If there’s hardtack involved, we should call Max Miller for a collab.

"What's the good news about this stuff?" "It'll last forever!" "Okay, so what's the bad news?" "It'll last forever ..."

Well...yet another of my fellow men thinking about the Roman Empire.

You're not supposed to eat the hardtack directly like a cookie. People crushed the hardtack into crumbs and then stirred it into a soup or stew to thicken it, similar to adding cornstarch or a roux.

That bit about salt really being the base of salary is really interesting

So many people thinking about the Roman Empire every day!

As the great Obelix would say " these Romans are crazy" 😊

So Dan, you’re saying the soldiers didn’t eat Little Caesar’s Pizza?

Stop eating, centurion!  Still many countries to conquer!!! Ave Roma!!!

It seems to me that most historians misunderstand hardtack. What he gets right here is that hardtack was made to survive a long time without spoilage. That is why it is hard. All the moisture has been baked out of it, so that it cannot spoil. I don't know if anyone has ever figured out how long it could last.
What Dan and others get wrong, is that there was that soldiers and sailors really didn't try to eat it dry, and weren't searching around for something to dip it in, anymore than people today are trying to find something to dip their dry pasta into. They simply rehydrated the hardtack, so to speak, by soaking it in something wet, such as stew or yes, wine. Wine because it was common enough to be served wine (and beer in some other places) as a substitute for water, which could often cause dysentery unless boiled. They would expect to do this in the same way we expect to cook potatoes, or flour.
Once soaked in something for long enough, hardtack is not bad at all. It is bread, after all. It is only hard for storage, and never meant to be eaten hard like we eat biscuits today.

Vinegar is a good source of vitamin C, so if you’re uncertain of whether or not you’ll find a local supply of fruits and vegetables to forage or trade, at least you know you won’t get scurvy.

It's likely that the reason your posca was so bad (other than you aren't used to it) is that you don't have anything like what they would have recognized as "vinegar". Unless you used a good wine vinegar; and even then it would be too processed.

The richest Romans ate boar that ate pretty much only chestnuts, apparently they made the bacon taste amazing.

I made some hard tack a few years ago.  Filled you up, but that's about all you can say for it, apart from the calories.  You certainly wouldn't want to try to bite it without softening it up first.  Question?  Might they have crushed the biscuit up and fried it with the bacon, as Napoleonic sailors, and American Civil War soldiers sometimes did?  Possible.  It's also interesting that the basic military ration of "biscuit, salt meat, and alcohol" stayed more or less the same from the 1st cent BCE to the 19th cent CE.  2000 years of hardtack......shudder.

Dan is the man.

It should be “legionary’s” in the title. Great video!

I would have expected a channel with "History" in the name to have pictures that I couldn't have denied the authenticity of when I was still in middle school.

''Blessed are the cheesemakers''

Dan: "What have the Romans every done for us?"
Someone: "The cheese?"
Dan: "oh, well yeah the cheese, that goes without saying!"

Love the bit about cheese!
Looking good in that armor sir. 😉