I made hardtack yesterday.
The recipe itself is as simple as can be. Mix 2 cups of flour with 3/4 cup water and 1.5 teaspoons salt, adding a little flour if resulting dough sticks to your hands. Roll out flat to 1 cm thickness, then cut into 3-inch squares. Poke holes in each piece with a chopstick. Place squares on a baking tray and bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes per side.
But the question you're probably asking me is why the hell I made hardtack. Am I going on such a long journey that I actually need the human equivalent of Dwarven Battle Bread? No! I just needed something I could break into bite-sized pieces and stick in my mouth for the times when I need a decent stim and my hands are busy. Such as when I'm reading, or when I'm sorting packages at work. I could buy chips from the vending machine, but that cost adds up, and the advantage of a hardtack is that you can rattle it around in your mouth for a while as it slowly softens. It works well enough
Or does it? I noticed on my second piece that the hardtack didn't have taste so much as it absorbed taste. It had anti-taste. All that was left in my mouth at the end of it was a hint of salt and the feeling I desperately needed to eat something that actually tasted like something.
Also eating too many of those things in the space of an hour made me a little queasy. So while the bite-sized hardtack did indeed save me from going slightly mad with boredom, it turned out to be something I wouldn't want to resort to more than once per day.
Also, the process of breaking those 3-inch squares into bite-sized pieces is hell on the hands.