N.L. has a hard bread shortage — but why do we eat it in the first place?

Nfld. & LabradorGrocery stores across Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling to keep hard bread in stock since a fire at the Purity factory in March put a crimp in the company’s baking operations.The venerable biscuit has a history stretching back through the American Revolution to the Roman EmpireAinsley Hawthorn · CBC News · Posted: Aug 09, 2026 4:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 10Listen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.The Grenfell Mission may have hoped to spread the gospel of Jesus, but, in this photo from around 1907, a resident of the mission’s orphanage at St. Anthony follows “the gospel of hard bread,” munching on a big chunk of the tough snack. (The Rooms Museum and Archives)Grocery stores across Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling to keep hard bread in stock since a fire at the Purity factory in March put a crimp in the company’s baking operations.Purity is the province’s primary provider of hard bread, also called hard tack, ship’s biscuit, and sea biscuit — a dry, unleavened bread made of flour, water and salt.But why is the jaw-breaking baked good so popular here?Dehydrated bread has been a mainstay of the traveller’s diet since ancient times. Because it’s long lasting and easy to carry, military leaders issued it to soldiers on campaign when they couldn’t count on being able to access enough local provisions to feed an army.Roman legionaries received bucellatum, a twice-baked bread, among their field rations. King Richard the Lionheart loaded his ships with “biskit” when he left for the Crusades in 1190.The non-perishable fare was also a useful provision for sailors, who could spend weeks or months at sea and often needed enough supplies to see them not only to their destination but home again afterward.The mystery of the 'Great Wall' of Hant’s HarbourSome streets in St. John’s don’t have a house numbered 19. The reason might disgust youBasque seasonal fishermen brought hard bread to the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1500s.Between the sail out, the fishing season, and the journey home, they could be away for six months at a stretch, and they packed enough for nine months in case their ships became locked in ice and they were stranded for the winter.When the British visited the region, they stocked up on hard bread, too.In 1620, Richard Whitbourne, an English mariner who briefly served as governor of Renews, published a record of all the supplies he had brought with him on a trip to the colony of Newfoundland from Great Britain.At the top of the list is “eleven thousand [weight] of Bisket bread,” the equivalent of nearly 5,600 kilograms, and enough to feed 40 people for 12 months.After European settlement, fishing families baked their own “soft” bread at home, but they continued to rely on hard bread when they were out at sea, berry picking or hunting.A piece of Purity Hard Bread is shown in an image that appears on the company's website. (Purity Factories)Proper hard bread couldn’t be home baked. It was made from a special winter wheat flour and slowly dried in a kiln or an evaporation loft to remove all its moisture, giving it its longevity.Like most other food that couldn’t be caught locally or grown in a kitchen garden, hard bread had to be imported. By the 1770s, Newfoundland was dependent on the American colonies not only for hard bread but for flour and livestock, as well as rum, sugar and molasses shipped up from the West Indies.In 1775, as tensions escalated between the British Crown and its American colonists after the Boston Tea Party, the House of Commons passed an act to restrict trade out of Massachusetts.The American reaction was unexpected: the colonies closed ranks and retaliated. New York, Philadelphia and most other major ports cut off all trade to Newfoundland.It was a strategic move intended to strike at the heart of the European food fishery. Without American supplies to keep them going, Newfoundland settlers wouldn’t be able to fish and the British would lose a key food source.The ban couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was spring, and Newfoundlanders had exhausted their provisions over the winter.There was panic. People hoarded wheat, and the price of goods skyrocketed.Near the end of the American Civil War, artist Winslow Homer designed a set of collector’s cards showing an unvarnished view of life in the Union army. Here, a soldier spits out his first bite of hard tack. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)By 1776, America was at war with Great Britain, and Newfoundland was starving.European suppliers eventually scaled up production to meet Newfoundland’s needs, though the trade ban led to long-term inflation in the price of food. The town of Hamburg, Germany, cornered the market on hard bread, so much so that Newfoundlanders nicknamed it Hamburg bread.Hard bread wasn’t manufactured locally until the Scottish Rennie brothers opened a flour mill and bakery in St. John’s in the 1830s — Rennie’s Mill, which gave its name to the river and the road. Their baking equipment was imported from Hamburg.The demand for hard bread didn’t slacken. If anything, it increased.In his travels across Newfoundland in the 1850s, Anglican bishop Edward Feild described “tea and biscuit” as “the ordinary hospitality extended to visitors.” He and his companions were so desperate for “soft” bread they provided flour to local women to bake it for them.By the 1880s, 180,000 residents were eating 40 million hard biscuits a year, over 200 per person.Why do we salute with 21 guns?N.L.’s travelling book boxes were the little free libraries of the early 1900sA large portion of those biscuits would have gone into the traditional dish fish and brewis. Pronounced “brews,” brewis is made by soaking hard bread in water overnight then boiling it to soften it before serving it with salt cod.In 1885, Nova Scotia journalist George Patterson wrote that brewis “occupies almost the same place at a Newfoundlander’s breakfast-table that baked beans are supposed to do on that of a Bostonian.”Sprinkled with molasses or scrunchions (small chunks of salted fat-back pork), fish and brewis was a hearty, high-calorie meal fishers could eat before a day at sea. Among the merchant class, it was a  Sunday breakfast treat.Joey Smallwood’s Book of Newfoundland called brewis as much the national dish of Newfoundland as roast beef is of England, spaghetti is of Italy, or rice is of China.Purity has confirmed their bakery resumed production in July, so local shelves should soon be reloaded.That’s good news for today’s hard bread die-hards.Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. 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