Episode notes
Made from little more than flour and water, hardtack fed Roman legions, crusaders, pilgrims, sailors, and Civil War soldiers, and it is still carried by pilots in Alaska today. This episode explores how an unbreakable biscuit changed the limits of human travel and warfare.
We explain how repeated baking and months of drying removed the moisture that microbes need, how navies standardized daily rations, and how Victorian steam-powered bakeries stamped out hexagonal biscuits to pack barrels efficiently. We also dig into soldiers' dark humor and improvised recipes, and hardtack's modern life in military rations and snacks around the world.
- Why hardtack was baked four times and cured for months before voyages
- From Roman bucellatum and Richard I's biscuit to Samuel Pepys and the Royal Navy's one-pound daily ration
- The Gosport victualling yard, oven stamps for quality control, and the switch to hexagons
- Civil War nicknames like worm castles and dishes like skillygalee and hardtack pudding
- German Panzerplatten, Korean geonbbang with star candy, and Alaska's Sailor Boy crackers