Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Civil War mess kettles

The versatile mess kettle - to cook, for coffee, to carry water, to wash clothes.

"Food and Agriculture during the Civil War" talk is this Friday, TAPE HERE. Just learned about it today so putting out a quick post.


As described in the book Hardtack and Coffee: "Mess kettles;, let me explain here, are cylinders in shape, and made of heavy sheet iron. They are from thirteen to fifteen inches high, and vary in diameter from seven inches to a foot."
Washing clothes in mess kettles (first image)...
"So, in regard to using our mess kettles to boil clothes in, it might be asked "Why not? Were they not used to boil our meat and potatoes in, to make our bean, pea, and meat soups in, to boil our tea and coffee in, to make our apple and peach sauce in? Why not use them as wash-boilers? Well, “gentle reader,” while it might at first interfere somewhat with your appetite to have your food cooked in the wash-boiler, you would soon get used to it; and so this complex use of the mess kettles soon ceased to affect the appetite, or to shock the sense of propriety of the average soldier as to the eternal fitness of things, for he was often compelled by circumstances to endure much greater improprieties."

Billings, John D. Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Boston: 1888. HERE


Aug 18 Fri 6 Food and Agriculture during the Civil War. Dr. R. Douglas Hurt. Author of many Ag. books, out this year: Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815–1900. Watkins Museum of History. Kansas HERE TAPE HERE.

CALENDAR OF VIRTUAL FOOD HISTORY TALKS HERE

©2023 Patricia Bixler Reber
Researching Food History HOME

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