Hardtack, salted pork and acorn coffee,
now that's what I think of when I think of a meal a soldier might eat during the American Civil War.
But what if told you that bread pudding might also be on the menu?
Ah! But there's a catch,
you're going to have to get shot first.
Ah, maybe a mild case of dysentery would work,
because bread pudding is hospital food.
So today in partnership with the National Museum of Civil War Medicine
I'm going to take a look at the book that suggests bread pudding
to be the perfect convalescent treat. And i'll show you how to make it at home
even if you don't have a musket ball lodged in your thigh.
This time on Tasting History.
Today's recipe comes from the Hospital Steward's manual written by
Dr. Joseph J. Woodward in 1862.
Well that sounds easy.
I mean so many more specifics than those Medieval or ancient
recipes, so thank you Dr. Woodward for making this
week a little easier on me.
So for this recipe
you will need
That's about a half cup plus 1 tablespoon
So about an 1/8th of a cup of
of currants. And if you can't find currants go ahead and use raisins.
Now they used brown sugar and white sugar at the time so you know its up
to you. I'm using white sugar but either one is fine.
And than you'll need something to steam it in. So you'll
need a big stick pot with some water. And a small
pudding basin or mold, ceramic or metal, works
fine. Now if you're like me and
you haven't had a lot of luck in the past tying
handles onto pudding basins than
you can go online, i'll put a link in the description,
and get one of these which I got. They come with a lid
and a handle, and they just take some of the pain out of
making steamed puddings. Now you have two options when it comes
to hot water. The best is to boil water separately
like in a kettle. And then you'll pour it into the pot
once your pudding is in there, or you can also just
boil water in the pot as well. Also if
you have a ramequin available put it upside down on the bottom of the pot
than you can set the pudding straight onto instead of the metal bottom of
the pot. And it helps it cook even more evenly.
Not a big deal if you don't have it but if you do
give it a shot. So now for the pudding.
Pour your milk into a small saucepan,
add your cinnamon stick, and the lemon peel,
and then set it over medium heat until it starts to boil.
Keep an eye on it because you don't want it to scorch, so once you
see those bubbles coming up, take it off the heat and pour it over your
bread crumbs. Leaving the cinnamon stick and the lemon out,
they've done their job. Then add your eggs and whisk
everything together until its nice and smooth.
Then toss in your currants and your sugar,
and whisk again. Then butter your mold
or your pudding basin, and pour the pudding inside.
Now if you have a mold like I do, with the top now's the time
to put it on. If you don't than you're going to have to
create a water-tight seal using parchment,
aluminum foil, and string.
I am terrible at it so I'm
actually going to link to a BBC video where
they show you step by step how to do it.It's fantastic
and I mean making
steamed puddings is what the British do, so
just go straight to the source. It's going to be better I promise.
Then set the pudding into the pot and pour about
2 inches of boiling water around it.
Then put the lid on and let it steam for
1 hour. Now the best thing is if you have a clear lid
so you can see if the water has boiled away.
Hm, because you don't want it to boil away. So you'll
have to add a little bit more boiling water if that happens. if
you don't have a see-through lid like I don't, then
maybe every 20 minutes or so just pick it up a little bit and
see if it's starting to boil away. And
add some, but try not to let it out too much steam, because
you need that in there.
Now while our Civil War bread pudding steams, make sure to hit the Like button
and let us take a look at this hospital steward's manual
that we've all been hearing so much about.
That was Union doctor Joseph Woodward lamenting the fact that his
hospital stewards didn't know anything about cooking.
Or medicine for that matter.
And it might not be a surprise because here are the job
qualifications the good doctor laid out.
Note that there was no mention of Medical or Culinary background in that.
Hm.
So now in the Civil War hospital stewards
a lot of responsibilities besides the obvious
keeping track of supplies, they also maintained surgical
equipment, mixed and administered drugs like
arsenic and mercury
pills, something you'd probably want someone with a little experience
to do. Sometimes they assisted in surgery and of course
they managed the kitchens. This job had a really
wide scope of responsibilities, but
with those responsibilities came perks.
They were the highest paid non-commissioned officers in the Union Army.
They got their own rooms, lots of firewood, and best of all
they rarely were in places where they would get shot at.
So of course the job was popular, and it didn't really seem to matter
if you knew how to do it, or not. See it wasn't
like it is today when only the most deserving and well
qualified candidates would get a job.
Back then you could've gotten a job just because your dad was rich,
or your uncle was General McClellan.
Could you imagine such a crazy time?
So saddled with a bunch of people who didn't know how to do their job,
Doctor Woodward wrote the Hospital Steward's Manual:
a down and dirty guide to whip those boys into shape.
