You had me at smoked oyster.
The Saltine Cracker
- Thread starter Rusty Blade
- Start date
A reasonable accommodation. In fact, I was just in the kitchen looking for a little something to push down some muscle relaxer I took after working all day in the garden. Spoon; peanut butter. It was good.
O.H.
Now I'm surprised nobody's hit this one yet, but then again most of us (including me!) are not from Noof'n'Land...
Purity Pilot Biscuits, Barge Pilot Biscuits and Flakey Pilot Biscuits. A solid slab of what makes saltines so great. Among their other products are Hard Bread and Sweet Bread. All of which are good to find in the cupboard when you're peckish. Some of it's kinda hard to find out here four-and-a-half timezones to the west, but I'll see if I can turn up something when I'm in town tomorrow.
O.H.
Purity Pilot Biscuits, Barge Pilot Biscuits and Flakey Pilot Biscuits. A solid slab of what makes saltines so great. Among their other products are Hard Bread and Sweet Bread. All of which are good to find in the cupboard when you're peckish. Some of it's kinda hard to find out here four-and-a-half timezones to the west, but I'll see if I can turn up something when I'm in town tomorrow.
O.H.
on clam chowder... (the best)
on the rocks (purist indulgence, plain soda crackers)
with cheddar cheese (quick and dirty, when getting the munchies ...)
on the rocks (purist indulgence, plain soda crackers)
with cheddar cheese (quick and dirty, when getting the munchies ...)
As someone who grew up overseas, the concept of saltine have been a blissful ignorance until an early July evening as my pregnant wife could not hold on to anything and sent me to the local grocery store to get some . How ignorant I was crusing the aisle of that store at 11 pm looking for salt whatever, could not even remember the name of that crap . The first clerk was just as ignorant as I was, and me not being able to even give the name of the product did not helped. That older midwest lady cashier figure it out when I explain what I was looking for after I said pregnant sick can't hold food.
Least to say I was back an our later having found my wife's Graal. Should have taken me 15 minutes and this is generous.
I do have a box of it under the counter for when I might found myself bracing bad weather and empty shelves.
Least to say I was back an our later having found my wife's Graal. Should have taken me 15 minutes and this is generous.
I do have a box of it under the counter for when I might found myself bracing bad weather and empty shelves.
Man, finding a real Canadian product when you're almost half a world away from it -- yet still in Canada! -- can really stretch your patience. But there is some limited success to report...
Behold! Purity's "Barge Pilot Biscuits:"
![IMG_0827[1].JPG](https://xfdata.badgerandblade.com/attachments/1600/1600463-c855f43dfe302d1dd082f58f52e0e63b.jpg "IMG_0827[1].JPG")
![IMG_0828[1].JPG](https://xfdata.badgerandblade.com/attachments/1600/1600464-dfc18924766eb10b91756f4ab2e62d5d.jpg "IMG_0828[1].JPG")
I went to a wholesaler that I remembered had carried them years ago. They still have them! Apparently there's this one guy locally who buys them by the caselot and takes them up north to Prince Rupert where he fishes out of that port. Evidently (according to the nice lady who bent the rules and sold me a single pack) "a lot of the older folks up there still use them."
Well. For five bucks I now have 18 pilot biscuits. I mean...17.
I didn't buy them to sneer at them, you know. The downside is that this is the only Purity product available out here. Oh, sure; there's always Amazon.
Now, where to place these in our conceptual framework of the saltine cracker? It's got the same ingredients: flour, a touch of barley malt, shortening, salt, bit of baking powder plus a touch of yeast. No salt on top. A bit more solid than a saltine but still flaky and easy to bite. I guess I'll say that it's a related species, with a robust structure and enough real estate on top for a decent amount of topping.
What I don't know is whether this would qualify as a form of "ship's bread" in the traditional sense. I have a feeling it's a bit fancy for that label (about which more in a moment). However, I have read enough of the diaries of the early Antarctic explorers and feel fairly confident that this is quite similar to the biscuit they carried. At one point in Shackleton's diaries he relates the serving out of the evening's "hoosh" or stew of biscuit and pemmican. The guys had a system of semi-randomly choosing who got which bowl of hoosh, as there was some hard feeling if a man got biscuit that didn't appear to have been baked as long as it might have been. Little things, Shackleton said, mean a lot when that's all you have.
