Rations

[theknapsack]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

How about a pocket knife?
It's not that complicated.

That being said, period cans have been found opened in a variety of ways, but many cans only needed a lead seal to be broken on the top.

[Rob Weaver]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

There's an AC Redwood woodcut from B&L which shows Jackson's men at Manassas Junction opening cans with their bayonets. I never was able to get that to work satisfactorily. I am old enough to remember when oil came in cans, and a bayonet would open them pretty well, but that was the only thing I was able to do with it. Many dug tins show that they were obviously opened with a knife. My gut reaction is that this may have been the response of your average soldier, but it dulls a knife pretty quickly. I wouldn't use the pocket knife that you're going to rely on for all your other cutting needs. The thought hit me several years ago, "I bet Mrs. Civil War Soldier's Wife back home wasn't ruining every knife in her kitchen opening cans. What did she use?" Can openers were invented, logically enough, right on the heels of cans. And there were a plethora of patent designs for them in the second quarter of the 19th century. I'd recommend a few minutes with a text on antique cooking implements and then a day antiquing. Openers are pretty common, and cheap. As already noted, they don't weigh much, certainly not more than that extra knife you'd want to carry anyway!

[NoahBriggs]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

Two cans of which I know were opened two different ways -

One, dug from the Steamboat Arabia had the top opened by cutting three sides of a square and peeling it back. The other was opened in a cruciform cut, and the resulting four "triangles" peeled back.

Bill MacIntosh sells old restored can-openers for about ten bucks each.

[27thNCdrummer]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

Some of the cans that I've seen dug at Petersburg appear to be cut in a circle with a pocket knife and then peeled back to reveal the contents. I don't think cans would have been carried on campaign too often because of the simple fact that they're to darn heavy, but I'm sure there might have been some brought along. I just recently read that in Feb. of '64 Confederates in and around Petersburg were being issued pickled beef in a can that was produced in London. That would be something to try at an event, ummmmmmmm:confused_.

[Jubilo]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

Dear Sir ,
When I was an officer I used my saber ; as a private I use my bayonet. Both are just dandy for opening cans . I also endorse the A.C. Redwood illustration of soldiers using bayonets to open cans. Less is more ; but the Dutchmen favor more.
all for the old flag,
David Corbett

[KCLoewe]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

To follow the rest of the replies a bayonet or knife or whatever you can figure out to make work. If memory serves correct actual "can openers" didn't come about until the mid 1870's.

[PieBoy96]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

It took a little bit of time and frustration until I figured out the attached method. Go all the way around the can or do half around and bend the lid back on itself. Hold/squeeze the can between the toes of your feet and ease your weight onto the bayonet. BE CAREFUL and do it SLOWLY as you REALLLLLY don't want to slip. Often I hammer the bayonet into the lid a bit just to get a small ding or dent in it to prevent it from slipping out.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

Hmmmm. I would go real slow with that bayonet on the lid between the feet method. Losing a toe is an aspect of period realism you might wish to avoid. Unless you have an original our mild steel repro bayonets are very easily bent, too.

According to Josh Billings in “Hard Tack and Coffee”:

(The recruit could be seen with) “…his quart preserves (tin) can, its improvised wire bail held on the end of a stick, boiling his coffee at the campfire…This was the typical coffee boiler of the common soldier and had the advantage of being easily replaced if lost.”

A couple things are clear there...tin cans went along on campaign. Also this passage suggests they were common if the empties were "easily replaced if lost". Otter Creek Tinware offers a dandy tin can boiler with or without period label.

Can openers were "invented" by the 1860s, but not commonly carried or used by CW soldiers. The ones that were existent were on the order of the can opener attachment on the boy scout folding knife and nothing like a modern thumb crank can opener. Most existing examples of opened Civil War tin cans show a jagged edge representative of cutting open the can with a knife or bayonet. Take care that you don't cut yourself eating or drinking from one opened in period fashion.

One last point, modern "tin cans" are made of sturdier stuff (steel) than tin cans of the 1860s. Period tin cans would have likely been easier to open with a knife as they were of a thickness that gave slightly to pressure. Thicker than a modern aluminum beer can, but less than half as thick as a tin cup.

[Jimmayo]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

-I tried the search area

Try searching under "opening cans".

[Pmiller]

Re: Opening cans on campaign

Many thanks to all for the great advice & info.

