Hard tack, Sea biscuit, Ship's Bread, bannock, call it what you will.

The -ht- after my name in my email stands for hard tack.  At the time that I needed to come up with a new address moniker, I happened to be experimenting with making hardtack. It was the very basic stuff that you can find recipes for anywhere on-line. Flour, salt and water. I enjoyed producing several batches and experimenting with alternate flours, kneading, and baking times. It seemed fitting that I should incorporate some code into my new address. 

I found that I liked the finished product broken up in a bowl of Jeanne's award-winning chili, once it had spent some time absorbing the juices. I also stashed some of it away, wrapped in foil, in the bottom drawer of our bedroom armoire for taste-testing at a future, far distant date, in order to test its shelf-life claims.  

I had long been interested in long-life, basic foods.  I once found a source for buffalo pemican with blueberries, and, anticipation high, sent away for a box of them.  I was disappointed when I tried them. They were too much like sticks of beef jerky that you find everywhere these days. I thought this stuff was going to live up to the name of pemican, and be rustic as all get out, but found instead that it was just another processed meat product.  

I also once bought some ultra-long-life lifeboat rations, that promised not only to contain 3,600 calories in each nine-wafer foil-wrapped package, but to be entirely non-thirst provoking as well.  They were mildly vanilla-flavored and I rather liked them.  They were double wrapped in vacuum sealed foil, and I could imagine them lasting almost forever.  A pack of them joined the ht in the armoire.  

Years ago, Jeanne came up with a long-life food that became a favorite of mine. (So it never lasted very long at all)  I don't know where she got the recipe, but it was a dandy.  It might have been on a cereal box I suppose, since one of the main ingredients was a box of Grape-Nuts. It also had peanut butter, and Light Karo Syrup in it.  The little bite-sized squares she'd cut when it cooled provided a great source of energy that I appreciated, especially when hiking and working the trails which I maintained on our 130 acres of farm and hunting land. 

I don't suppose I could classify it as rustic, nor could I claim it to be non-thirst provoking. Not that I cared about either of those when I was chewing them. They made up for these minor defects in my opinion by being supremely delicious.  

A large slab of my favorite.

Our move to New Zealand affected my research into such products. We had to downsize and abandon such projects. I cleaned out our armoire and dined on what hard tack I had squirreled away. I did however bring a single package of those thirst-free vanilla cakes with me to Aotearoa, and I remember sharing bits of them with my daughter and grandsons. (I don't think they shared my enthusiasm.)  

After a period of settling in at our home in Henderson, I turned my attentions to other interesting comestibles that I hadn't had access to in my part of Michigan. I made acorn flour, olive oil, guava and jelly palm syrups, and chestnut butter, but I hadn't lost interest in hard tack- like foodstuffs.  

I recently came across video on You Tube that offered a recipe for a portable, nutritious, and according to the presenter, a Scottish fellow, a delicious baked survival ration he called bannock.  He even went so far as to liken it to lembas, that Elven bread made famous in Lord of the Rings. 

His bannock consisted of three basic ingredients; oats, flour and fat, in the proportion of 1:2:1. For the fat, he used tallow. He went on to add some sugar, spice and raisins. He really ought to have also listed water in the ingredients since he added hot water to form a dough. His video encourage me to try to make my own version. 

I started with a coffee cup full of oats, but decided to improve on the plain flour component.  I did use some white flour, but also made up part of the two cups worth with acorn, whole wheat, and rye flours.  Then I added a couple spoons full (okay, big ones) of brown sugar, a bit of salt, and a bit of cinnamon. In place of the tallow, I used coconut oil. And in place of water, I used apple juice. I baked it according to his directions and you can see the result above. 

To say that my bannock is delicious would depend on how hungry you are. I can attest that it is certainly edible, acceptable, nourishing, and even pleasant and satisfying in a way, but delicious, honestly, is a stretch. It's a survival ration after all, not a cookie.  

Jeanne and I had pieces of bannock for our breakfast this morning with coffee. I'm convinced that we were well fueled for our morning's activities.  

That's it for this week's post. It was probably not of great interest to most of you, but you take your chances when you visit this site. Some weeks, who knows what you'll find?  

(Of course, if you found this post boring, you probably stopped reading it long ago and this sentence is redundant.)  

I think I'll try this bannock recipe again, but with some changes.  I need to add more water (apple juice) and knead the dough more, to build up more gluten. Yeah, I know gluten is one of those things that seems to be shunned these days by all too many people. Well, the actor and comedian John Pinette once said that he thought he 'was mostly gluten,' and so, did not want to give it up. I agree with that sentiment. I think gluten is being unfairly maligned and intend to do my part to encourage it, whenever, and however I can. 

You know, I'm tired of seeing those "Gluten Free," signs everywhere.  And what are they doing with all that removed and unwanted gluten, anyway? You'd think that since all those people don't want any gluten, there'd be tons of it available, all over the place for the rest of us who do. How come I've never seen a "Free Gluten" sign. Boy, I'd be in that line in a flash! 

-And to those of you who wonder if that last paragraph was part of John's comedy routine, it's not.  -djf

If you're interested...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0cxV2vVC0U&t=6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zky2ShG3XPk