Having also read into the Age of Sail a bit, I think what was meant by "ship's biscuit" was a less-refined (!) product we would call "hardtack." None of your shortening, barley malt, baking powder or yeast! Flour, little salt, water. Purity still makes it, because "those who know" need it for their holiday dinner of "Fish and Brewis" or salt cod, boiled potatoes, soaked hardtack and scruncheons (fat pork or bacon fried with onions). In Newfoundland it's called "Hard Bread" which I discover is pronounced "Arrd Bread." I can't get it out here and it seems a bit pretentious to have it mailed out, but thanks to a Newfoundland chef named Bonita Hussey (she says "BONNAH-tah") and her YouTube channel I can make some just as good.
So there ya go. Further explorations into Arrd Bread and other gems of Newfoundland cuisine will go in other threads.
O.H.
Behold! Purity's "Barge Pilot Biscuits:"
I went to a wholesaler that I remembered had carried them years ago. They still have them! Apparently there's this one guy locally who buys them by the caselot and takes them up north to Prince Rupert where he fishes out of that port. Evidently (according to the nice lady who bent the rules and sold me a single pack) "a lot of the older folks up there still use them."
Well. For five bucks I now have 18 pilot biscuits. I mean...17.
I didn't buy them to sneer at them, you know. The downside is that this is the only Purity product available out here. Oh, sure; there's always Amazon. Now, where to place these in our conceptual framework of the saltine cracker? It's got the same ingredients: flour, a touch of barley malt, shortening, salt, bit of baking powder plus a touch of yeast. No salt on top. A bit more solid than a saltine but still flaky and easy to bite. I guess I'll say that it's a related species, with a robust structure and enough real estate on top for a decent amount of topping.
What I don't know is whether this would qualify as a form of "ship's bread" in the traditional sense. I have a feeling it's a bit fancy for that label (about which more in a moment). However, I have read enough of the diaries of the early Antarctic explorers and feel fairly confident that this is quite similar to the biscuit they carried. At one point in Shackleton's diaries he relates the serving out of the evening's "hoosh" or stew of biscuit and pemmican. The guys had a system of semi-randomly choosing who got which bowl of hoosh, as there was some hard feeling if a man got biscuit that didn't appear to have been baked as long as it might have been. Little things, Shackleton said, mean a lot when that's all you have.
Having also read into the Age of Sail a bit, I think what was meant by "ship's biscuit" was a less-refined (!) product we would call "hardtack." None of your shortening, barley malt, baking powder or yeast! Flour, little salt, water. Purity still makes it, because "those who know" need it for their holiday dinner of "Fish and Brewis" or salt cod, boiled potatoes, soaked hardtack and scruncheons (fat pork or bacon fried with onions). In Newfoundland it's called "Hard Bread" which I discover is pronounced "Arrd Bread."
I can't get it out here and it seems a bit pretentious to have it mailed out, but thanks to a Newfoundland chef named Bonita Hussey (she says "BONNAH-tah") and her YouTube channel I can make some just as good.So there ya go. Further explorations into Arrd Bread and other gems of Newfoundland cuisine will go in other threads.
O.H.
I do not eat them anymore but funny if you move from a place that has one brand and that brand is not in your new location and the brand you then find is not good tasting or not what you are used to so you do not care for them
been over 20 years since I ate them though but peanut butter and jelly or cheese or meat on them like others basically in place of bread
I loved San Sky Flakes (island thing) not so much other ones
Same with things like Hawaiian Cream Crackers etc... no duplicate for those
and the brand you then find is not good tasting or not what you are used to so you do not care for thembeen over 20 years since I ate them though but peanut butter and jelly or cheese or meat on them like others basically in place of bread
I loved San Sky Flakes (island thing) not so much other ones
Same with things like Hawaiian Cream Crackers etc... no duplicate for those
Or if they do it’s just not quite the same
YUP and its that difference that while maybe small is HUGE for some and some might be fine with which I reckon is like coffee or any other “thing” some are like who cares what coffee it is and others will be like NOPE only if its this exact thing or they wont have it
hahahah I kinda fall into the later
Had it happen to me. When I lived in Kentucky I would always get Zesta’s saltines and they were great. When I moved to Florida 9 years ago they haven’t been the same. At least JIF peanut butter is still the same (helps that there’s only one factory that makes it and it’s in my hometown)YUP and its that difference that while maybe small is HUGE for some and some might be fine with which I reckon is like coffee or any other “thing” some are like who cares what coffee it is and others will be like NOPE only if its this exact thing or they wont have it
I kinda fall into the later
simon1
Self Ignored by Vista
Another excellent use for the lowly saltine. I still have about a half dozen of these little balls of grease in the freezer...time to make another run and stock up again. Only about an hour and a half away.
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