Tack was slang used by British sailors for the word ‘food’ and hardtack meant “hard food.”
Hardtack was always soaked first in water, milk, soup or stew for at least five to ten minutes in order soften it before eating. Some experts believe that very dry hardtack should be soaked for at least fifteen minutes.
According to Wikipedia, “some men also turned hardtack into a mush by breaking it up with blows from their rifle butts, then adding water. They also mixed hardtack with brown sugar, hot water, and sometimes whiskey to create what they called a pudding, to serve as dessert.”
Hardtack has other names such as cabin bread, sea bread, pilot bread, sea biscuits, ship biscuits, and soda crackers. It was also called, pejoratively, dog biscuits, molar breakers, sheet iron, tooth dullers, armor plates (a favourite in Germany) and worm castles.
Known as “Kanpan” in Japan and “Geonbbang” in South Korea, both meaning “dry bread,” it is still considered a fairly popular snack in both countries. Beyond being a snack, canned kanpan has also been used in Japan as emergency rations in cases of earthquakes, floods or other disasters.
In 2015, according to CNBC, a hardtack cracker from a Titanic lifeboat sold at auction for $22,990. This hardtack cracker was part of a survival kit that would have been in the Titanic’s lifeboats. It was kept as a souvenir by the Fenwicks, newlyweds who were onboard the SS Carpathia that came to the rescue of Titanic survivors.
“We live mostly on bully beef and hardtack. The first is corned beef and the second is a kind of dog biscuit. We always wondered why they were so particular about a man’s teeth in the arm. Now I know. It’s on account of these biscuits. The chief ingredient is, I think, cement.”
~ Captain Louis Keene, WWI
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