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Originally Posted by WallShadow
Heck, from the Civil War we have instant "pulverized" potatoes (described to be like instant hash-browns), instant coffee (actually a tar-like substance of concentrated coffee mixed with a liberal amount of sugar), and dessicated ("desecrated") vegetables for use as a soup additive/expander. Canned "Brandied Peaches" from sutlers was a slick way for enlisted men to get around the prohibition of liquor in the ranks. (officers, however....)
Check out the 1892 Sears Roebuck Catalog reprint in the grocery section for shelf-stable shippable foods available before the turn of the century. And Corned Beef in cans (boiled beef--in French, Boeuf Bouilli, hence the derivation of "bully-beef") was a forgone conclusion as an Allied article of mess throughout WW1.
(American) Colonial Era cookbooks have recipes for "pocket soup" or "Veal Glue", which is meat joints boiled down until the cartilage dissolves enough, the meat and bones removed, and the water component boiled off until the liquid reduces down to the consistency of a block of unmelted/undissolved glue--think unmelted Hot Glue or a blob of hard-dried Elmer's Glue. It was dry enough to literally carry in a pocket without sticking. This could be tossed into a pot of hot water and reconstituted as a broth.
Also from that era, there was jerkey, and its Native American cousin, pemmican: dried meat and berries compounded in a meat-fat matrix--carried in pouches, it provided ready sustaining nourishment in a ready-to-eat form.
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Don't forget condensed milk, canned ham, devil ham, liquid smoke, candied fruit, confections in waxed paper, dehydrated soup, salt pork, salt beef, hard tack, biscuit mix, corn meal, and pickled sausages.
http://www.26nc.org/Articles/cooking...20campaign.pdf