Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

[dixieflyer]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Thanks Tere!

[dogcompanylt]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

I do not mean to revert back to salt pork, but I guess this could also be asked of salt beef.
I am just wondering do you soak your piece of meat in water to get the brine out a day or two before you take it to an event?
Then you would just throw it in a poke sack for the event?
I would ask this of a mess mate, but I am currently not a member of any yet.

All help is more then welcomed.
Ryan Gray

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

I do not mean to revert back to salt pork, but I guess this could also be asked of salt beef.
I am just wondering do you soak your piece of meat in water to get the brine out a day or two before you take it to an event?
Then you would just throw it in a poke sack for the event?
I would ask this of a mess mate, but I am currently not a member of any yet.

All help is more then welcomed.
Ryan Gray

That's probably what you should do to make it edible, and in fact Sir Garnet Wolseley ("Soldier's Pocket Book" 1871) recommends soaking it at least eight hours, preferably over night. But once you've done that it's no longer preserved.

That's one of the problems with issuing salt meats at events. They take time to prepare, unless you want to eat extremely salty food. (Though Billings, in Hardtack and Coffee, mentions sandwiches of uncooked salt pork between two pieces of hardtack). There's a reason soldiers were ordered to take several days of "cooked rations."

Alternatively, Horace Kephart in "Camp Cookery" (1910) recommends parboiling salt pork, or soaking it at least an hour in cold water. The smaller the pieces, the more effective this will be. This you can do in the field without too much trouble if you get the time.

Another approach is to forget about salt pork or salt beef, for which the armies often supplanted beef on the hoof. Instead, try getting the cheapest, leanest cut of beef you can find and simmer it (at home) in a mix of three or four parts water to apple cider vinegar (enough to cover the pieces). This will cook and tenderize the meat, as well as preserve it to some degree. If you're concerned about spoilage over the weekend, cheat and freeze it ahead of time. It will thaw by the time you want it and can be broiled or boiled again.

[dixieflyer]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Many moons ago, during an Atlanta Campaign event, our mess decided to recreate the rations as indicated to us in the journals and diaries of the Federal soldiers we were portraying which was fresh beef on the hoof. One of our number procured a beef shoulder and iced it down in the trunk of his car. When he arrived at the event on a Thursday night, they cut it up and issued it out to all the members who had to immediately cook and consume it that night, and subsist on nothing more than hardtack and coffee for the next three days. No problem as this was in keeping with those we were portraying as they complained of having to do this in their writings.

Just an alternative.

[Spinster]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

To speed the process of dealing with salt meat, the Federal Issue Mess Kettle is an ideal vessel for the purpose.

Chunk the meat into palm sized portions, and set to boil. Boil one hour. Change the water. Boil one hour. Change the water. About the third change of water takes care of the task. It's still salty, but in amounts a man needs in campaign weather.

Now, the last time I saw this done was the salt meat issued to the Western Brigade for At High Tide. At the time, it seemed like the Fires of Hell had gotten up on that sultry June night. They started boiling about dark and quit about midnight, using about 18 kettles with each group of men tending their own.

It was good meat when Charles dumped the barrel off the truck, and still good on Sunday when I scooped some with my hand as I'd already packed the officers mess gear.

I never heard who got the frog. Of course, it was dark.....

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Bythe way, another potential source of food-safe, tight-sealed containers: ask a bakery to sell you empty icing/frosting five-gallon buckets. (Not, of course, to be taken further than the parking lot at an event.) Most refrigerators can be adjusted to accommodate a bucket on the bottom shelf.

[Cyclesmith]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Salt beef (or pork) is really easy to make... we do it all the time for events. If you can cut meat, heat water, and pour salt you have all the talents needed to make fine salt beef or pork for your whole unit. The hardest part if finding a butcher to sell you the proper cuts of meat... luckly I have an awesome local butcher that will give me whatever I ask for. For salt I use coarse kosher salt and put it in the fridge if I'm doing it in the summer... the garage if fall or winter.

Personally I use a small wax lined oak barrel for curing I bought from a sulter at a Rev War event years ago... you can get them at Jas. Townsend also.

[The Chesterfield Rifleman]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Sir,
Jas Townsend has a variety of period food stuffs as well as salf pork tutorials. Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the ANV have a few cows which followed the army when in need of beef? And how was this beef issued, pre salted by army cooks or was it just issued: a barrel of salt and a barrel of beef? Also considering the time it takes wagons and cattle to be hearded down the roads and disease and all that, I would think that beef was relatively thin in the ANV by mid to late 1863, right?

But UNION RATIONS, well that's another story. A funny poem that suggests that the salted beef in the Union Army's ration was little more than the consistency of jerky or hockey pucks.

The soldier's fare is very rough,
The bread is hard the beef is tough;
If they can stand it, it will be,
Through love of God, a mystery.

But there are accounts of soldiers being issued fresh beef as well, and the army ration being even more plentiful than that of the British Army's. Of course, this did not last long after 1861.

So it seems to me that either the beef was issued salted or fresh, when it could be aquired, and had the consistency of either salt pork or black hockey pucks.

[33rdsignal]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

[QUOTE=The Chesterfield Rifleman;225372]Sir,
And how was this beef issued, pre salted by army cooks or was it just issued: a barrel of salt and a barrel of beef? Also considering the time it takes wagons and cattle to be hearded down the roads and disease and all that, I would think that beef was relatively thin in the ANV by mid to late 1863, right?

QUOTE]

Beef on the hoof was issued fresh.

[Cyclesmith]

Re: Trying to find a good source for Salt Beef.

Sir,
Jas Townsend has a variety of period food stuffs as well as salf pork tutorials. Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the ANV have a few cows which followed the army when in need of beef? And how was this beef issued, pre salted by army cooks or was it just issued: a barrel of salt and a barrel of beef? Also considering the time it takes wagons and cattle to be hearded down the roads and disease and all that, I would think that beef was relatively thin in the ANV by mid to late 1863, right?

But UNION RATIONS, well that's another story. A funny poem that suggests that the salted beef in the Union Army's ration was little more than the consistency of jerky or hockey pucks.

The soldier's fare is very rough,
The bread is hard the beef is tough;
If they can stand it, it will be,
Through love of God, a mystery.

But there are accounts of soldiers being issued fresh beef as well, and the army ration being even more plentiful than that of the British Army's. Of course, this did not last long after 1861.

So it seems to me that either the beef was issued salted or fresh, when it could be aquired, and had the consistency of either salt pork or black hockey pucks.

Hardtack & Coffee has a good part on how cattle was herded along with the the Army and tended by herdsman for issue to the troops. Though, in the ANV pork was the primary meat of issue, either salted or fresh or bacon.