…

Chapter Eight. Hardtack.

It didn't take Beth long at all to understand why Mulligan loved and respected these mountains so much. When that powerful storm ripped away in her family's home in the St. George subdivision and they had moved up here to live with the hermit in his cabin, winter was coming, she was pregnant and she had no idea what they would do. She was quick to learn that the mountains would provide things to them – even when the snow was to their ankles. They just had to know how to look for it and then how to use it once they found it. These mountains got them through that fall and winter and she delivered her baby safely.

Years passed and Beth almost forgot that she wasn't from these mountains; that she had had a completely other life so many years before, down below and away from here. She could feel the mountains in her.

The family farmed, planted and foraged. They were blessed to have animals, too. Goats, chickens, sheep, two horses, a donkey and a mule. They also had managed to wrangle two wild hogs from the mountains that they were working on domesticating so they could have more pigs and piglets eventually. Beth had recipe books from Mulligan's family – a collection of recipes used in cooking and medicine that the man's family had worked on for decades, putting together. Some of the things, Beth couldn't use anymore – because it didn't exist anymore or it couldn't be found, so she did the best she could in experimenting and her family always told her with complete honesty what worked and what didn't.

There was one thing that Beth made a lot of that no one particularly liked but it was important all the same. It was far from creative and it wasn't even that good but it was food that dated back to the Roman soldiers and it wasn't supposed to be good. It was supposed to help them survive. There was always at least one container of it down in their cellar. Just in case. And whenever there was a run to be made – though runs were few and far in between – Beth made sure they had more than a few to take with them to eat along the way. Hardtack was used for centuries – by pioneers, settlers, sailors and soldiers and if it was good enough for all of those people and helped keep them alive, then it was good enough for their family.

Hardtack was not a soft cracker, fluffy piece of bread or a biscuit that melted in their mouth. It was a HARD survival food that had to be soaked in water or milk or a liquid of that kind for minutes to get it soft enough to eat. While they were out, somewhere on the mountains, doing one chore or another, they would hold a corner of the hardtack in their mouths during their work so it could soften that way.

They all knew when Beth was making a fresh supply of hardtack because she needed the space of the kitchen table to make it and there were only three ingredients out with her – flour, water and salt. To make herself feel like she was making something far more spectacular, Beth would use chestnut flour or acorn flour instead of white. She made sure the oven had plenty of wood and the fire was nice and hot. She mixed flour, water and salt in a bowl and made sure the dough was a little dry, not sticking to her fingers.

She then used the roller to spread it out on the table, keeping it about ½ inch thick. She then cut the dough into squares – about three inch squares – and poked narrow holes into it with a chopstick she had specifically for the hardtack. The holes had to go all the way through so the dough wouldn't puff up while baking. She cooked the sheets of hardtack for thirty minutes, turned every square over and cooked for another thirty.

Sometimes, one of them would come in and look at the squares of dough on the table and Beth bending over with her chopstick to poke the holes and Beth would frown when they made a face at the sight of it. Even Daryl made a face and he knew how important the hardtack was.

"If you just want to starve while you're out there, you just let me know," Beth would tell one and all. "I will gladly keep this hardtack for me and I will always be full." And if it was Daryl, she'd poke him in the chest with the chopstick for good measure.

"Alrigh', alrigh'," Daryl replied while trying to keep from smiling. "I know you're president of the hardtack fan club and jus' 'cause I hate the stuff doesn't mean I won't eat it. You know that." He would then kiss her head but give one more look down to the hardtack dough before leaving the cabin, and Beth's chopstick, again.

Not exactly the most mentally challenging thing Beth cooked in the kitchen but she knew it was important. She wished this was something hers and Daryl's first group had during that winter after they lost the farm. Beth did her best to not think of their first family. All of these years later, it still hurt too much but more than that, Beth just felt… anger. They had just been so stupid and obsessed with cans and they hadn't even tried to think of something else – something more – that they could do.

Yes, it had been winter and they were trying to find some place safe but if they had just stayed somewhere for a few days to make a fire and they found flour and melted snow for water, they could have done this. They wouldn't had been so hungry and weak. It would have been tasteless but it would have been something in their stomachs that would fill them up and help them keep going. But they had done nothing except look for cans. They had still had the mentality that cans would save them.

Once the tack was completely cool, Beth would load it up into one of the airtight plastic containers and carry it down into the cellar where it was stored until it was needed. She always made sure there were at least two plastic containers of hardtack in their cellar because as long as they had it, they would have food in their stomachs. She and Daryl agreed and though they didn't talk about it, the other adults in their family were all on the same page, too. The children and the animals had the first dibs on the food. If they were ever running low, the children and animals were to eat whatever they had and the adults would eat the hardtack.

Thankfully, though, they had survived with food – their farming and planting and foraging keeping them alive and well fed for so many years now. These mountains knew that this family loved and respected them and in return, these mountains took care of them.

…

Thank you! Not exactly heavy with the Daryl/Beth, I know, but I have been wanting to write a hardtack chapter for a while because I imagine that it will be useful (I previously typed useless and that was NOT what I meant) to ALL of us when the world ends.