Any one have a recipe for Pilot bread? OT. is Nasa planing any space missions next Dec./Jan.?

-- && (&&@&&.&), June 04, 1999

Answers

I don't have a recipe. I believe that the ingredients are flour, water, shortening, sugar, and salt. I would also like the recipe.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), June 05, 1999.

If by PILOTbread is meant bread baked on top od stove or flame here is one recepie and it tatstes very good: mix 1 pond each of buckwheat and millet flour use one cup of this mix 1 teasp. bakingpowder 1 egg and fill rest with water to make 1 cup 2 Tablesp. canola oil add to your liking chopped nuts, datepieces, raisins

oil pan and pour in mixture after 10 minutes turn over a few minutes on other side and it's done

-- Else Arff (EAZgoing@aol.com), June 05, 1999.

Pilot bread is also called hard tack, or sea biscuits.

I found a few recipes for hard tack at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~obbie/hardtack.htm

-- flora (***@__._), June 05, 1999.

I posted a recipe for Cowboy Biscuits on this thread:

link

They are simple to make and require no refrigerated ingredients. Are they the same as "Pilot" bread? No clue. But you can bake it in one big glob in a bread pan, and I would imagine it would be pretty similar. When you are starving I don't think you are going to care about the exact flavor!

-- @ (@@@.@), June 05, 1999.

In light of the state of siege that this forum seems to be under, this subject feels oddly On Topic!

My understandingis that pilot bread, hardtack, & sea biscuits are dry, flat breads that have been used by pioneers, Mountain Men, soldiers, sailors, and survivalists. My husband prefers to remember the racehorse Seabiscuit, and the fact that I'm looking up recipes for hardtack has put the fear of God into my son who has been studying the Civil War.

I'll post a couple I've found, the first being perhaps the most tempting:

"We make it for our Living History programs. here it is: 3 cups milk 8 cups plain flour 8 tbl spoons shortening (crisco) 6 tea spoon brown sugar (opt) 3 tea spoon salt Mix, roll on floured board, to 1/2" thickness. cut into 3" squares, punch holes 3 rolls of 3 with ice pick, Lightly grease baking pan, Bake in oven 400 deg for 45 min or till golden brown, cool in open air. Don't store in plastic (no plastic in 1800's) because of moisture. This recipe is the same they used except the sugar. We have found that a good dose of cinnamon, and not cooking it as long is good eatin'."

-- flora (***@__._), June 05, 1999.

Army Hardtack (cracker) Recipe From the Civil, Indian & 1st World War aka "Teeth Dullers", "Sheet Iron", "Flour Tile", "Hard Bread".

Ingredients:

4 cups flour (perferably whole wheat) 4 teaspoons salt Water (about 2 cups) Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F Makes about 10 pieces

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Add just enough water (less than two cups) to make the mixture stick together. This will produce a dough that will not stick to hands, rolling pin or pan. The dough will have to be mixed by hand. Roll the dough out and shape it into a rough rectangle. Cut into the dough into squares about 3 X 3 inches and 1/2 inch thick.

After cutting, press into each square a pattern of four rows of four holes using a nail (a Philips screwdriver makes an interesting pattern). (Note: just 'press' into the dough, don't punch through it. The appearance is similar to a modern saltine cracker.) Turn each square over and repeat.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Turn each piece over and bake for another 30 minutes. The crackers should be slighthly brown on both sides.

When fresh the crackers are rather easily broken, but as they dry and harden they assume the consistentency of fired brick.

Hardtack crackers were a main staple of middle and late 19th century soldiers, though not a favorite. Most commonally associated with Civil War soldiers, hardtack was used well toward the end of the century. Usually reserved for issue to troops on the march or in the field, hardtack generally required some 'spicing' up to make it edible; particularly if the crackers were old or insect infested, as was frequently the case. Crackers produced in 1863 were being issued as late as 1890, moldly and full of bugs.

Soldiers had a number of methods for fixing hardtack, depending on what they had on hand. These included:

Eating plain. Breaking up the crackers in a pot of coffee. Breaking up the crackers in a soup or stew (as a thickening agent). Toasting a cracker over a fire and buttered. Soaking in cold water, browning in salt pork fat, then salting to taste. Soaking in condensed milk to make milk toast. Soaking in water, frying in salt pork fat, and topping with sugar. Crumbling crackers, mixing with bacon, rasins, and boiling in condensed milk.

Soldiers were quite inventive and there are, no doubt, many other methods of using hardtack.

Bibliography

Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay, Don Rickey, Jr., University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1963. Pages 48-51. Hardtack Recipe courtesy of the National Park Service. Soldier Life in the Union and Confederate Armies, Philip Van Doren Stern, ed.,Fawcett Publications: Greenwich, Conn, 1961. Pages 74-78.

World War One Army Hard Bread Recipe

You can use any hardtack receipe for this food item, just make the crackers 2 X 2 inches square instead of the larger 3 X 3 inches as per CW or Indian War era. It takes about 12-14 crackers to fill an 8 inch long carton, depending on the thickness of the crackers. See the receipe below.

Originally these crackers (called hard bread at this time) were packaged in pasteboard boxes approximately 8" X 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" with flapped ends. The crackers were enclosed in a paper sleeve (like single-stack saltine crackers today) and then placed in the box.

Later, the bread was packaged in tins of similar dimensions as the pasteboard boxes. The tins were composed of a body and two end caps that were soldered on. This was apparently a response to the wet and soggy combat environment of France.American-made tins were marked on the end caps with "US" and a number of different markings depending on the manufacturer. French-made tins apparently did not have any markings on the end caps. 11 million pounds of hard bread were manufactured in France during the war. Both US- and French-made tins varied in construction styles. There were no pull tabs or keys (as on the corned beef tins) for opening the hard bread tin. The soldier was supposed to use his bayonet to open the tin.

Doughboys were generally issued at least two cartons of hard bread, although The Privates Manual by Colonel James Moss, 1916, pg 34 shows an illustration of the 1910 haversack loaded with 4 cartons of hard bread plus the condiment tin and bacon can.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour (perferably whole wheat) 4 teaspoons salt Water (about 2 cups) Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F Makes about 15-18 2" X 2" pieces

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Add just enough water (less than two cups) to make the mixture stick together. This will produce a dough that will not stick to hands, rolling pin or pan. The dough will have to be mixed by hand. Roll the dough out and shape it into a rough rectangle. Cut into the dough into squares about 2 X 2 inches and 1/2 inch thick.

After cutting, press into each square a pattern of four rows of four holes using a nail (a Philips screwdriver makes an interesting pattern). (Note: just 'press' into the dough, don't punch through it. The appearance is similar to a modern saltine cracker.) Turn each square over and repeat.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Turn each piece over and bake for another 25 minutes. The crackers should be slighthly brown on both sides.

When fresh the crackers are rather easily broken, but as they dry and harden they assume the of fired brick consistentency."

-- flora (***@__._), June 05, 1999.