3-Days of Marching Rations

[Robert]

There is no mention of dried beef (beef jerky), but would it not be feasable this was also part of the rations?

[Quintus Claudius Scaevola]

Let's not forget about the "Supplemental" rations for the troops...you know, the ones that were "Tactfully acquired" from the locals... :wink:

[Kegluneq]

That bread looks good, you got a recipe?

Some flour
Some salt
Some water
Mix
Bake until golden
Lose all your teeth trying to eat it...

Bucellatum is a pretty masochistic foodstuff, but it's very easy to make. I found it was best soaked (in black coffee, if you're going for the Civil War era hard tack), then fried until soft-ish. I think it can be made soft enough to bite and chew normally if you add olive oil though, which I assume Mithras has done as they look too large to be manageable otherwise. The only problem with adding oil is that the hard tack will go off much quicker.

There is no mention of dried beef (beef jerky), but would it not be feasable this was also part of the rations?

In this vein, meat could also be salted and thus dehydrated. That would presumably make it a lot easier to carry, although it would have to be soaked before cooking.

[Gesiþ]

There is no mention of dried beef (beef jerky), but would it not be feasable this was also part of the rations?

I'd imagine the meat in the rations would depend on what was available nearby.

[Sean Manning]

Obviously some meat was handed out to soldiers, how did they carry it? How did Napaleonic soldiers or ECW soldiers carry theirs?

One common solution was driving livestock with the army and slaughtering them as needed. I don't know of a neat and healthy way for soldiers to carry individual rations of meat, but some kinds of salt, dried, or smoked meat or fish might be tidier than others.

[Dan D'Silva]

I wonder if you could wrap the pork in waxy leaves? Would that keep the fat from getting all over everything?

I was thinking wax. How about waxed fabric, or leather? So long as the sun isn't allowed to shine directly on it for too long.

[Vindex]

Everyone seems to assume the meat was carried raw - couldn't it have been cooked first and either warmed or eaten cold? All the other options - dried, salted etc take a lot of water either to cook or cause thirst.

[Paul Elliott]

What a great idea. I have a friend who does that. Cooked meat will last as long as, if not longer than raw meat. And since you aren't doing anything fancy with it it really wouldn't alter the flavour. You could carry it in a linen bag and wash it afterwards, no problems. A waxed bag is also a great idea.

Unless joints of meat were carried on the wagon and cut up later ... but there is mention of rations being carried 'on the shoulder' so one would expect that everything is included. Dried meat is easy to do, I've only ever done that with beef though, not pork.

[M. Demetrius]

I'd be wary of dried pork. As most already know, pork can carry some pretty serious parasites (like the trichina worm, e.g.) If not cooked to a high enough temp to kill these organisms, some of them can enter your body via your digestive system and cause a serious, if not terminal disease. That's why they smoke and salt cure hams, and other pork parts.

In some seasons, rabbit has the same sort of parasite problem. Months that have no R in their name in English (basically summer) are not good months for eating rabbit.

Dried beef and venison work just fine, and last a long time --years, even-- if kept dry. Just snip them into small chunks and put them in the stewpot/grain pulse, and they'll get softer by the time the grain is done. Water was not always such a big concern, as a proper camp would have a water source nearby.

Nobody can carry a sufficient water supply for several thousand men that has to be the only water for days on end. They found out how hard that got on the Parthian campaign (and drat those camels who carried those extra arrows, too!)

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Rabbit and Squirrel both Have Parasite Problems outside of Winter. After the first solid frost, you're pretty much good to hunt them. Fish also carry worms. Many species of Hookworms can burrow right through the skin, so I would not be carrying meat around at all (although intestinal parasites generally won't kill). Ratworms are a species of Hookworm that go straight for the brain and are carried by Rodents. They cause meningitis that will kill.

David already mentioned Trichenosis, and I should add that Pork Tapeworms like to get into places other than the Intestines, including the Eyes and Brain.

There is also a species of Ascarsis (Larger Hookworms) that burrows into the leg, and then forms a cyst in which it lays eggs and the cyst bursts open and spreads the parasite in bodies of water. Can't remember what its called, but its almost extinct now (it was a serious problem in Greece/Turkey/etc since ancient times).

Schistosomaiasis comes from the Schistosome, a species of blood-sucking liver fluke classified in the flatworms. You can get it from ingesting water, but its was not a problem in Europe.

And God only knows what you can get from Africa.

I studied Parasitic Worms from the Age of like 2. This is serious stuff, you don't want to mess with uncooked meat. Even in the US they are predicting an increase in Parasitic Worm infections because they're cutting money to the FDA for meat inspection, and we haven't had a food-based Parasitic Worm problem since like the 1930's (I should mention the only other country that doesn't have Worm problems is Canada, as there are far fewer species of Parasitic Worms in the new world than the old world).

[Paul Elliott]

Thats really useful information Evan, thank you. I'm going to look into this some more, probably into different historical periods to see how meat was handed out as a ration.

[M. Demetrius]

The no R months are May, June, July, August.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The no R months are May, June, July, August.

With rodents anything past march or before november isn't safe (at least not around here), cause the weather heats up and the worms come back. Rabbits don't get it as bad as squirrels do though.

[Paul Elliott]

Sounds lovely!

[Kegluneq]

Sounds lovely!

So yeah, fry your bacon really, really well. Or put a microwave and generator on your mule....

Can different food preparation techniques affect how parasites survive in meat during the cooking process? As far as I'm aware the Romans tended to stew meat or consume it in shredded form. Presumably that would be much safer than a blue steak, but would it be feasible to kill such parasites by reheating preserved meat (or cooking in small pieces) over a campfire?