Food for Adventures Part 1: Hardtack

If you need an easy travel food for characters, there is a historic solution that might help with that.

Hardtack is a type of bread or cracker made from flour, water, and (sometimes) salt. Due to their long shelf life and how easy and inexpensive they are to make, hardtack is a travel food that has a very long human history.

^{Reproduced 19th century army (left) and navy (right) hard tack.}

The hardtack was typically baked twice at a low temperature, though sometimes more than twice if the journey would be long. The goal was to dry it out as much as possible, so that (if stored well) it would not go bad. Under ideal dry conditions, they can last many years. However, while on the road, that care could not always be possible, so people would get the extra protein of eating weevils(which are harmless to eat…though still likely unwanted).

Due to how dry they are, most people hydrated them in some way, such as by dipping them in a beverage like tea, or crumpling them for use in foods like chowders. Others would crush them, add water, and fry them into a odd pancake.

Hardtack was even called “sea biscuits,” “ship bread,” or “navy bread,” due to their long history of being used aboard ships. For the ancient Romans, however, they were called “Bucellatum,” and each soldier would carry their rations.

“The Codex Theodosius (7.4.11) dating from 360 states that troops on the move should receive hardtack biscuits (buccellatum), bread, ordinary wine (vinum) and sour wine (acetum), salted pork and mutton. It seems that hardtack and acetum would be consumed for two days, and on the third day the decent wine and bread would be eaten. Troops were ordered to collect twenty days rations from the state warehouses before a long campaign, and carry these rations themselves.”

The Romans in Britain

Through the centuries, travellers and soldiers relied on the dried bread, which lead to J.R.R. Tolkien eating it while he served in WW1. Some theorize hardtack could be one possible inspiration for the “Lembas” that J.R.R Tolkien has the characters eat in The Lord of the Rings.

^{Ad for a Ship Bread Bakehouse in 1832}

Even today, you may find a modern day version of hardtack in ready-made military food packs (often called IMP’s or MRE’s). Thanks to the ability to air seal, the modern ones are not quite as dry, but — speaking from experience from my teen years eating them in cadets — they still certainly make you want to drink a lot of water.

So, this bread has a long history for a good reason, which also could make it the perfect travel food for your adventurer characters.

Mix 5 cups of flour to 1 cup of water containing a 1/2-tablespoon of salt. Knead into a dough and roll out to 3/8-inch thickness. Cut into approximately 3-inch squares and pierce each with a fork or ice pick several times. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 30 minutes or until slightly brown.”

“A Taste For War: The Culinary History of the Blue and the Gray” by William C. Davis (2003)