And one of the most important sections was the section on
food because Dr. Woodward was sick of eating
boiled meat that was left, in his words
"tasteless and insipid". Everyone's a critic.
In the book he talks about things that I would like to think that we take for
granted in a hospital kitchen today.
There's a really cool section where he's talking about cooking out in the
field, rather than like a brick and mortar hospital.
And while he says that a good camp stove is the best way
to cook. He also realizes that they're probably
not always going to be available, and so he gives instructions on how to make
a pit with a spit over it. What's interesting
is that when he admits that cooking over an open fire can be
difficult when the wind changes, he turns to
Florence Nightingale for advice.
During the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale noticed
these Turkish soldiers creating these fire pits in such a way
that when the wind changed it didn't mess with the flame at all.
Pretty cool. But what I think is so neat is that the
English founder of nursing was having
an affect on medical practices
in American field hospitals.
I love when historical characters kinda pop up like that
where they're not necessarily supposed to be. It's like
finding an easter egg in a Marvel movie or a crossover in your
favorite show. I am such a dork.
Woodward goes on to layout the 3 meals of the day:
breakfast, dinner and supper.
Now that's what my grandparents used to call it. Dinner for lunch
and supper for dinner. Which I
never really got but now
maybe I see where they got it. They were reading the Hospital Steward's Manual.
And each meal had 3 different
menus depending on how sick the patient was. So you had the
full diet, the half diet and the
low diet. And just to show you that nobody was living high on
the hog, here's an example of the full diet:
Occasionally, mush and milk could be substituted for bread
and butter. Hot dog! It's must and milk day!
Lucky me! :( Oddly enough it was the patients on the low
diet who sometimes qualified for something called
extra diet, and that could be anything from
eggs, chicken, fresh fruit, malt liquor
or bread pudding. But now the coolest thing about
the whole book are the recipes
because so many of them are for huge quantities
of food.
It does strike me that 1oz of pepper is not really enough
for that quantity of food but
whatever. Then there's some really weird recipes like
beef tea with calves foot jelly, or isinglass.
Beef tea,
hmm... no. No...
And my favorite is for a refreshing drink for invalids
called toast and water. What could toast and water
be? That sounds interesting.
It's not. It's a piece of toast,
crammed into a jug with boiling water
and left, and then strained out.
Toast and water. Though Dr. Woodward does
recommend not leaving it in the water for too long during the Summer months
because it could ferment and become alcoholic
and frankly that sounds better than
soggy toast.
But for my money the best recipes come from the
"extra diet" section of the book. You've got something called
Soyer's Cheap Crimean Lemonade.
It's probably cheap because it doesn't actually have
any lemons. It has a little bit of lime juice
but not even all that much. But he does
suggest putting some rum in it
as an agreeable addition,
and I would be inclined to agree.
It's probably something Stonewall Jackson might've enjoyed if he couldn't
get his hands on an actual lemon. See I guess he was rather partial
to the fruit. One of his officers after the war wrote,
I can picture that. It's kinda interesting. He must've liked sour things
because he also named his horse Little Sorrel.
Anyway, I don't like sour things so that's why
I'm so glad that our bread pudding sweetened with sugar
should be about ready. So after an hour
remove the lid of the pot and carefully take the
pudding out out of the water. You might want to let it cool just
a bit before turning it out onto a plate. I did not
let mine cool enough and so it lef
the top kinda wonky.
So here we are, civil war bread pudding.
The texture is really,
it looks really nice.
Very custardy, almost.
Let's see.
Let's take a taste.
Hmkay.
If this is hospital food than we are going
backwards, because this is quite good and I've
had hospital food and it's not
quite good.
Really nice, I do wish a little more sugar in there but
even so, it's sweet, it's very
it's very eggy. Very custardy.
The texture, is really really smooth.
More like
More like a boiled pudding than a modern day
bread pudding. The currants add that
little bit of zing to it as well. Kinda cuts through
the custardness of the egg.
This is lovely.
It's so moist, and
in that second bite I got some of
the cinnamon. It's really subtle.
I wish it was a little bit more actually,
but really subtle but it's there.
Really, really lovely. I,
you know, if you had to go to the hospital,
sucks but at least you might get some bread pudding out of it.
IF you're on that low diet.
So thank you to Kyle Dalton and the National Museum of Civil War
Medicine who really helped me with the research on this
episode. I'm going to put a link to their website below where you can
go browse if you're interested, or you can
become a member or otherwise support the museum.
So thank you again for joining me and I will see you next time
on Tasting History.
:)