An amended ration from 24 December 1775 authorized “corned beef or pork four days in a week, salt fish one day, and fresh beef two days.” In lieu of milk during the winter, General Headquarters increased the meat ration to 1½ pounds beef and 18 ounces of pork.
The rice and cornmeal ration became a weekly rather than a daily ration. A ration of 6 ounces of butter or 9 ounces of lard per week also was added. To cope with food shortages, General Phillip Schuyler issued a general order authorizing substitutions for various foods.
For example, when only bread and pork were available, a soldier’s full daily ration was 2 pounds of bread and 1 pound pork. Cooking equipment was equally simple.
On 21 December 1775, Congress authorized 100 haversacks, a camp kettle for every six soldiers, as well as a cord of hickory “or other wood in proportion,” and forty iron pots for cooking at the barracks.
Not much detail is known about eighteenth-century field cooking. Soldiers generally cooked their rations in tin camp kettles, initially with six soldiers to a “mess”— the term for a group of soldiers who all ate together.
There is some evidence that some soldiers may have roasted their meat over open fires, but it is more likely that most used kettles to boil the meat. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, issued skillets when camp kettles were not available.