Desiccated vegetables were used as a substitute for fresh vegetables, put away in the summer and fall by civilians to allow them a varied winter diet; but the War forced desiccated vegetables into the Army, too. Desiccated vegetables could be dried beans, onions, turnips, carrots, and beets. They received the soldiers’ appellation "baled hay" because of the unfortunate tendency to find that the vegetables often included roots, stalks, and leaves.

 

Here you go boys, if any are brave enough to try it...

 

You will need a food dehydrator for this to work well.  It can be substituted by doing this stuff in the oven, but it is a great deal harder to work with in the end.

 

INGREDIENTS:

Cabbage, 2 medium to large heads

Carrots, 1/2 bag of sliced, frozen kind will do

Turnips, about 4 medium sized with the tops on them.

Parsnips, about half the volume amount of turnips

Onions, maybe 3-4 of the smaller yellow onions.

 

VEGETABLE PREPARATION:

Slice the cabbage into quarters, then remove the stem, and separate them so that the leaves are not connected to each other.  Cut the turnips into small slices with the turnip tops diced into smaller portions and set away from the meatier turnip bodies.  Slice the onions up.

 

VEGETABLE COOKING:

In a large pot, boil the turnip tops and cabbage together until tender.  In a separate pot, boil the rest of the ingredients until they are cooked completely.  DO NOT OVERCOOK THE VEGETABLES!  They must be done almost completely, but still retain the roughage texture.  Drain everything well, pressing as much water out as you can.  The best way to do this is take a smaller bowl and push the veggies in the

strainer to get as much water out as possible. 

The more water you remove now, the less the dehydration process will be.

 

DEHYDRATING THE VEGETABLES:

If using the dehydrator, use the 4"x4"x3" freezer containers for molding the veggies into shape.  It will help if you poke a lot of small holes into the containers (about the size of the tip of a ball point pen) to aid in the dehydration process.

If using the oven method, put the veggies into a 9"x13" pan and preset the oven to 200-250 degrees.

 

Layer the veggies into the containers in the following manner: 

Cabbage mix (1/2 inch),

carrot mix (one even layer).

Always start and end with the cabbage mix. 

The layering should end up with a 3 inch thick lasagna type dish.

 

If using the dehydrator, dehydrate the containers until the veggies in them become a hard brick of inedible food.  There can not be any moisture in the mix when done with it.  This can take a few days to do.  When done, take out and it should be ready to go.

 

If using the oven method, put the pan in the oven, then put a wooden spoon or something in the door of the oven so that the moisture will escape.  This may also take hours to work. 

 

PREPARE THE BRICKS

When they are all done, take a saw (yes I said a saw, like a butchers bone saw or a clean carpenter's miter box saw) and cut the big block into smaller blocks of about 2-4 inch squares.  you may need to first trim off the edges if they have turned dark brown before trimming the bricks into the appropriate sizes.

 

AN EXTRA TOUCH:

You may also want to wrap the bricks into brown butcher paper (the older dark brown type and not the newer shinny light brown stuff).  I am not sure if it was issued in the brown wrapper, but it will look good while you are holding on to it until you are ready to use it.  It will also keep the black powder out of the vegetables if you spill a cartridge in your haversack before you are ready for dinner.