Hardtack Civil War Recipes

[FC]

https://youtu.be/KTVPV-15GL0

[Dr.Hess]

So, hardtack for the flour (carbohydrates) and salt content, add pork fat for the fat calories.  I don't think that's a very balanced meal, but fat goes a long way and has a very high energy content.  Interesting comments on eating bug infested foods.  Boil it and skim the suckers off.  And eating raw pickled pork, I dunno.  Would the pickling process kill the worms?  Otherwise, big problems there.  If you've ever seen an MRI or CAT scan from someone with brain worms, you would tend to really not want to eat any undercooked pork.  We pulled a pea sized lesion out of a kids brain once.  Cut it open and... Worm.

[FC]

Wow, I’ve never heard of worms in the brain! 
Such an awful diet for soldiers and sailors. I’m glad I didn’t have to endure it.

[Dr.Hess]

Cysticercosis.  Undercooked pork.  The pork has the worms.  Eggs in the meat, which gets eaten.

 

 

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/gen_info/faqs.html

 

Heat from cooking kills the eggs.  We would see them, typically from a Latin American patient "found down" or who started siezing, or groggy all the time, falls a lot, headaches, etc., gets brought to an ER by their family, brain CT, "huh, what's that?", neurosurgery consult, brain MRI.  "Well, there's something going on right there (or there, there and there...) but we don't know what it is. We'll have to take it out and send it to path." 

[FC]

Disgusting!