Peter J. Miller

[Duff]

Tasty new recipe, the "Flaming Duff"

A friend of mine and I made this up at a recent event. Product of bordom and a friend who is a cook. We made it up as we went so some steps can probably be skipped. I am going to say exactly what we did.

Ingredients:
Hardtack Cracker
salt pork (bacon can substitute)
potato (chopped)
onion (chopped)
egg
salt/pepper

Boil potato and onion in a cup. Add salt and pepper if you want. Remove poatoes and onions. KEEP THE WATER. Fry potatoes and onions with salt/pepper in a skillet. Place them to the side when they are done. Boil the hardtack in the potato/onion water. Remove the hardtack from the water when its soft and chop it up. (You could do this before you boil if you have spfter hardtack. Mine was really hard). Put it back on the fire, but out of direct heat to evaporate the water. During this time, dice the salt pork and fry it.. The hardtack will have formed a thick mush if you did it right. Add the onions, potatoes, salt/pepper and the salt pork. Crack an egg and add that in. Stir it up and fry it in patties. Its good, but it is a little time consuming.

The name comes from when we were frying it and the grease sort of...cought on fire. I was frying it at the time, so the name was tacked on to me. Other names are "New Jersey Omlett" after our home state and "Shitensburg" after the name of the town the event was in.

Special thanks to my friend, Matt Kraybill, whos cooking expertise helped out alot. He pretty much made it.

I would like to know if there is an original recipe that is similer to this. 3 million men were in the field with the same foods, it hard to think they didn't think of it.

[NoahBriggs]

Re: Tasty new recipe, the "Flaming Duff"

Certainly there might be variations on a theme as far as playing with your food to come up with something different. Perhaps this was in fact done at one point, but nobody bothered to record it. (And if they did, it's now in public domain, so Emeril can't copyright it. :tounge_sm)

The word "egg" set off my authenticity sensors. Meaning, I could see this as a garrison or winter quarters "wooodstove snack". (Making this on the woodstove/fire in your hut using goodies snarked from the sutler.) Eggs on campaign? Well, if you got documentation the fellas had access to eggs at that particular point, sure!

[lhsnj]

Re: Tasty new recipe, the "Flaming Duff"

In Rebel Private: Front and Rear, the author tells about a time he went foraging with one of the other members of his company. They went to a henhouse and were able to get the birds out without waking the others in the roost or the owners. Something about how they snapped them down off the roost. (Page 74-77)

But if they were able to get the hens, can we infere they might have been able to get the eggs?

I am at work, but will check the book tonight to find that part of the story.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Tasty new recipe, the "Flaming Duff"

Sounds like a close cousin to "balls" (usually modified with another word, like pork balls, beef balls, force-meat balls, etc.) or, alternatively, hash made by frying at the end. The basic idea was to take meat and potatoes or breadcrumbs, with seasoning, shape them into balls or cakes, sometimes with added egg to help hold them together, and fry them.

A lot of hash was served without frying, but here's one recipe fried in cakes at the end:

Pork Hash.--Boil tender salt pork; when cold chop it fine, and mix one part of the chopped pork with five parts of the potatoes; season to suit; grease the spider with a bit of the pork, and fry brown. (Haskell's Housekeeper's Encyclopedia, 1861)

Different name, same idea, with the egg too:

Pork and Potato Balls. Take one-third chopped salt pork or ham, either raw or cooked, and two-thirds of cold cooked potatoes chopped fine. Mix them up with egg, a little salt and pepper, and then make into balls and fry, or merely cook in a skillet. (Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book, 1850)

One sees more examples of bread-like thickening (breadcrumbs or in this case hard-tack) and onions in beef balls, rather than pork balls, with the potatoes omitted. Beef balls were also sometimes called cecils. For example:

Beef Balls. Mince very finely a piece of tender beef, fat and lean: mince an onion, with some boiled parsley; add grated bread crumbs, and season with pepper, salt, grated nutmeg, and lemon-peel; mix all together, and moisten it with a beaten egg; roll it into falls; flour and fry them in boiling fresh dripping. Serve them with fried bread crumbs or with a thickened brown gravy. (The Practice of Cookery 1830)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Duff]

Re: Tasty new recipe, the "Flaming Duff"

Thanks. When I made it, it seemed like someone must have thought of it before. It did not really involve much thinking. We thought of it as we made it.