Rations

[StickMan]

Odd thing I've been thinking about what foods make up good rations for say a military campaign. These things don't have to be standard rations mind you just what things last for a long time and troops can carry with them. Sure its nice and all for the player handbook to just say rations but when I have my PC's act out there down time what foods are they talking about?

Things I've thought of are:
Jerky
Cheese (Not sure what kinds)
Peanut butter
Corn chips (A little modern day perhaps)

Ideas?


Edit: Think about this in a context in which Create Food and Water does not exist.

[Lord Tataraus]

At will item of Create Food/Water? I mean seriously, it pays for the high cost in a few weeks at most. With magic, you don't need to worry about food and such.

[Crow]

A loaf of hard bread.

[Sleet]

Peanut butter strikes me as modern as well, but I could be wrong.

The staple would almost certainly be unleavend bread (US Civil War troops called it hard tack). Another option is for soldiers to forage - hunt, steal-er, I man commandeer-food from locals, etc.

As Tataraus says, If it's a D&D game, create food and water might work, if you have enough clerics. If you only have a few clerics chances are the high ranking nobles will keep that good stuff form themselves.

[StickMan]

At will item of Create Food/Water? I mean seriously, it pays for the high cost in a few weeks at most. With magic, you don't need to worry about food and such.

Well I'm not really looking for a game with magic items and such things. My point is not how to get around food its what food works. You know I'm working on the Role part of the Role Playing Game, Crazy I know .

[Yuki Akuma]

Chocolate.

Military field rations (at least in England) always include chocolate.

And it's not as if chocolate is hard to make, it's just tough to find the chief ingredient in most D&D settings... >.>;

[Shadowdweller]

Historical classics would have included:
-Salt Pork
-Sea Biscuit, or Hard Tack. A type of salty, unleavened bread that turns out like a cracker.

(The above would need to be mixed with water before consumption.)

Also: Dried beans

[Ralfarius]

If it's a meat, you salt it or smoke/cure it.
- Salt pork, salt herring
- Smoked eel
- Pemmican, a mixture of dehydrated meat that's been pounded into powder then mixed with fat and berries and formed into portable bars. That'll keep you going during the lean times, or on the long portage

If it's a bread, you make it as moisture free as possible. Or you store it in flour form and make it as you go. Bannock was an excellent pancakey type food the voyageurs would make while on the trade routes, could be mixed with berries.

In navies, drinking water had a tendency to go stagnant. Alcohol (like rum) kept well, but had a tendency to make your men drunk. The solution? Water rum down into grog. It lasts longer, and gets you less drunk per quantity consumed.

Dehydrated fruits, if they're available, ward off scurvy.

It all depends on what's available.

[MrNexx]

Things I've thought of are:
Jerky
Cheese (Not sure what kinds)
Peanut butter
Corn chips (A little modern day perhaps)

Traditional cheeses for this will be hard, fairly sharp, cheeses.
Turnips are good; they keep forever, and are good food.
Corn chips are pretty bad... they're fragile, go stale easily, and are poor calorie value for the weight.
Dry hardtacks are good.
Dried meat is good.

As others have said, items of Create Food & Water are good ideas. 5th level clerics can start churning those out and they'll feed 15 people a day (the minimum they can feed at once). Turn out 3 of these, and you've got a small company fed for a day... expensive, but you never have to spend money on food again.

[Lord Tataraus]

Well the Confederates in the American Civil War had rations in the form of a single bar-like thing that contained a full meal. It was basically a mixture of peas, beans, cornbread and a few other ingredients. While very efficient it was reportedly disgusting.

[goat]

As others have said, items of Create Food & Water are good ideas. 5th level clerics can start churning those out and they'll feed 15 people a day (the minimum they can feed at once). Turn out 3 of these, and you've got a small company fed for a day... expensive, but you never have to spend money on food again.

Perhaps more importantly, you'll never need to carry food around again. Less weight in each soldier's pack, less reliance on supply routes, the ability to survive a siege indefinitely...

[StickMan]

Perhaps more importantly, you'll never need to carry food around again. Less weight in each soldier's pack, less reliance on supply routes, the ability to survive a siege indefinitely...

For the sake of why I made this thread lets just leave it at create food and water does not exist.

Thanks to everyone who has answered so far. Don't be worried about how modern things are, I'm not to worried about that.

[MrNexx]

Thanks to everyone who has answered so far. Don't be worried about how modern things are, I'm not to worried about that.

Another note is that tortillas are pretty easy to handle, or even make on the go; some armies would give their soldiers a type of flour and let them cook when they could.

[horseboy]

Well, this one is complete hear say, but I heard that the Mongols used to share the food they ate with their horses. They both ate something similar to sweet feed. Rolled Oats, honey, and a few other grains. I'm pretty sure you could add some raisins to it and you'd have a unbared granola bar so I don't doubt it too much.

No cheese, unless it's really hard, otherwise it starts sweating and is nasty.

[Matthew]

Heh, William of Rubrick was particulalry critical of Mongolian 'travelling food' (circa 1250). I don't recall the details off hand, but he was not impressed (though he does seem to have drunk a fair bit of their fermented mares milk, despite protestations as to its unpalatability.

[dyslexicfaser]

You can't go wrong with dried fruits and jerky. It's not exactly a balanced breakfast, but you'll get most of what you need to keep going.

Hardtack every meal would keep you alive, but you wouldn't enjoy it. Its the sort of thing that makes a guy think that maybe resorting to cannibalism wouldn't be so bad, after awhile.

