Tack

[mick91]

My late grandad was as in the LRDG during WW2 and ive been reading through his old field diaries and notes. I've come across an interesting repeat for what seems to be a recipe. That calls for something called "tack" or "hard tack"
Some of the excerpts are quite entertaining and an insight into a man I wish I knew better! Recipe is not detailed but refers to burgoo or bugoo? I assume bully is a reference to bully beef ie corned beef.

"That ******* grimmy did away with everyone's tack and bully today. Along with the figs we traded yesterday, dropped a full flimsy burgoo straight into the *illegible, possibly bhengazi?* and covered it in fuel, food hasn't been the same since young Wallace copped it, always ******* bugoo"

Anyone know what tack or hard tack is? Id like very much to taste it out of curiosity.
I may well scan in or type up some of the more useful field notes, and thought it was poignant the last little bit there so kept it in.

 

[santaman2000]

Hard tack was a ration used in the US Civil War and after. There are several recipes for it online and on youtube. It was (is) basically just a hard survival cracker (biscuit to Brits) with an indefinite shelf life. Also called Ship's Biscuits.

 

[bopdude]

Hard tack or Hardtack was a cracker type, used mainly by the US ? interesting, I think the mention of tack and bully is as you say, bully beef and crackers, I could be wrong

 

[bopdude]

Hard tack was a ration used in the US Civil War. There are several recipes for it online. It was (is) basically just a survival cracker (biscuit to Brits)

I must type faster

 

[bopdude]

Here's a LINK

EDIT, link downloads a pdf, I don't know how to alter it ? mods / admin

 

[mick91]

Thanks guys. I might just give it a go! Make for interesting reading those diaries. A Google search did say the same thing But I only saw it referenced as being issued to US forces and the navy, although it stands to reason it would be issued to everyone I want sure

 

[mick91]

Here's a LINK

EDIT, link downloads a pdf, I don't know how to alter it ? mods / admin

Thanks for that! Exactly what I was after. Presumably corned beef hasn't changed that much

 

[tombear]

Hard Tack is the simple rock hard biscuits that were used aboard ships and on campaign for just about ever. There's slight variations but they are basically the same wheat flour with enough water to make a dough, maybe a little salt and baked once or sometimes twice until they are rock hard and perfectly dry so they keep. They were rarely eaten dry, they were quite capable of breaking teeth but were soaked in what ever liquid was available, softened by being fried in whatever fat was left from cooking or met often broken up to make a flour to be mixed into stews, made into puddings or what ever. It was more of a portable form of flour that didnt spoil as easily than a actual biscuit.

Burgoo could be either sweet or savoury , biscuits would be broken up and mixed with hot water to form a sort of goo and then tinned corned beef ( bully) , veg or whatever you could find were added, sweet versions could have dried fruit, tinned jam or condensed milk added. I think the terms naval in origin.

flimsys were the useless tinplate petrol cans that the Commonwealth forces had to suffer until they captured enough German jerry cans or got sued the US version. You could take the top off them and once cleaned out use them a cooking vessels. Half filled with sand they would pour petrol into them and set alight as improvised stoves, know as Benghazi stoves. The Kiwis made volcano kettles from two diameters of steel tubing with rings welded to each end and a filler hole into the cavity to be used on top of the stove and were known as thermettes or Benghazi boilers if I remember right . Their use spread to other units of the 8th Army.

I've made myself a biscuit cutter with spikes to put the holes in so the biscuits dry out better and there's 2 x 1 lb packs of hardtack sitting on a shelf drying out wrapped in paper. No matter how long I leave them if I put them in plastic bags there's a tendency to them to go mouldy.


ATB

tom

PS, took too long typing that out.

The Romans had a ration biscuits which were about the same.

 

[mick91]

Hard Tack is the simple rock hard biscuits that were used aboard ships and on campaign for just about ever. There's slight variations but they are basically the same wheat flour with enough water to make a dough, maybe a little salt and baked once or sometimes twice until they are rock hard and perfectly dry so they keep. They were rarely eaten dry, they were quite capable of breaking teeth but were soaked in what ever liquid was available, softened by being fried in whatever fat was left from cooking or met often broken up to make a flour to be mixed into stews, made into puddings or what ever. It was more of a portable form of flour that didnt spoil a easily than a actual biscuit.

Burgoo could be either sweet or savoury , biscuits would be broken up and mixed with hot water to form a sort of goo and then tinned corned beef ( bully) , veg or whatever you could find were added, sweet versions could have dried fruit, tinned jam or condensed milk added. I think the terms naval in origin.

flimsys were the useless tinplate petrol cans that the Commonwealth forces had to suffer until they captured enough German jerry cans or got sued the US version. You could take the top off them and once cleaned out use them a cooking vessels. Half filled with sand they would pour petrol into them and set alight as improvised stoves, know as Benghazi stoves. The Kiwis made volcano kettles from two diameters of steel tubing with rings welded to each end and a filler hole into the cavity to be used on top of the stove and were known as thermettes or Benghazi boilers if I remember right . Their use spread to other units of the 8th Army.

I've made myself a biscuit cutter with spikes to put the holes in so the biscuits dry out better and there's 2 x 1 lb oaks of hardtack sitting on a shelf drying out wrapped in paper. No matter how long I leave them if I put them in plastic bags there's a tendency to them to go mouldy.


