually one of my favorites mainly because it's the only thing I can bake xD
You baked the hardtack?
I mean you can't do go wrong with Flour and Water xD
I think if you bake any recipe long enough you wind up with hardtack. Sort of like that old Cosby stand-up routine where he talks about how everything he messed up in wood shop became an ashtray by carving a couple of notches into it.
I love stuff like this. Back home in Norway we have something very similar, bug probably a more modernized version that I have such a craving for after watching this!
Love your history lessons so much . And food
*hears the clack clack*
"I can already taste the history"
Max Miller's gleeful smile will haunt us to our dying days.
Plus the bugs that get into them are extra protein! Honestly though I have seen bugs in rice and flour where it is bone dry, and they still don't have a problem multiplying.
My grandad was a baker in Fraserburgh, northeast Scotland and he used to produce Thompson's ships biscuits - I never tasted one but as a lad I remember we had dozens of 12" x 12" x 6" biscuit tins that were labeled Thompson's ships biscuits. My dad did not follow him into the business so it was sold to Crawfords the Bakers. My dad always said the Crawfords Healthy Life biscuits were what he remembered as Thompson's ships biscuits - even down to the shape and size but of course Crawfords themselves had started life selling ships biscuits in Leith so who knows...
You can make something like these
in a pan too. On a very low fire, with a very small amount of oil. Though it takes quite a while. And you don't always need oil either, really.
Also, I used local natural bread flour. Not the hyper processed American stuff. Just for that extra bit of nutrition. It has more protein, is more nutritious, probably more akin to the original, but I expect the added seeds may shorten the shelf life.