Realistically, in a D&D setting, your soldiers should have either a supply train or camp followers to provide them with the basic necessities.

EDIT: And by 'camp followers', I mean more than prostitutes, though they tend to be involved as well.

[John Campbell]

Peanuts, corn, and cocoa are all New World plants. Depending on how European your setting is, they might not be available.

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd go with trail mix ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_mix ) in addition to hardtack, dried meat and hard cheese.

[Subotei]

Heh, William of Rubrick was particulalry critical of Mongolian 'travelling food' (circa 1250). I don't recall the details off hand, but he was not impressed (though he does seem to have drunk a fair bit of their fermented mares milk, despite protestations as to its unpalatability.

I've tried it - was in Mongolia a few years back - tastes a little like greek yoghurt, with a slight fizz or tingle on the tongue. Its slighly alcoholic, but hardly what I'd call a session drink.

They also make some kind of hard granules from milk - kind of sour youghurty taste but chewy - I can't recall the name but its very nutritious and keeps well.

As to what food to take - wheat for breadmaking, rolled oats - porridge is easy and nutritious, meat on the hoof - first your oxen carry your rations, and then they become the rations when they've nothing left to carry.

[Yami]

Besides the stubborn mule, a few classics we often use are the 100 salted herrings from the old AD&D books. Always great letting the players figure out just how many makes a meal.

-Salt with meat, often the mainstay of snobbish goblins. May be called jerky.
-Stale bread, in case you hate your PC. Ugh.
-Never much a fan of cheese, unless you use it to gain a bonus to your survival 'trap rat' check.
-Nuts. They don't have to be peanuts. Trees be everywhere..
-The berries never last, (damnable thieves,) so I'd say dried fruits is out.

That's really about it. As far as I see it.

[Curmudgeon]

You should include a good supply of the original fast food: sausage. Hard sausage will last a long time, and is premixed with salt and spices so it tastes much better than other staples like hardtack.

[Rigon]

How about enchanted trains/containers which wont let the food inside stale?
I mean that could be a permanent magic and you could throw out that evil "going to stale countdown". You might make it have more space than it seems and then we have a "pocket dimension of food holding".
It's something which is ought to happen in a dnd world with wars... especially if the most horrifying thing about the previous war was the thing higher ups called food. I mean if you are marching forward to war and you get jerky each day... as posted above : you start thinking about cannibalism/suicide as a valid opinion.

[Paragon Badger]

Simple, have one of your PCs be a Troll.

...Just don't cook the meat.

[puppyavenger]

Simple, have one of your PCs be a Troll.

...Just don't cook the meat.

and don't tell the soldiers

[Squatting_Monk]

Another thing you'd want is a tin of lard. Besides practical and medicinal purposes, there's a variety of things you can cook with it. In a pinch, you can eat it straight. When I'm doing trekking (I re-enact a French and Indian War era Pennsylvanian pioneer) I also like to carry a cake of sugar and a bag of cornmeal. I'm looking to get some tea and chocolate blocks, too.

Historically, medieval armies often subsisted by living off the land (read: foraging and looting, even in friendly territory). You pretty much tried to get your fill of whatever you could scrounge up before you dug into your rations. Thus, military logistics generally took this into account when determining how much food to equip soldiers with.

[DraPrime]

Hard tack, cheap alcohol, salt meat, and the occasional fruit to prevent scurvy. Every once in a while the officers might hand out something tasty like fresh pork, not the salted stuff. Soldiers forage of course to find stuff that doesn't taste stale/salted/dry/watered down/like crap.

[Turcano]

Well the Confederates in the American Civil War had rations in the form of a single bar-like thing that contained a full meal. It was basically a mixture of peas, beans, cornbread and a few other ingredients. While very efficient it was reportedly disgusting.

Did it taste like the bastard child of trail mix and evil beef jerky?

[Darkantra]

If it's a desert campaign all you need are a bunch of cammels.

Thirsty? Drink cammel milk.
Hungry? Kill one of the cammels and harvest its meat for steaks, but also mix the cammel blood with your resevoirs of milk, creating a horrible, but heartening mixture that will last longer than the cammel steaks.

[herrhauptmann]

Did a AD&D game where we needed to subsist on trail rations for a long time. Round about the 2nd week, the dm had us start making Con checks vs. constipation.

Starvation fare: ground walnuts mixd with some water.
Suggest heavily emphasizing the foraging aspect, especially if you're using an army. If you thought you hated pigeons/seagulls, imagine how happy you'll be to find their nests.
Salted/smoked meat. ANy meat will do for the hungry soldier.
If it can't be smoked or salted, you can always stew it.

[Irreverent Fool]

Odd thing I've been thinking about what foods make up good rations for say a military campaign. These things don't have to be standard rations mind you just what things last for a long time and troops can carry with them. Sure its nice and all for the player handbook to just say rations but when I have my PC's act out there down time what foods are they talking about?

Generally in a medieval era, I think a 'ration' would consist of some heavily-salted meat, dry bread (especially something like hardtack), and greasy, hard cheese, or waxed cheese. If the location supports fruit, some sun-dried varieties might be added to the 'rations', but those don't keep all that well. Your staple is going to be salted meat, especially beef.

Of course, adventurers re ludicrously wealthy compared to the general populace, and remember that letting a wizard who knows what he's doing prepare your meals when you camp means that salted beef can taste like filet mignon with judicious use of prestidigitation. (It can also taste like road apples, so try not to piss him off)