Forest and Stream 
$3 * Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1912. 
VOL. LXX1X.—No. 12. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
Our Daily Bread 
A “Bakers’ Dozen” of Some of the Representative Characteristic Breads and Crackers 
of the Globe Used by Campers, Travelers, Fisher-Folk, Motoring Tourists, 
Trappers, Etc.—Pointers for the American Camping Supply Trades 
By L. LODIAN 
In Two Parts—Part One 
A BOUT a couple of years ago the writer 
suggested to a recreation periodical an 
article on the above subject, to be profuse¬ 
ly illustrated. The reply was negative: that they 
limited the articles inserted to American topics. 
A rather insular view, it was thought, because 
manifestly we Americans don't “know it all.’’ 
Other nations’ campers inevitably have kinks and 
wrinkles and notions which are worth looking 
into. Moreover, almost all the exhibits illus¬ 
trated in this article on camping hard-tack 
breads and biscuits and crackers are made by 
bakers in this country, and are in daily use 
among our millions of foreigners on the farm, 
in the forests, among lumbering parties, pot- 
shooters, fishing smack folk, fur hunters, etc. 
OF INTEREST TO THE CAMPING SUPPLY TRADES. 
Our camping-out supply houses are ever on 
the alert for articles and provisions which offer 
superior advantages to the outdoor lifer. It is 
the life of their business. The present paper on 
different types of camping breads and hard-tacks 
of the nations, limits itself to the useful and the 
scant-known in camp and army breadstuffs. 
Thus, the sliced pumpernickel in cans—a splen¬ 
did standby of the Teutonic outdoor lifedom— 
is not illustrated, because too well known. Nor 
the acorn bread of the Pacific Indians, because 
not obtainable in commerce. Nor the bark-pow¬ 
der-compounded bread of the Norge people, or 
their fish roe bread, for the same reason. Nor 
any patented breadstuffs or semi-breadstuffs. 
Of course I recognize our own high-grade 
pilot hard-tacks—some retailing at fifteen cents 
a pound—are unsurpassed as a camp food, 
although they are very liable to break and make 
a litter and some loss, unless ordered in small 
“fit-the-mouth” squares. The small plain fare 
“nigger crackers” exported by some Manhattan 
concerns to plantations in the South for negro 
use, are much more handy as to size and far less 
crumbable, than the bigger and brittle pilot ware, 
and they only cost a nickel a pound. While 
somewhat coarse, it is doubtful if they compare 
unfavorably, nutritively, with their “w'ite brud- 
ders’ ” crackery costing three times the price. 
Fancy breadstuffs, like rusks and zwiebacks, 
are not worth carrying, as they occupy bulk and 
are unsatisfactory, leaving one with a peculiar, 
disappointed, inflated, unsatisfied, “blown-out” 
feeling. On and off I have had years of ex¬ 
perience with them, both in Europe and here. 
But there is a Boston-produced canned brown 
bread, keepable for years, which is eminently 
satisfactory, obtainable at most campers' stores, 
although the makers might advantageously copy 
the idea of the sliced canned pumpernickel im¬ 
ported from Germany (mentioned above), 
and give us a ready sliced, canned brown bread. 
(If they do, there’s one idea prompted by or 
copied via this journal—to start!) The advan¬ 
tages of machine-sliced bread are uniformity and 
convenience for handing round in a party, dis¬ 
pensing with the not always available knife. 
It is noteworthy that the only two ready 
sliced camping breads sold in this country are 
both imported products — the aforementioned 
sliced pumpernickel and the Niponese sliced 
bamboo bread, as photographed. 
The paper-thin big oat crackers or biscuit 
disks of Copenhagen (Denmark), are not de¬ 
scribed or illustrated, because no longer im¬ 
ported, nor the tallow-impregnated rye bread of 
Siberia; same with the superb potato flour pilot 
crackers of the Scandinavia shipping world. 
But methinks all the same, despite these omis¬ 
sions, the writer’s specialist knowledge of the 
army and travel and camping hard-tack breads, 
biscuits and crackers of the globe will be suf¬ 
ficiently attested by the present illustrated paper. 
THE ORIGINAL CRACKER BREAD OF THE AMERICAN 
CONTINENT. 
The kasava bread of millions of Latin Amer¬ 
icans is made from the root called kasabi (Indian 
name). The bread is eaten dry as it is, but 
swells considerably on liquid contact, so that a 
hungry person fancying he can “polish off” im¬ 
promptu one of those large disks of kasava, finds 
he can only get through half a one. It is of 
pleasant, slightly potato-like taste, and the tuber 
from which it is made ranges from thirty centi- 
1 — Chain cracker-breads (Duorkin). Balkan States; south and west Russia; Kabknz region. 2 — Kasava huge disk- 
crackers of Latin-America and short specimen root from which made. This is the original cracker and bread 
of the American continent and is still to-day the chief breadstuff of millions throughout the tropics. 
3 — Japanese bamboo-shaped, ready-sliced bread-biscuitry. t—The at-once bread-and-hard-lack crackery of the 
Holy Land and all Arabic-speaking countries. 
