Long term food storge is one of the basic skills Preppers need to master. Whether you are a Dabbling Prepper just playing around with this lifestyle, or if you are a hard core Beans, Bullets, Bibles and Bunkers type of prepper, your chances of being successful in the long run depends on those precious calories you can provide if and when civilization is annihilated.
Some Preppers swear by their freeze dried food. Others expound on their canning and dehydrating skills, and their ability to stash every preserved morsel in jars and mylar bags. Don't forget the oxygen absorbers!!!! (I might be in that category!)
Sometimes we need to go back in time to see what foods our forefathers, who had no comprehension of refrigerators and freezers, nor of mass produced canning jars, prepared for long term survival.
I speak of the humble Hard Tack. That lowly, plain biscuit. The source of sustenance for soldier and sailor alike. It will sustain you and your family, too, should hard times come!
So, let's make some Hard Tack!
The ingredients are very simple!
3 cups flour
1 cup water
2 teaspoons salt
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place your flour and salt in a bowl. Mix them together. Then make a well in the center of the flour. Use a fork to start mixing the flour and water together. The dough will start to look shaggy and it will be hard to stir with a fork. Start kneading that shaggy dough into a ball. All the flour will come together and will make a ball that is not sticky.
Pat or roll your dough ball to about 1/2 inch thick.
Then cut your hard tack. I used my fancy veggie slicer, and have used cookie cutters in the past, but you can just use a knife or a pizza roller. Using your fork or another tool, poke holes in your hard tack. The holes help the moisture to be released from the dough. Transfer your hard tack onto a flat pan lined with parchment paper.
Now you will do the first baking - Bake them for 30 minutes. Take them out and let them cool for about 20 minutes.
Put them back in the hot oven and let them bake for about 45 minutes to an hour. I left mine in at temperature for 45 minutes. Turn the oven OFF and leave that hard tack in the oven until cooled. This is when they release the rest of their moisture and become the happy tooth breakers of old!!!
When cool, store in a jar or a mylar bag. Add the oxygen absorbers, because we don't like little critters in our hardtack any better than the Civil War soldiers and sailors from time immemorial did. They were NOT grateful for the extra protein!!
Stored properly, Hard Tack will keep for about 20 years.
I got this recipe and general instructions from the book "The Lost Ways" - a great resource on living life more simply.
If you don't plan to store these long term, but just want them as a camping food, you can bake them once through for 45 minutes. They will tasted good, but will not keep as well.
If you add fat or herbs, this also drastically reduced their shelf life.
Enjoy adding this old-time staple to your food preps and Have Fun Prepping!!!
Ruth
PS. I am an Amazon Affiliate, and there will be some affiliate links sprinkled in the article. You are under no obligation to purchase anything via the links, but if you do, I will get a (very) small commission. I thank you in advance.
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