A popular dish during the Civil War had been cush made from corn meal and bacon grease and it looks and taste allot like bacon flavored polenta. A shortage of cooking utensils represented the greatest challenge cooks faced on the battle field thus leading to production of simple dishes like cush. Seldom did soldiers have access to mixing bowls, kettles, pans, and or skillets. On occasion a company might have a cast iron frying pan on hand that they took turns both using and hauling on long treks. Some mixed ingredients in turtle shells, calabashes, shirt tails and other surfaces. Some cooked bread dough wrapped around a ramrod of a rifle over a fire. We know that others also wrapped corn based dough with other ingredients in a corn shuck and cooked it in the ashes of a fire like tamales. Soldiers also grilled foods on top of flat slabs of rocks placed on top of hot coals.
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