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Hardtack (or hard tack) is a type of dense cracker made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Hardtack is very inexpensive and long-lasting, allowing it to be used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods. It is commonly used during long sea voyages, land migrations, and military campaigns. Along with salt pork and corned beef, hardtack was a Field ration for many militaries and navies from the 17th to the early 20th centuries.
It is known by other names including brewis (possibly a cognate with "brose"), cabin bread, pilot bread, sea biscuit, soda crackers, sea bread (as rations for sailors), ship's biscuit, and pejoratively as Dog biscuit, molar breakers, sheet iron, tooth dullers, Panzerplatten (" armor plates"; Germany) and worm castles. Australian and New Zealand military personnel knew them with some sarcasm as ANZAC wafers (not to be confused with Anzac biscuit).
Because hardtack biscuits were baked hard, they would stay intact for years if kept dry. For long voyages, hardtack was baked four times, rather than the more common two, and prepared six months before sailing. Because it is dry and hard, hardtack, when properly stored and transported, will survive rough handling and temperature extremes. Dry hardtack is dense and virtually inedible; troops issued it usually made it edible by dampening, or crushing the biscuits.
When James VI and I set sail for Norway in October 1589, his provisions included 15,000 "bisquit baiks".Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 30. In 1665, Samuel Pepys first regularized naval victualling in the Royal Navy with varied and nutritious rations, to include "one pound daily of good, clean, sweet, sound, well-baked and well-conditioned wheaten biscuit".
By at least 1731, it was officially codified in Naval regulation that each sailor was rationed of biscuit per day.
Hardtack, crumbled or pounded fine and used as a thickener, was a key ingredient in New England seafood from the late 1700s.John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne, Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1996. pp. 163–166.
In 1801, Josiah Bent began a baking operation in Milton, Massachusetts, selling "Water biscuit" made of flour and water that would be resistant to deterioration during long sea voyages from the port of Boston. These were also used extensively as a source of food by the Gold prospecting who migrated to the gold mines of California in 1849. Since the journey took months, hardtack was stored in the . Bent's company later sold the original hardtack crackers used by troops during the American Civil War. The G. H. Bent Company operated in Milton and sold these items to Civil War re-enactors and others until 2018.
By 1818, the United States Navy had outlined that each sailor was to be given of bread per day as part of their daily ration while serving onboard in the form of hardtack. The procurement of these stores was the responsibility of the ship's Purser, and was not strictly outlined by the Board of Navy Commissioners.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), hardtack was shipped from Union and Confederate storehouses. Civil War soldiers generally found their rations to be unappealing, and joked about the poor quality of the hardtack in the satirical song "Hard Tack Come Again No More". The song was sung to the tune of the Stephen Foster song "Hard Times Come Again No More", and featured lyrics describing the hardtack rations as being 'old and very wormy' and causing many 'stomachs sore'. John Billings, a soldier in the 10th Massachusetts Battery, outlines many details on how hardtack was utilized during the war in his book Hard Tack and Coffee.
With insect infestation common in Food storage provisions, soldiers would break up the hardtack and drop it into their morning coffee. This would not only soften the hardtack but the insects, mostly weevil , would float to the top, and the soldiers could skim them off and eat the biscuits. The grubs "left no distinctive flavor behind." Some men turned hardtack into a mush by breaking it up with blows from their rifle butts, then adding water. If the men had a frying pan, they could cook the mush into a lumpy pancake; otherwise they dropped the mush directly on the coals of their campfire. They also mixed hardtack with brown sugar, hot water, and sometimes Whisky to create what they called a pudding, to serve as dessert.
Royal Navy hardtack during Queen Victoria's reign was made by machine at the Royal Clarence Victualing Yard at Gosport, Hampshire, stamped with the Queen's mark and the number of the oven in which it was baked. When machinery was introduced into the process, the dough was thoroughly mixed and rolled into sheets about long and wide, which were then stamped in one stroke into about sixty hexagonal shaped biscuits. The hexagonal shape saved material and time and made them easier to pack compared to the traditional circular shaped biscuit. The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge Vol III (1847), London, Charles Knight, p. 354. Hardtack remained an important part of the Royal Navy sailor's diet until the introduction of ; canned meat was first marketed in 1814, and preserved beef in tins was officially introduced to the Royal Navy rations in 1847.
As early as the Spanish–American War in 1898, some military hardtack was used by service members in etching or writing notes, often commemorating events or coined with phrases of the time.
In Genoa, hardtack was and still is a traditional addition to a fish and vegetable salad called cappon magro.
In Germany, hardtack is included in every military ration and colloquially known as Panzerplatten (armor plates) or Panzerkekse (armor cookies/tank cookies). Due to conscription for many years a large part of the male population knew about them from their service and thus they became somewhat popular even in civilian use. The company that makes them also sells them unaltered to the civilian market. They are said to have many properties, some jokingly assigned, such as the ability to combine them with standard issue shoe polish to create a flammable device, or to glue them onto vehicles to increase their armor protection. One quality, liked by many soldiers, is its ability to hinder one's need to Defecation, some claiming they did not need to defecate for three days after consuming large quantities of them.
In Poland, hardtack wafers (known by their official name: Suchary Specjalne SU-1 or SU-2 – Special Hardtacks) are still present in Polish Army military rations. In military slang they are jokingly called Panzerwaffel (tank or armor wafers), a pun on Panzerwaffe, the Wehrmacht armored motorized forces (the German words Panzer and Waffe mean "tank" or "armor" and "weapon", respectively). They are also popular amongst civilians, and are a common part of a meal in some regions.
Located in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, they currently produce three varieties of hardtack:
Alaskan law requires all light aircraft to carry "survival gear", including food. Title AS 02.35.110. Uniform Air Licensing Act, Emergency rations and equipment. Therefore, the blue-and-white Sailor Boy Pilot Bread boxes are ubiquitous at Alaskan airstrips, in cabins, and in virtually every village. Unlike the traditional hardtack recipe, Sailor Boy Pilot Bread contains leavening and vegetable shortening.
Hardtack is also a common pantry item in Hawaii, and The Diamond Bakery's "Saloon Pilot" cracker is available there in grocery and convenience stores. The round hardtack crackers are available in large- and small-diameter sizes.
Those who buy commercially baked hardtack in the contiguous US are often those who stock up on long-lasting foods for disaster survival , though these usually take the form of food ration bars or freeze dried meals rather than traditional hardtack.
Many other people who currently buy or bake hardtack in the US are Civil War re-enactors. The 3rd US Regular Infantry Reenactors, for example, often cook many recipes during their reenacting camps, to include hardtack.
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