ATB

tom

Really informative thanks Tom!
I'd half herd of the benghazi burner and what the flimsy was, partially from reading these notes actually, reference to burning his hand on the hot sand from a freshly extinguished one, someone adding petrol to it hot etc.
Definitely trying it out

 

[sunndog]

my grandad used to call porridge "burgo". Although thinking back now it might easily have applied to any liquidy gruel type meal

 

[mick91]

my grandad used to call porridge "burgo". Although thinking back now it might easily have applied to any liquidy gruel type meal

Quite possibly because it does mention multiple times (usually when it gave him the 2 Bob bits ) different meats and additions to the same mix. Would have been interesting to have the diaries of "young Wallace" or "grimmy" the cooks.

 

[Goatboy]

Tom I think Burgoo comes from the Arabic Burgul/Burghul which is bulgar/bulgur wheat. Supposedly a Canadian term origionally but I've a feeling that it was from troops being posted abroad 'round the empire and fighting the Turkish. (Bulgur is Turkish for bruised grain).
Benghazi was/is a port in NE Libya, think it must've been around there that the captured German fuel cans were first getting turned into cookers/pans.
I quite like hard tack/biscuits, maybe it's the Calvanistic East coaster in me but I enjoy them.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[tombear]

Aye back in the 17th century sailors in the med and probably soldiers in what was then a British outpost at Tangiers were issued with a form of porridge made from local grains which is how it entered the language. When naval rations became formalised the oat ration that was made into porridge kept the name and afterwards it became the general term for any cereal based mush.

i don't think they would have wasted the excellent, strong jerry cans on making cookers from, I've never seen any pictures of them used that way, just the godawful square British ones that were plentiful and easy to cut up. Bizarrely the flimsy is now a rare and highly sort after beast for WW2 collectors as they just didnt survive yet I've seen loads of wartime German ones still being used. Totally over engineered.

Theres been a spate of excellent books on British rations, what with the Great War anniversaries,
"Bully Beef and Biscuits" and "Feeding Tommy" I've read and as soon as I can spare the cash there a couple of more general ones I'd like to get , "Boiled beef to Chicken Tikka, 500 years of feeding the British Army" And "Battlefield rations" that covers th 20th century. There's a really good one on naval rations as well, " Feeding Nelsons Navy" that's reviewed very well.

The kids won't touch the hardtack, I've made the latest batch ( I've some I periodically look at that I made in 1994 to see if there's any change ) so I can have a go at some of the receipts I've read about. You can buy them made for US reenactors and I believe forms are still popular in Alaska and on Hawaii but they are more like crackers than true hardtack but they are so easy to make I don't know why anyone would buy them.

i could just go for some porridge right now, made the cissy English way with milk and too much sugar.

ATB

Tom

ill just google to see if the word goo or gooey predates the naval usage.

No it would seam goo and gooey have a late 19 th early 20th C origin possibly from burgoo

 

[Goatboy]

Mick, documents from the LRDG are relatively rare and may be of intrest to some historical groups/museums or piblishers. I know I'd be interested in reading it myself. Some of the wartime diaries I've read had me laughing out loud one second and very sad th next.

Tom, I like porridge with water or milk. Either plain or sweet, but cant stand it with salt in it, gives me the boak. There are some odd ways of eating it, my father used to use the two bowl method which I could never see the point in.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[mick91]

Mick, documents from the LRDG are relatively rare and may be of intrest to some historical groups/museums or piblishers. I know I'd be interested in reading it myself. Some of the wartime diaries I've read had me laughing out loud one second and very sad th next.
.

I may actually fire off an email to the LRDG historical website. I came across it before. As you say incredible stuff in some of them, and some really quite thought provoking stuff, one in particular being a thumb print on a page I saw a while ago reading through them, weird to think that's my grandads thumbprint, weirder to think what it's probably made of given its brown/black!

 

[tombear]

Tom, I like porridge with water or milk. Either plain or sweet, but cant stand it with salt in it, gives me the boak. There are some odd ways of eating it, my father used to use the two bowl method which I could never see the point in.

Aye the Father inlaw has it with salt, pinhead oats left to soak overnight in water. You should see the look of horror on the kids face when they are offered it! I must admit I'm trying to greatly increase our consumption of oats, porridge, in bannock, proper floppy staffs oatcakes ( not those brittle things the wife gobbles down ) and I offer my thanks again to whoever it was on here that got me to start putting them into stews and such.

ATB

Tom

 

[Goatboy]

Aye the Father inlaw has it with salt, pinhead oats left to soak overnight in water. You should see the look of horror on the kids face when they are offered it! I must admit I'm trying to greatly increase our consumption of oats, porridge, in bannock, proper floppy staffs oatcakes ( not those brittle things the wife gobbles down ) and I offer my thanks again to whoever it was on here that got me to start putting them into stews and such.

ATB

Tom[/QUOTE]


You're welcome it makes a difference doesn't it.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Goatboy]

I may actually fire off an email to the LRDG historical website. I came across it before. As you say incredible stuff in some of them, and some really quite thought provoking stuff, one in particular being a thumb print on a page I saw a while ago reading through them, weird to think that's my grandads thumbprint, weirder to think what it's probably made of given its brown/black!

It's a pretty rare thing I'm sure as they weren't supposed to keep a diary in case it fell into enemy hands.
Bit of an interest myself, the statue of David Stirling isn't too far away from me. Used to try and get up there on Remembrance Sunday and was always amazed at how few folk made it out there. His book on the LRDG & SAS is worth a read, an amazing bunch. It's good that your family has kept it intact as far to often these documents get thrown out by folk not taking the time to realise what they have.
Good luck whatever you decide to do with it.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.